Use Dataflow Rules for Conditional Rule Execution

Enable the 'Is Dataflow Rule' toggle on a Business Rule to make it act as a logical branch point rather than a validation check. Dataflow Rules route rows to different downstream rules based on a condition, without contributing to pass/fail statistics.

How does it work?

Standard Business Rules validate data and mark rows as valid or invalid. Dataflow Rules do neither - they evaluate a condition and route rows down a specific path in the Rulebook canvas, without generating any validation outcome of their own. The result is a conditional execution tree where different rows are checked by different rule sets depending on their content.

Example

An employee dataset contains records for both junior staff (under 10 years of tenure) and senior staff (10 years or more). The salary validation rules for these two groups are completely different. A Dataflow Rule checks the Employment Duration Domain and branches the flow: one path leads to the junior salary rules, the other to the senior salary rules. Both paths converge downstream for rules that apply to everyone.

Configuration

Setting Up a Dataflow Rule

1. Open the Rulebook in Edit Version mode.
2. Add a new Business Rule at the top of the canvas sequence that will serve as the branch point.
3. In the Business Rule metadata section, enable the 'Is Dataflow Rule' toggle.
4. Configure the condition on the Domain that determines which path a row takes (e.g., Employment Duration is less than 10).
5. Connect the blue checkmark exit (condition met) to the rule set for one group.
6. Connect the orange warning exit (condition not met) to the rule set for the other group.
7. Save the Rulebook.

What Happens in Statistics

Because Dataflow Rules have the 'Is Dataflow Rule' toggle enabled, they are excluded from validation statistics entirely. The Business Rule Statistics tab in an Execution shows only the validation rules - and there is a dedicated 'Exclude Dataflow Rules' dropdown to control their visibility if you have chosen to include them. This keeps your quality scores clean and unaffected by routing logic.

Name your Dataflow Rules descriptively using a prefix, like 'ROUTE - Employment Duration Branch' or 'ROUTE - Country Code Split'. This makes it immediately clear in the canvas that these rules are structural rather than validating.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to Contact Us.