The Completeness Checker is powerful in its ability to discover missing combinations of Conditions from your Rulesheet. However, it is not smart enough to determine if these combinations make business sense or not. The example in the following figure shows two rules used in a health care scenario to screen for high-risk pregnancies:

Figure 1. Example prior to completeness check

Now, click on the Completeness Checker:

Figure 2. Example after completeness check

Notice that columns 3-4 were automatically added to the Rulesheet.  But also notice that column 3 contains an unusual Condition: gender <> female. Because the other two Conditions in column 3 have dash values, it contains component or subrules. By double-clicking column 3's header, its subrules are revealed:

Figure 3. Non-female subrules revealed

Because our Rulesheet is intended to identify high-risk pregnancies, it would not seem necessary to evaluate non-female (that is, male) patients. And if male patients are evaluated, then the scenarios described by subrules 3.1 and 3.3—those scenarios containing pregnant males—are unnecessary.  While these combinations may be members of the Cross Product, they are not combinations that can occur in real life. If other rules in an application prevent combinations like this from occurring, then subrules 3.1 and 3.3 may also be unnecessary. On the other hand, if no other rules catch this faulty combination earlier, then you may want to use this opportunity to raise an error message or take some other action that prompts a re-examination of the input data.

Renumber rules

Assume that subrules 3.1 and 3.3 are impossible, and so they can be ignored. However, if you decide to keep subrules 3.2 and 3.4 and assign Actions to them. For this example, violation messages will be posted.

However, when you try to enter Rule Statements for subrules 3.2 and 3.4, you will discover that Rule Statements can only be entered for general rules (whole-numbered columns), not subrules. To convert column 3, with its four subrules, into four whole-numbered general rules, select Rulesheet >Rule Column(s)>Renumber Rules from the Studio menubar.

Figure 4. Sub-rules renumbered and converted to general rules

Now that the columns are renumbered, Rule Statements can be assigned to columns 4 and 6, and columns 3 and 5 can be deleted or disabled (if you want to do so).

When impossible or useless rules are created by the Completeness Checker, we recommend disabling the rule columns rather than deleting them. When disabled, the columns remain visible to all modelers, eliminating any surprise (and shock) when future modelers apply the Completeness Check and discover missing rules that you had already found and deleted. And, if you disable the columns, be sure to include a Rule Statement that explains why. See the following figure for an example of a fully complete and well-documented Rulesheet.

Figure 5. Final Rulesheet with impossible rules disabled