GLOSSARY
Policy engine
A policy engine evaluates defined rules using a request and its context. It can decide whether a person may read information or approve a proposed action. The calling application must then enforce that decision.
Apply discount limits consistently
Sales approvals may depend on role, contract value, margin and agreement type. Distributing these rules across several applications can produce contradictory outcomes. A shared decision point can make changes easier to trace and help comparable cases receive consistent treatment.
The supplied information must be reliable. A correct rule has limited value if an application sends an outdated role or proceeds after a refusal. Exceptions also need an owner, a reason and a limited period of validity. Otherwise, an informal parallel process can develop alongside the formal rules, weakening both accountability and predictability.
Test permitted and prohibited cases
Acceptance tests should include requests just above an approval threshold and missing or conflicting input data. They should also establish what happens if the decision service becomes unavailable. Orchestration must account for that condition. When handling confidential customer information, policy decisions complement tenant isolation, whose effectiveness needs separate testing across all relevant data paths.