Introduction

This document describes the processes how offering rules (for registrations and instructors) are generated and updated using the Offering Rule Matrix (aka Registration Rule Generator) and the Offering Rule Generator (aka Registration Rule Generator) DOS prompt tool in combination with the Core client command GetOfferingRuleMatrix.

The Offering Rule Matrix is usually extracted with the Core client command GetOfferingRuleMatrix before any changes are made to the existing rules. This ensures an accurate picture of what is in the system before any change is made. The section Customer Specific Processes below describes any customer specific requirements.

Workflow to Create and Update Offering Rules

1. The customer would get a pre-filled Offering Rule Matrix (with courses and OrgProfileField values) which has been extracted from the LMS via GetOfferingRuleMatrix command

   • The Offering Rule Matrix can be split into sub-matrices so only a portion of the courses' offering rules are replaced.
     Important: if a course has multiple rules a sub-matrix must contain all rules for that course - rules for one course can’t be split across multiple sub-matrices.

2. Generate the offering rules (either instructor or registrations) using the Offering Rule Generator

3. Pause the rule background thread via command PauseAutomaticOfferingRuleProcessing. Check the status of the background thread with GetOfferingRuleStatus to make sure the thread is paused and not in the middle of processing.

4. Remove previous offering rules for courses (the set of rules to be removed is created by the Offering Rule Generator) by executing the commands provided by the Offering Rule Generator

5. Add new offering rules - commands created by the Offering Rule Generator
   Note: The commands to add new rules automatically checks if the OPF single choice values exist

6. Re-evaluate the rules for courses for which the rules have been changed (student and/or instructor) via command ReEvaluateOfferingRulesByCoursePathMatch (task https://marinels.atlassian.net/browse/PSDEV-760 will add the proper commands to the output file of the Offering Rule Generator)
   Note: you can check the progress of the re-eval command by executing GetOfferingRuleStatus in a new pages/dev client window.

7. Continue rule background thread via command ContinueAutomaticOfferingRuleProcessing once all re-eval commands finished.

8. Check the that the background thread is not paused anymore with GetOfferingRuleStatus

Offering Rule Matrix

The Offering Rule Matrix (aka Registration Rule Matrix) is a csv representation of registration and instructor rules for courses. The instructor and registration rules matrix’s format is slightly different.

In general, one column determines one rule for a course. Multiple columns for the same course is allowed - a user gets registered if at least one rule applies to the user. Rows specify org profile field names and their values - OPF name and values start from row 9+ for registration rule matrix and row 7+ for instructor rule matrix. An ‘x' in a course column and OPF value row specifies that a user requires that OPF value in order to get registered. ‘!x' specifies that a user gets registered if they DON’T have that specific value - see Invert OPF Selection for more details on '!'.

Rules are able to add users as student or instructor. You can also specify rules to remove students or instructors from a course, as soon as the rule requirements doesn’t apply to a user anymore (i.e. due to a vessel change).

Registration Rule Matrix (v4.3+)

Course Name

A human readable name of the course - this is not used in any rule creation (information only).

Course Path

Full LMS path to the course the rule applies to.

Registration Type

A registration type determines the behaviour of the course like re-occurring or only one-time registration.

• OneTime: one time registration - doesn't re-register as soon as a completed registration exists (uses predicate HasNoRegistrations())

• ReRegistration: re-registers users in combination of a Certificate with expiry (column Certificate Short Id is mandatory). Uses predicates !HasActiveRegistrations() and CertificateWillExpire(..) (a user without a certificate will get registered because the predicate CertificateWillExpire(..) returns true for that case.

• OnlyWithCompletedRegistration: registers and re-registers users who have an already completed at least one registration. This is only available in combination with a Certificate with expiry (column Certificate Short Id is mandatory). Uses predicates HasCompletedRegistrations(), !HasActiveRegistrations() and CertificateWillExpire(..)

• Deactivated: a course which was in use before but has been discontinued. This creates a delete NavPage attribute to delete any rule for this course (differentiates between Student and Instructor)

• No value (empty cell): no rules or delete commands are generated. Rows with no registration type value can be used to prepare courses for the future

Re-Registration Before Certificate Expiry

Only used if a certificate is used for the rule. Determines the period of time a user should be re-registered before their certificate expires. If left empty the user is re-registered on the day their certificate expires. 
Value format is duration in days, months or years (i.e. 1d, 2m or 3y).

