Figure 5.44. Ruleflow

The above rule flow specifies that the rules in the group "Check Order" must be executed before the rules in the group "Process Order". This means that only rules which are marked as having a ruleflow-group of "Check Order" will be considered first, and then "Process Order". That's about it. You could achieve similar results with either using salience (setting priorities, but this is harder to maintain, and makes the time-relationship implicit in the rules), or agenda groups. However, using a ruleflow makes the order of processing explicit, almost like a meta-rule, and makes managing more complex situations a lot easier. The various elements that can be used inside a ruleflow will be explained in more detail later.