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Problem – Describing the Strength of Rule Enforcement on an Action
Changing conditions often affect the permissibility of a process or action. When such volatility is present, a mechanism to monitor the changing condition is needed in order to enable or disable an action from occurring. Under certain circumstances, the process may need to be audited to make this determination.
Solution
Enforcement strengths can be established through the definition of enforcement types. Specifically, enforcement may take two discrete responses between universal permission and universal prevention of a given action. These responses are notification and logging. Notification is an active modification to the rule's enforcement that allows other actions to monitor or mitigate the impact of the primary action impact. Logging is a passive modification that merely audits the action. In this sense, this action applies the Explanation pattern.
Example – Purchase Order
Purchase orders that are submitted by non-management staff are subject to varying level of enforcement. If the figure is small, no approval is necessary. As the value get greater, more attention is paid. This example applies the Range Set pattern to establish threshold for various levels of enforcement. The key parameters are the enforcement type and the linkage to the respective range, which is governed by its own set of parameters. A further level of indirection through use of the Ordering pattern should define an ascending set of four ranges so that the amounts could change independently of this rule.
|
PO $ Range |
Enforcement |
|
$0 |
permit |
|
$10,000 |
log |
|
$50,000 |
notify |
|
$100,000 |
prevent |
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