Certificate Short Id

The LMS certificate short Id which is awarded for completing the course. The certificate is used to determine the re-registration date according to the certificate’s validity duration. Only available for registration types ReRegistration and OnlyWithCompletedRegistration.

De-Registration

Set an ‘x' into a course column to add de-registration rules. An active registration would be removed as soon as the registration rule requirements won’t apply anymore (i.e. due to a vessel change).

OPF Name

Org profile name which can be used in registration rules.

OPF Value

Org profile value which can be used in registration rules.

Notes

• If no value is set for column Registration Type no registration rule is generated for this course. This would allow to create registration rule matrices which have more courses listed than used - possibly useful to prepare registration rules for not yet published courses.

• If no requirement (OPF value) is selected no registration rule is generated. However, if Registration Type ‘OneTime’ is selected but no OPF value is selected the generator outputs a warning (console). This would indicate that the rule was left empty unintentional.

• Commands to delete any 'registration rules' and 'de-registration rules' are generated if the column Registration Type has any value. This is to remove any old rules

Instructor Rule Matrix (v4.3+)

Course Name

A human readable name of the course - this is not used in any rule creation (information only).

Course Path

Full LMS path to the course the rule applies to.

Instructor Rule Status

• Active: Instructor rule is active

• Deactivated: Instructor rule is deactivated - a course was discontinued. This creates a delete NavPage attribute to delete any instructor rules for this course

• no value (empty cell): no rules or delete commands are generated. Rows with no value can be used to prepare courses for the future

Remove Instructor

Set an ‘x' into a course column to add a remove instructor rules. An instructor would be removed as soon as the instructor rule requirements wouldn’t apply anymore (i.e. due to a vessel change).

OPF Name

Org profile name which can be used in instructor rules.

OPF Value

Org profile value which can be used in instructor rules.

Notes

• If no requirement (OPF value) is selected for a course no instructor rules are generated for this course. However, if a Instructor Rule Status ‘Active’ is selected but no OPF value is selected the generator output a warning (console). This would indicate that the instructor rule was left empty unintentional

• Commands to delete any ‘instructor rules' and 'remove instructor' rules are generated if the column Instructor Rule Status has any value. This is to remove any old rules

Invert OPF Selection

If you need the opposite of an OPF value as registration/instructor requirement you can invert the selected OPF value. In order to do that we use the Boolean NOT character '!' in front of 'x'.
OPF values selections can be marked with an ‘x' or ‘!x' (for the inverse) for a course (column). Selected values of one OPF name must have either all ‘x' or all '!x' within one course. You can't have a mix of 'x' and '!x' in one column within one OPF name. The Offering Rule Generator will throw an exception if '!x' and 'x' are mixed within one column and OPF name.

Example

For example, if all users should be registered who are NOT assigned to Vessel: Shore use '!x' for OPF value Shore. This will result in a simpler offering rule which uses !ProfileValueIn(Vessel,Shore) instead of ProfileValueIn(Vessel,[list all vessels])

https://marinels.atlassian.net/browse/PSDEV-806

https://marinels.atlassian.net/browse/PSDEV-768

https://marinels.atlassian.net/browse/PSDEV-726

https://marinels.atlassian.net/browse/PSDEV-755

Get Offering Rule Matrix via GetOfferingRuleMatrix

The command GetOfferingRuleMatrix is able to extract registration/instructor rules into an Offering Rule Matrix (csv format) accepted by the Offering Rule Generator and makes it easy to update any rules.

