Book Image

AI and Business Rule Engines for Excel Power Users

By : Paul Browne (GBP), PORCELLI
Book Image

AI and Business Rule Engines for Excel Power Users

By: Paul Browne (GBP), PORCELLI

Overview of this book

Microsoft Excel is widely adopted across diverse industries, but Excel Power Users often encounter limitations such as complex formulas, obscure business knowledge, and errors from using outdated sheets. They need a better enterprise-level solution, and this book introduces Business rules combined with the power of AI to tackle the limitations of Excel. This guide will give you a roadmap to link KIE (an industry-standard open-source application) to Microsoft’s business process automation tools, such as Power Automate, Power Query, Office Script, Forms, VBA, Script Lab, and GitHub. You’ll dive into the graphical Decision Modeling standard including decision tables, FEEL expressions, and advanced business rule editing and testing. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to share your business knowledge as graphical models, deploy and execute these models in the cloud (with Azure and OpenShift), link them back to Excel, and then execute them as an end-to-end solution removing human intervention. You’ll be equipped to solve your Excel queries and start using the next generation of Microsoft Office tools.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1:The Problem with Excel, and Why Rule-Based AI Can Be the Solution
5
Part 2: Writing Business Rules and Decision Models – with Real-Life Examples
9
Part 3: Extending Excel, Decision Models, and Business Process Automation into a Complete Enterprise Solution
13
Part 4: Next Steps in AI, Machine Learning, and Rule Engines
Appendix A - Introduction to Visual Basic for Applications

Comparing business central and the KIE sandbox

Business Central, as a web-based editor for your decision models, sounds a lot like KIE Sandbox. And you’d be right – if you know your way around KIE Sandbox, there is much in Business Central that will be familiar. But it’s a bit like comparing a family car with the latest Formula 1 model. Both are cars with four wheels and an engine, but one is much easier to drive and better for a trip to the supermarket. The other offers a lot more performance but needs the support of a team of mechanics to operate effectively. Some key differences in the features are as follows:

  • KIE Sandbox is designed to be easy to use, with no setup, making it ideal for a book like this one. Business Central may be easy to start but still needs about 15–20 minutes of preparation to set up before you can write your first business rule.
  • Business Central has a lot more features than KIE Sandbox, which focuses on the core functionality...