Published Release Notes

Unit testing support for more rule types

You can now create unit tests for the following additional rule types. You can also create assertions to validate activity status. The expanded rule types for unit testing enable developers to more thoroughly perform regression testing of their application, thereby improving application quality.

• Collection
• Declare expression
• Map value
• Report definition

For more information about unit testing rules, see Pega unit test cases.

Upgrade impact

With the four new rule types, unit test execution and unit test compliance metrics will change. Reports on automated unit testing of the customer application decrease due to the increased pool of supported rules.

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

After a successful upgrade, create Pega unit test cases for the newly supported rules to see updated and accurate unit test metrics.

View application quality metrics by data type

You can now view application quality metrics by data type on the Application Quality landing page. The new Data Types tab displays metrics for data types grouped by data objects, which enables you to more quickly understand the overall coverage of the application's integrations and interfaces.

For more information about data type metrics, see Application Quality landing page.

Scenario tests are reusable

Existing scenario tests are now reusable in different business scenarios. Before Pega 8.3, you had to create a new test every time a user interface or process flow changed significantly. Now, scenario tests are editable to help you maintain the test stack more effectively.

For more information, see Updating scenario tests.

Improvements for automated scenario testing

Test automation authors can group related scenario tests into suites. The scenario test suites can be run manually from the Scenario Testing landing page as part of purpose-specific tests such as smoke tests, regression tests, and outcome-based tests. Additionally, automation authors or release managers who monitor tests for an application can disable or quarantine unstable scenario tests so that they do not run.

For more information about creating and managing test suites for scenario testing, see Creating test suites for scenario testing.

Simple associations for quickly joining classes

Associations now have a simple mode. Use a simple association to quickly and easily join a class to another class. The simple association defines a left join, using a foreign key in the source class and the class key in the target class. Use an advanced association for all other conditions. In addition, simple associations are drawn in the Visual data model reporting mode to visualize the relationships that are available for reporting.

Upgrade impact

The new simple mode draws a map of where all the classes defined in the application rule are drawn as nodes. Relationships between the nodes that are defined by relevant properties are drawn as lines linking the two classes. This feature only includes Case and Data classes that are defined on the Application rule form's Cases and Data tab. It also only includes relevant fields for those classes in order to define the relationships from one class to another.

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

After a successful upgrade, add the data and case type classes to the application rule in Dev Studio to have the selected classes appear as a node. In addition, if you want a relationship to display as relevant, set the properties (of the class that defines that relationship) as relevant.

For more information, see Exploring the data model.

Association changes after upgrade

Associations now have a simple mode. Simple associations are those that join to only one class, use a left join, and have one filter condition to a class key in the target class. Existing associations that define a simple foreign key relationship are upgraded to simple associations when opened; all others are treated as advanced associations. All associations continue to work in reporting.

Making an association simple changes only one piece of metadata; all other data on the association rule is not affected.

Upgrade impact

The new simple mode draws a map of where all the classes defined in the application rule are drawn as nodes. Relationships between the nodes that are defined by relevant properties are drawn as lines linking the two classes. This feature only includes Case and Data classes that are defined on the Application rule form's Cases and Data tab. It also only includes relevant fields for those classes in order to define the relationships from one class to another. 

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

After a successful upgrade, add the data and case type classes to the application rule in Dev Studio to have the selected classes appear as a node. In addition, if you want a relationship to display as relevant, set the properties (of the class that defines that relationship) as relevant.

For more information, see Associations.

Improvements for test cases and assertions

The process of modifying test cases and assertions has been improved. Adjusting test cases to application changes is now much easier.

You now can:

• Select a page on which to run a tested rule.
• Change the class and rule of unit test cases.
• Create assertions that validate specific error messages on pages, properties, and activities.
• Automatically update decision result assertions with property changes made to a rule.
• Modify a rule's properties directly from decision result assertions.

For more information, see:

• Updating scenario tests
• Setting up your test environment
• Configuring page assertions
• Configuring property assertions
• Configuring decision result assertions

Ability to generate a dedicated search index for a case type

You can generate a dedicated search index for a case type. Using a dedicated index makes reporting faster without putting additional requirements on the database. 

For more information, see Including indexed data during case search.

Pega unit test suites are now modular

It is now possible to include test cases and test suites inside test suites. This feature makes test suites modular and improves the management of cases while creating, modifying, and executing them for regression testing.

For more information, see Pega unit test suites.

REST API now fetches the latest version of Application Quality metrics

When you request Application Quality metrics by using the REST service, the service requests a refresh of the metrics. This means that you always get the latest version of the metrics and can decide whether your application is ready for deployment based on that information.

For more information, see Pega API.