GetOfferingRuleMatrix [orgPath] [type: 'Registration' (student) or 'Instructor'] [Optional: IsTransposed (Default to true for new format, false for original matrix format] [Optional: CsvOutputPath (Note: if not provided, outputs to command line)] [optional: -includeOpfs:"OPFName1|OPFName2|…|OPFNameX"] [optional: -includeAllOpfValues]

All OPFs and OPF values which are being used in rules are automatically included in the matrix. That means if an OPF 'Rank' contains values Captain, Engineer and Deckhand and the rules only use Captain, only Captain is included in the matrix.

mandatory: orgPath

The organization path to extract the offering rules from

mandatory: type

The offering rule type to export - Registration or Instructor rules

semi-optional: IsTransposed

By default we only export transposed Offering Rule Matrices (IsTransposed=true). That is, csv rows for OPF values and columns for courses. Use false to get the old Offering Rule Matrix format

optional: CsvOutputPath

The Offering Rule Matrix output will be written directly into a file on the hosting server. The Offering Rule Matrix is also output to the client command window.

optional switch parameter: -includeAllOpfValues

This option will include all OPF values of an SCS OPF in case the OPF is referenced in a rule (order all OPF values alphabetically).

Example:
An OPF 'Rank' single-choice-string contains 3 values Captain, Engineer and Deckhand. If the rules only referenced Rank values Captain and Deckhand, the option -includeAllOpfValues would also include the not used OPF value Engineer in the Offering Rule Matrix.

optional switch parameter: -includeOpfs:OPFName1|OPFName2|…|OPFNameX

This parameter includes all listed OPFs in the Offering Rule Matrix even if they are not referenced in any rule. All OPFs listed must be single-choice-strings. The list is still valid if an OPF is already referenced by a rule. The Offering Rule Matrix would contain all available OPF values.
If an OPF name contains white spaces, enclose the whole OPF list with double quotes - example: -includeOpfs:"Rank|Functional Position|Vessel"

Current Client Command Limitations

All limitations for the client command also apply to the Offering Rule Generator:

• some rule predicates are not supported and can't be extracted. If a rule does contain one of those not (yet) supported predicates it will list them in the command output

• Manual rules are not included in the matrix - in order to include in the matrix the rule needs to be marked as AUTO

• De-registration rules are interpreted as inverts of registration rules. Therefore, asymmetric registration/de-registration rules pair will loose the asymmetry, using the registration rule as truth. 

Offering Rule Generator

The Offering Rule Generator (aka Registration Rule Generator) creates LMS Core commands to replace and add new offering rules based on Offering Rule Matrices. The DOS prompt tool input can be the old (deprecated) or new transposed (preferred) format of an Offering Rule Matrix. The tool generates LMS Core client commands to remove any old registration/instructor rules for which the Offering Rule Matrix has a course for and commands to add the new registration/instructor rules.
The Offering Rule Generator tool itself can be found attached/below. Unzip the latest version to a local folder and run DOS prompt (Ctrl+R, type 'cmd' and hit enter).

mandatory: Student/Instructor

The first parameter decides which rules should be created - student registration rules or instructor rules.

mandatory switch parameter: -f

The Offering Rule Matrix with registration/instructor rules as csv file incl. absolute path

mandatory switch parameter: -o

Output file with the commands to replace and add the registration/instructor rules.

mandatory switch parameter: -p

Organization path of the courses in them matrix

optional switch parameter: -v

If used, the DOS prompt output is more elaborate what the rule generator is doing.

Parameter Examples

Example for Registration Rules

Student -f "D:\CMG\cmgtestRegRulesTest.csv" -o "D:\CMG\CmgTestRegistrationRule_Commands.txt" -p /Root/Carnival/CMG -v

Example for Instructor Rules

Instructor -f "D:\CMG\cmgtestInstructorRulesTest.csv" -o "D:\CMG\CmgTestInstructorRule_Commands.txt" -p /Root/Carnival/CMG -v

Customer Specific Processes (deprecated?)

Some customers will have certain workflows how the Offering Rule Matrix will be updated. This section contains a list and description of the common process for customers.

Moran Tug

Moran Tug usually provides an updated Offering Rule Matrix file on their shared OneDrive: https://morantug-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/p/louisew/ElaWorMNr_9FkAfKd4mu6LoBfqE4pwv-8hT8p4WE0i_D8g?e=5%3ab6a80c75e1bf4883bed19030ccb784c5

Login as support@marinels.com

New Courses

Provide Moran with an empty Offering Rule Matrix extracted from the system whenever they need to add new courses. We will check correctness and add the courses to the full Offering Rule Matrix on their OneDrive.

Update Existing Courses

Moran will use the full Offering Rule Matrix to update any existing courses. After the changes we will check correctness and upload the new registration rules to the LMS.

Related articles