Enhancements

The following enhancements are provided in this release:

• Simplified configuration and workflow when merging branches in a distributed branch-based environment
  The process for merging branches in distributed branch-based environments has been simplified. On the remote development system, you can now merge branches and start a deployment by using the Merge Branches wizard to merge branches onto the source development system without having to use a Pega repository type.

• Ability to submit locked branches to the Merge Branches wizard
  You can now submit locked branches to the Merge Branches wizard so that you can follow best practices when working with branches. Best practices include locking branches to prevent changes from being made to them.

• Using the Merge Branches wizard to make merge requests now stores the branch in the development repository
  When you use the Merge Branches wizard to merge branches and start a deployment, the wizard now stores the branch in the development repository. Also, after the merge is completed, Deployment Manager deletes the branch from the development system. By storing branches in the development repository, Deployment Manager keeps a history, which you can view, of the branches in a centralized location.

• Ability to create separate product rules for test cases
  You can now separately manage both application changes and test cases in the same pipeline by using a separate product rule that contains only test cases. You can also choose a stage until which test cases are deployed to ensure that test cases are not deployed on environments such as staging and production, where they might not be needed. When you create test and production applications in Deployment Manager on your development system by using the New Application wizard, the wizard automatically creates separate product rules for your production and test applications.

• API documentation now available
  Documentation for Deployment Manager APIs is now included in the Documentation/readme-for-swagger.md file. This file is included in the DeploymentManager04_04_0x.zip file, which you can download from Pega Exchange. For example, you can quickly create pipelines without using the Deployment Manager interface.

• Usability enhancements
  • For the Check guardrail compliance task, the default guardrail compliance score has been increased to 97.
  • Email notifications for Jenkins jobs now include a link to the Jenkins job.
  • You can now start a Jenkins job when Jenkins has cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection enabled.
  • For pipelines that have Jenkins tasks, job history details for successful deployments have a link to the Jenkins job.
  • The Pipeline list in the Merge Branches wizard no longer displays pipelines that are not configured to support branches; previously, you received an error after submitting pipelines that did not support branches.
  • If you are using the Merge Branches Wizard but do not have pipelines configured for an application, you can use still use the wizard to merge branches into target applications.

Known issues

The following are known issues in this release:

• The Pega Platform 8.1 and 8.2 versions of the Rule rebasing and Rebasing rules to obtain latest versions help topics should state that rule rebasing is supported in Deployment Manager.
• The Publishing a branch to a repository help topic should state that you can use Deployment Manager to start a deployment by publishing a branch to the source development system even if you have multiple pipelines per application version. Also, the note in this help topic no longer applies.