Help using Rules for aggregation conditions

Question

I am trying to utilize the application server rules engine to enforce validation on the XML payload. What I am trying to do is use it for a timesheet application, where after a user enters their hours, they submit and it gets some simple validation using the rules engine and gets returned if not valid according to the ruleset. The application supports multiple rows of hours entered, with each row specifying a unique task/activity worked that period. I have it working as I want using XML facts and RL Functions to determine the rules, but I want to take away the RL functions that need to iterate through each row and replace them with aggregate functions in the rule conditions themselves. Here are the rules I want to enforce:
<ul>
<li>An employee must not enter more than x hours of time worked per day, where x is a variable defined in the rules engine. As a constraint the number obviously cannot exceed 24. This rules must span all row entries submitted to sum the amount of hours entered for each day.</li>
<li>An employee must enter at least y hours worked total each week, where y is a variable defined in the rules engine. Typically this will be defined as 40 hours. It must aggregate all hours entered in all rows for the week to determine how many have been submitted.</li>
</ul>
Currently I have 2 RL functions that each return true/false and check the above conditions, but each need to iterate through all rows entered and sum up the hours entered. This is probably satisfactory except my purpose is to show the power of using the rules engine to a client, and if I need to show them I had to develop custom RL code to support this I fear they may shy away from using it.
Here is the general structure of my XML payload:
<Timesheet>
  <EmployeeDetails>
    <FirstName>John</FirstName>
    <LastName>Doe</LastName>
    <EmployeeID>12345</EmployeeID>
  </EmployeeDetails>
  <WeeklyHoursEntries>
    <WeeklyHoursEntryRow>
      <TaskDetails>
        <Activity>TaskActivity1</Activity>
        <Description>Some description here</Description>
        <Category>REG</Category>
      </TaskDetails>
      <HoursEntries>
        <Day1>0</Day1>
         <Day2>8</Day1>
         <Day3>8</Day1>
         <Day4>9</Day1>
         <Day5>5</Day1>
         <Day6>10</Day1>
         <Day7>0</Day1>
       </HourEntries>
     </WeeklyHoursEntryRow>
     <WeeklyHoursEntryRow>
       <TaskDetails>
         <Activity>TaskActivity1</Activity>
         <Description>Some description here</Description>
         <Category>OVT</Category>
       </TaskDetails>
       <HoursEntries>
         <Day1>0</Day1>
         <Day2>2</Day1>
         <Day3>8</Day1>
         <Day4>0/Day1>
         <Day5>0</Day1>
         <Day6>10</Day1>
         <Day7>0</Day1>
       </HourEntries>
     </WeeklyHoursEntryRow>
   </WeeklyHoursEntries>
</Timesheet>

Answer 1

This is an administrators subforum. You might have more luck in some developers subforum here on OTN?