Forward chaining is an internal mechanism that provides the automatic propagation of changes in one property value to changes in other property values or to indexes.

In a Declare Expression rule, constraints rule, or Declare Index rule, you can establish required relationships among properties. When an activity step changes the value or a property that is defined in such rules, the system automatically consults an internal dependency network to see if other values are affected, and performs property value computations, indexing, and other processing as determined by the network. This is known as forward chaining.

Similarly, Declare OnChange and Declare Trigger rules implement automatic processing when certain database or property value conditions are met.

Forward chaining operates only when the source properties are not marked as invalid. If a property has an associated message, forward chaining halts.

	backward chaining, declaration, dependency network
	About Constraints rules About Declare Expression rules About Declare Index rules About Declare OnChange rules About Declare Trigger rules Declarative processing — Concepts and terms

Definitions — F