A method is disclosed for graphically building business rule conditions. The method of graphically building business rule conditions comprises displaying a menu of function icons for the user, and a menu of business rule attribute icons for the user. The method allows the user to freely drag and drop functions and attributes onto a staging canvas, and relate the functions and attributes to build a graphical depiction of the desired business rule condition. The method generates source code directly from the graphical depiction such that the user does not have to understand the specific syntax and nuances of the development environment or runtime environment for the business rule.