Of the many customer applications that will be showcased at DIALOG 08, the one developed by SAT, the tax collecting authority for the Mexican Federal Government, really caught my eye - and not just because of the opportunity for a cute title for today’s post. Statistics such as “a 93% reduction in paperwork,” “1,800 tax-paying scenarios,” and “2.5 million tax return questionnaires” really do grab your attention!

The application, which makes it easier for SAT to implement changes in taxation policy, was developed with the help of ILOG alliance partner EMC Documentum. It relies on ILOG’s business rule management system (BRMS) together with a new service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Business Process Management (BPM) implementation to automate the processing of tax questionnaires, determine taxpayer credit worthiness, and manage workload assignment policies.

SAT’s business rules are very complex and implementing these rules with regular code was proving increasingly difficult and painful. ILOG’s BRMS provided the necessary separation between the business rules and the application code, offering immediate benefits such as the ability for taxpayers to self-register online, and enabling tax officers to change rules by themselves without depending on IT.

The statistics are indeed impressive, but what’s really inspiring here is the long term contribution that this application will make to the Mexican government’s ongoing program of tax reforms. While JRules can’t (yet) make you live forever, it is helping to improve the distribution of wealth and the living standards of millions of Mexicans - and that’s definitely worth a closer look!

Roberto Pazaràn, architectural leader, Taxation Administration Service of Mexico, and Christopher D. Preston, senior director, Worldwide Product Marketing TCM, Content Management and Archiving, EMC Corporation, will present Agile Tax Management Using Rules and BPM: Tax Administration Service of Mexico at DIALOG 08 on Monday February 25th from 2:30 pm - 3:15 pm.

This guest post was written by Don Babcock, lead programmer, Wake Forest University (WFU). Don will present a session at DIALOG 08 entitled “Agile and Dynamic Web-based Data Collection: A Case Study in Clinical Trial Data Management” (Tuesday Feb 26, 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm) in which he will discuss how BRMS technology allowed WFU to achieve unprecedented gains in productivity and reliability by truly separating presentation and business logic.

What is a “killer” application? I define it as something that fundamentally changes the way you do things. Most folks of my vintage regard “Visi-Calc” invented by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston back in the late seventies as the first of the PC “killer apps.” It forever replaced ledger books with an electronic paradigm.

I’ve been around long enough to remember doing ALL my college papers using a typewriter and carbon paper. I’d have KILLED for a word processor! The advent of the word processing engines forever changed the way I wrote.

We used to write our own data structures. In the mid 80’s the popularization of SQL databases changed all that forever.

Of course, who can deny the significance of HTML and the browser given us by Tim Berners-Lee? The Internet itself goes way back if you trace its roots (well before Al Gore ever heard of it) but it didn’t become popular until the 90’s. That’s when the confluence of technologies and interests caused it to achieve critical mass.

For me, the Rules Engine is the latest “killer app” to emerge in my personal history. It truly fits the definition because I would now never dream of trying to build any application of significance without using one for the business “logic” of the application (even if merely for data validation) than I would consider writing anything of significance without using a word processor or a data application without a database. When you “get” it, you’ll never want to go back.

So why do so many programmers still do it the “hard” way? I truly believe that we are on the cusp of this technology achieving “critical mass” in the development community. But I’ll have to save that discussion for my talk at DIALOG 08 and the after blog.

-dB

Thanks for sharing, Don!

About Don Babcock
Don Babcock is an industry veteran with over 35 years experience building data management systems in industry segments, including aviation, banking, chemicals, clinical research, education, insurance, high energy physics research, manufacturing, process control, retail, robotics and utilities. He is a registered professional engineer in the field of electrical engineering. Babcock currently leads several major architectural initiatives involving state-of-the-art applications of rules engine/AI and XML technologies in the field of clinical research data management at WFU.

As I already mentioned in a previous post, there’s going to be a whole bunch of really intelligent people at DIALOG 08 (Did you sign up yet?)

Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the conference program includes a whole series of introductory “101″ sessions. What gives? Well, after a quick chat with a couple of members of the conference team, I came to realize that the idea actually makes a lot of sense.

Optimization and rule engines are able to compute the most complex solutions in the shortest time, but visualization tools are essential to enable users to understand, analyze and adjust the output of complex systems with dynamic diagrams, dashboards, maps, charts, and schedule views.

So while you may already be a BRMS boffin, a Visu guru, or an Optim whizz, if you’re anything like me, you probably find that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to become an expert in everything.

Take note then: There are “101″ sessions scheduled for BRMS, Optimization and Visualization. Each session will provide an introduction to each of these domains and explain how ILOG’s products are used to provide solutions to the major challenges currently being faced in each of these areas.

The great thing is that these sessions are all programmed at the same time on Monday afternoon (February 25 from 5:00 pm - 5:45 pm). That makes this a great opportunity for you to jump tracks and find out more about one of ILOG’s other areas of expertise.

You might be surprised at the high degree of complementarity between ILOG’s various product lines - and who knows, you could even learn something new!

Sorry, but I couldn’t resist the food theme again for today’s post. Food, after all, is an important part of any conference (just ask James) and it’s not every day you get to have breakfast with some of the top guys from Forrester, IDC, and Gartner, right? Well, at DIALOG 08 you do!

On Monday morning of the conference (February 25th), from 8:00 am - 9:00 am, John Rymer from Forrester and Steve Hendrick from IDC will be available to answer your questions about BRMS, BPM, SOA and other business technology trends. On Tuesday morning, from 7:30 am-8:30 am, it’ll be the turn of Gartner Fellows David McCoy and Daryl Plummer.

Later on Tuesday morning, Daryl will give a keynote address for the BRMS track where he’ll be predicting that, due to the increasing rate of change in the legal and geopolitical environment, dynamic business process management will soon no longer be an option, but a requirement.

Seems to me that missing either of these Ask the Analyst breakfast sessions is not an option either! See you there!

What better way to kick off our blog than with news of a great last minute addition to the DIALOG 08 conference program? James Taylor, co-author of the book “Smart (Enough) Systems,” has kindly accepted ILOG’s invitation to give a special lunch-time discussion session on Tuesday February 26th.

James is a well-known and passionate advocate of business rules and decision management technologies. In addition to plugging his book, he’ll be discussing how current business trends are forcing organizations to build smarter systems and offering advice on how to gain competitive advantage by using existing technologies in new ways to solve problems.

As one of the testimonials on his website says: “James Taylor and Neil Raden are on to something important in this book.” I’m sure I’ll not be the only one wanting to learn more when Tuesday lunchtime rolls around, so if you get there early, could you save me a seat?

James will also be blogging the BRMS track sessions throughout the conference, so if you haven’t already done so, make sure you subscribe to his blog so as not to miss out on any of the action! Perhaps I’ll also be able to persuade James to share a few insights here on the DIABLOG - and who knows, maybe there might even be a free copy of his book in it for me? (hint, hint)