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Contrasting time-qualified rules, DateTime circumstances, and historical processing

Pega 7 Platform offers three separate features that can cause processing to be dependent on a date or time value. Which of these to apply to best meet an application need depends on the nature of the rules affected and the requirements and environment of the application:

How circumstance rules evaluate time

Both date range and datetime circumstance rules are specialized versions of a base rule that only execute when certain time conditions are met.

Date range circumstances (sometimes referred to as "time qualified" rules) evaluate the current system time against a window of time specified in the Start Date field, End Date field, or both fields.

DateTime circumstances (sometimes referred to as "As-of date" rules) evaluate the value of a DateTime property against a specified DateTime value.

How historical processing evaluates time

The historical processing capability applies to an entire ruleset version, not to a rule. This capability is unrelated to the concept of circumstancing and base rules.

With careful advanced design, this feature allows an application (for the current requestor) to operate according to rules as they were on a specific past date. Such processing is useful to reconstruct past behavior or apply past policies.

Related topics About ruleset versions
Completing the Specialization forms
Understanding the Date, TimeofDay, and DateTime property types

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