Introduce authoring‑time validation (or mandatory warning) in IBM Operational Decision Manager to prevent saving decision table preconditions that contain unresolved placeholders (e.g., <a number>), which currently pass validation but fail during deployment.

IBM ODM allows users to save decision table preconditions that include unresolved placeholders without errors or warnings. Although these preconditions appear valid at design time, they consistently cause build or deployment failures. This creates a disconnect between authoring validation and runtime deployability, leading to avoidable production disruptions, wasted deployment effort, and confusion for rule authors.

Who would benefit

• Business rule authors / Rule managers: Prevents accidental authoring mistakes that are easy to miss but costly later.

• Developers and DevOps teams: Reduces failed deployments and troubleshooting effort.

• Enterprise running ODM in production: Improves platform reliability and confidence during rule changes.

How it should work:

• During decision table save or validation (Decision Center and Rule Designer):

• Detect unresolved placeholders such as <a number>, <an object>, etc.

• Either:

• Block saving the decision table with a clear validation error, or

• Allow saving but display a prominent warning/error that explicitly states the rule will fail deployment unless resolved.

• Avoid silently auto‑assigning default values (e.g., 0), as this can introduce unintended logic not authored by the user.

• Ensure validation behavior is consistent across Decision Center, Rule Designer, and deployment to eliminate surprises.

Idea priority

Medium

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Introduce authoring‑time validation (or mandatory warning) in IBM Operational Decision Manager to prevent saving decision table preconditions that contain unresolved placeholders (e.g., <a number>), which currently pass validation but fail during deployment.

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Introduce authoring‑time validation (or mandatory warning) in IBM Operational Decision Manager to prevent saving decision table preconditions that contain unresolved placeholders (e.g., <a number>), which currently pass validation but fail during deployment.