Drools vs. InRule vs. Microsoft SharePoint

As an open source rule engine and product suite, Drools is well suited for the small and middle scale business to manage and integrate the rules to build the rule-driven system which can process the business-critical data and events to produce the automated decision. It is better to use Drools in the well-secured environment (back-end behind the DMZ), not putting it on the customer-facing front or exposing it directly the to public where may bring direct security risk in the enterprise environment. Drools still needs a lot hardening on the security side.

Incentivized

With InRule, we are expecting to be able to move business logic out of the developer domain and back into the business domain. Business logic is currently captured in UI (data validation) and middleware layers. These are areas in any application where leveraging InRule's capabilities allow for changes in business logic to be made with little or no IT involvement.

SharePoint Document Management excels as a central repository for storing, organising, and retrieving documents. It supports version control, metadata tagging, secure access, and integration with tools like Power Automate. At our organisation, it's used for managing contracts, policies, and supplier documents. SharePoint Workflow Automation integrates with Power Automate to streamline approvals, gather feedback, and automate recurring tasks. This reduces reliance on email chains and manual trackers.

Incentivized

• Writing rules with business focus
• Rules evolution and maintenance
• separate business logic from program code

Incentivized

• It is easy to tweak business rule parameters.
• Create new logic with low barriers.

Incentivized

• We track employees' performance sheets, which are accessible to the employee, his manager, and HR, and this helps with transparency.
• We maintain technical process documents and SOPs, which help us quickly provide relevant documents during audits.
• We maintain incident documents change request forms in SharePoint, which helps us in tracking the changes.

Incentivized

• Fusion doesn't support persistence of working memory, which brings some extra high availability risk to our business.
• Guvnor still has a lot room to be implemented, it is not so user-friendly for non-technical people, so a lot of business users complain it is hard to master.
• Rule execution server doesn't even have JMX implemented, hard to be monitored.
• Drools is still lacking support for key Web services standards.

Incentivized

• Needs more debugging capabilities.

• Windows Explorer users have some difficulty having to constantly UPLOAD / DOWNLOAD files. Specifically on the DOWNLOAD when they are used to Drag & Drop in & out of LOCAL folders via Window's explorer.
• Microsoft SharePoint supports multiple "library" types. When implementing our "image" library the search function is done via "tags" and boolean logic. This is challenging to most end users. I'd like our users to be able to search our Microsoft SharePoint image library without having to enter KEYWORD or other BOOLEAN logic.
• Microsoft SharePoint can also be an internal website for each department or company wide communication tool but I believe these features are geared for much larger organizations. Since we are a SMB we really aren't using these features. So maybe something more useful to SMBs would be nice.

Incentivized

It's integral to our business. It's already included with most of the Office 365 licensing we buy, so the cost is effectively zero. It stores our files, it is the foundation for custom applications, and Microsoft only continues to enhance its functionality and its connections to other Microsoft tools. SharePoint just keeps getting better and better.

Incentivized

No usability issues reported. Individual teams also have allocated areas which replace legacy shared drives on local LANs. Access to Sharepoint resources is fully integrated with corporate Active Directory with additional two-factor authentication required for administrative users. Users have access to Microsoft Services Hub which allows you to create, manage, and track support requests while staying current on Microsoft technologies with access to select self-paced learning paths

Incentivized

InRule's Support Portal provides a "one stop shop" for submitting support questions, accessing training information, managing licenses, and getting updates on InRule's roadmap.

Support for SharePoint is quite good. Microsoft provides good support. Microsoft offers

• Quick turnaround time for issues
• A range of support services
• Access to a network of resources
• Escalation of issues
• Ongoing development and commitment to produce enhancement

The majority of support is required for initial installation. Once complete and the system is operating we have had very few support issues.

Incentivized

The face to face training I received was on SharePoint Administration. It was rushed as there was a lot of information to cover and the application of the labs weren't that great either. I like to be able to relate what I am learning to what I am currently doing.

I like to learn at my own pace and online training allows for that. Additionally, you can skip through pieces of content that you already know or are already comfortable with. Microsoft actually offers great videos on their website for basic fundamental SharePoint Training. I have used these training videos in some of my own training sessions with end users.

Planning to the last detail would be advised. SharePoint is a very large application that takes a lot of finesse to get operational

I did not participate in drools choice. I can only compare drools with the previous situation which was using nothing.

Incentivized

InRule offers a more organized software design, a well-structured framework in design, and is easier for new users to start contributing given documentation. Drools is spreadsheet-based and lacking the capability to do really advanced pseudo-programming.

Incentivized

The reasons for selecting MS SharePoint are: SharePoint provides ease of use and web design assistance and support SharePoint helps you schedule your content for publishing. enables users to share documents with external parties and offers a better internal structure of the content and better indexing and searching capabilities.

Incentivized

• The IT department quickly adopted Drools as it is a very good java-based rule engine, which saves a lot of time to meet the project timeline and balanced our business requirements.
• Recently we start considering the OpenRules, which may be more business user-friendly.

Incentivized

• It is always reliable and efficient.
• Has won customers over.

• It comes with Office 365. It won't cost you any additional charges.
• It will help you to streamline your communication and work as a central hub for all tasks, files[,] and events[.]
• Setting it up will need a bit [of] planning. If you jump blindly it will become a confusing place for your team members and make them frustrated[.]

Incentivized