Meta data driven state transition engine for order management system

A method of configuring a computer-implemented order management system that executes trade orders for financial products, where the order management system comprises a middle tier that comprises one or more servers, where the one or more servers of the middle tier execute a state transition engine that comprises a Java-based rules engine that applies state transition rules to the trade orders received by the order management system that manages a progression of each received trade order from one state to a next state in progressions of the trade orders along a trade order life cycle, where the trade orders are orders containing trades for financial securities, and where the trade order life cycle comprises a plurality of trade states, where the plurality of trade states comprise at least an open trade state and a second trade state selected from the group consisting of filled, partially filled, canceled, confirmed, rejected and booked, the method comprising:

• receiving, by a computer-based automatic rule code generation system, a human-readable file that specifies the state transition rules that are applied by the state transition engine, where the human-readable file comprises a spreadsheet and where each state transition rule in the human-readable file includes parameters specified in the human-readable file, for the parameters for each state transition rule comprise a current state for the trade order to which the transition rule is applied, a corresponding condition for the state transition rule, and a next state to which the trade order progresses if the condition for the state transition rule is satisfied;
• generating, by the computer-based automatic rule code generation system, at compile time, a configuration file that comprises Java rule code for the state transition rules from the human-readable file, where the Java rule code is executed by the state transition engine, where generating the rule code comprises:
• generating, by the computer-based automatic rule code generation system, JavaScript Object Notation (“JSON”) metadata from the human-readable file;
• and
• substituting, by the computer-based automatic rule code generation system, values in the JSON metadata into a defined Drools Rule Language (“DRL”) template;
• and
• executing, at runtime, by the state transition engine of the middle tier, the rule code in the configuration file that manages the state transitions for the trade orders, where when one of the state transition rules in the human-readable file is applied by the state transition engine for a trade order, the trade order progresses from the current state to the next state upon a determination that the condition for the state transition rule is satisfied and the life cycle for a trade order terminates when the trade order progresses to a final trade state, and where executing the rule code comprises placing, by the state transition engine, a call to a back-end system that is in communication middle tier to determine whether the condition for the state transition rule is satisfied.