Published Release Notes

Use Page-Change-Class method to change a Page class

With the release of Pega Platform™ 8.3, using the Property-Set method to change the Page class shows a guardrail warning. Use the Page-Change-Class method to change the Page class instead.

For more information about the Page-Change-Class method, see Changing the class of a page and Page-Change-Class method.

CyberArk password vault support added for Pega database

With the CyberArk password vault, you can store your systems' passwords in a secure, central location and retrieve them from that location instead of directly entering credentials into the systems. This support is available only for IBM WebSphere environments.

For more information, see Pega Platform deployment guides.

Support added for multiple mashups

You can now include multiple mashups on a single webpage or browser, even if the mashups have different application and authentication requirements. Use mashups to embed a Pega Platform™ application as a gadget on your website. For example, you can embed Web Chatbot and Self-Service Advisor on the same website.

For more information about mashups, see Configuring the Mashup channel.

Changes to URL format for Pega Web Mashup

The format of Pega Web Mashup URLs now supports multiple mashups on a single web page. The new URL format prevents a mashup from sharing cookies with another mashup.

If you want to include multiple mashups on a single web page and one of the mashups was created before 8.3, you must regenerate the mashup to reflect the new URL format.

For more information, see <link to help topic>.

Change tracking tab removed from declare expressions

To simplify the configuration of a declare expression, the Change tracking tab has been removed from the declare expression rule form. To use the Change tracking tab, on the declare expression rule form, click Actions > Use legacy expression.

For more information, see Supported and unsupported configurations in simplified declare expressions.

Upgrade impact

The declare expression rules have been moved from the pr4_rule table to the new pr4_rule_declare_expression table.

The upgrade can fail if you customize the pr4_rule table, such as increasing the length of an existing column.

After a successful upgrade, the declare expression rule form is simplified and lightweight pages support declare expressions.

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

Read-only data pages by default are lightweight. You could also enable lightweight pages for:

• Editable data pages by selecting the Enable option in the editable data page rule form.
• For all pages in a REST service by using the Lightweight clipboard mode in the Service REST form in the Rest API service.

Only simplified declare expressions are supported in lightweight pages. In simplified declare expressions, context-bound rules are not supported. However, a page context could be specified on the New or Save As form of declare expressions. For more information, see Declare Expression rules - Completing the New or Save As form.

Redirectguests mashup configuration has been removed

The authentication/redirectguests server configuration and data-pega-redirectguests attribute have been removed and are no longer required when you configure a mashup. This prevents you from needing to maintain multiple nodes to support some use cases that require the configuration value to be true and other uses cases that require the configuration value to be false.

For more information, see Configuring the Mashup channel.

MBeans deprecated in favor of Pega API

The use of MBeans for cluster management has been deprecated, although MBeans will continue to function for legacy deployments. The recommended best practice for automating system management is to use the Pega API. For more information, see Pega API.

Specify the scope for rolling back rules and data to a restore point

Create restore points to save the state of all rules and data in your system at a significant point in time, for example, before you import an application. Roll back to that restore point to return the system to that state. Now, you can filter which rule and data instances are returned to their previous state:

• System: Roll back every rule and data instance that has a history record.
• User: Roll back rule and data instances modified by a specific user. If any rule was changed by more than one user, you will see an error message and must use the system rollback.
• Application: Roll back rule and data instances in a specific application.

For more information, see Using restore points to enable error recovery.

Rules can no longer access Pega internal Java packages

You can no longer create rules that access Java packages that reference internal APIs (syntax com.pega.platform.*.internal*). This change does not affect rules that access Pega public API packages.

If you encounter issues when running existing rules that reference internal Pega APIs, contact Pega Support.

Upgrade impact

After an upgrade to 8.4 and later, clients can no longer save new or modified rules that access Pega internal APIs; existing rules that reference internal APIs can still be run but cannot be modified. 

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

Following a software upgrade to 8.4 or later, clients can refactor existing rules into guardrail compliant rules. To find rules to refactor, run the validation tool from designer studio (Application > Tools > Validation) to identify what rules fail validation; failed rules that include the message "Test compilation failed : Illegal internal class reference : com.pega.internal.XYZ" can updated to reference appropriate APIs.

Client-server deployment of Hazelcast

Pega Platform™ now supports the client-server model for the Hazelcast service, which provides cluster communication and distributes Pega Platform features across nodes. This optional deployment model introduces independent scalability for both servers and clients in Pega Platform, improving stability for deployments that use a large number of nodes.

The Hazelcast client-server model is intended for select environments running Pega Platform 8.4 across a large number of nodes and should be deployed only when directed by Global Client Support.