Published Release Notes

Customized application overview documents in App Studio

Keep stakeholders notified of the status of an application by customizing and generating an application overview document in App Studio. The overview may include information such as case types, roles, features in your application, and more. Select the chapters that you want to include in the overview, and then highlight the most relevant information by ordering the chapters. In addition to the application overview document, you can generate a detailed data model, either in Microsoft Word or Excel format.

For more information, see Creating project documents for stakeholders in App Studio, Exporting a data model into a document.

New send email automations and enhancements

You can now configure cases, flows, and activities to compose and send guardrail-compliant emails that conform to the MIME standard by using email automations. Use the new Call-Automation method to call an automation from an activity without writing Java.

You can also now categorize error messages in automations to quickly understand the type of error that occurred. In addition, page list data types are now supported for inputs and outputs in automations.

For more information, see Calling an automation from an activity and Viewing automations.

More efficient navigation between applications in App Studio

The new My Applications gadget helps you switch applications in App Studio more conveniently. You can also search applications by name instead of choosing an application from the list, and then select the access role that you want to use. In addition, you can see descriptions of your applications and create an application by going to the My Applications landing page. To use the My Applications gadget, ensure that you update the UI Kit to version 14.

For more information, see Adding the My Applications gadget, Switching between applications in App Studio.

Editable list of build-on application features

Pega Platform™ now provides you with an option to edit the list of features in your application stack. Now you can define the order of the features to generate application documentation that lists the features by their priorities instead of the time of creation. For example, you can reorder the features when you want to communicate to your stakeholders which elements are top priorities.

For more information, see Learning about feature order.

Facilitated application development with saving changes in branches in App Studio

For improved development of your application, you can now define branches in which you save changes that you make to your application in App Studio. Create features in branches so that you can review and merge them without affecting other features in the application. You can quickly identify and review any changes to rules because you know in which application layer they were saved. 

For more information, see Setting branch preferences in Dev Studio, Setting branch preferences in App Studio.

Support for controlling simulations in Integration Designer

Integration Designer now supports toggling an existing simulation for a data source on and off, and supports creating a simulation when a data source does not have a simulation configured. By simulating a data source, you can continue developing an application when your integration is not available, and test an application independently from the integration.

For more information, see Managing data and integrations with the Integration Designer.

Anypicker control in a condition builder

The condition builder now uses the Anypicker control to categorize the entities, such as fields or when conditions, that your application compares at run time. As a result, you can create conditions in a simplified and accelerated way. You can also select fields that are up to four levels deep within field groups.

For more information, see Create conditions faster with an Anypicker control (8.4), Adding an Anypicker control, Defining conditions in the condition builder.

Updated default dynamic system setting for requestor pools

Clients can now enable or disable requestor pools for processing service requests using a new dynamic system setting called EnableRequestorPools with Pega-IntegrationEngine as the owning rulest. Previously, all deployments utilized requestor pools to improve service processing response efficiency; requestor pools eliminated overhead by automatically returning a requestor to the pool after it fulfills a service request. Starting in Pega Platform 8.4, requestor pools are disabled in Client-managed cloud deployments, since these deployments use autoscaling to handle service request traffic. Enabling requestor pools in Kubernetes environments is not recommended, because they can inhibit the default autoscaling settings in the environment.

Requestor pools remain enabled by default in Pega Cloud and on-premises environments.

To help clients navigate this change, Pega has updated its best practice guidance for configuring requestor pools. For an overview, see Requestor pooling for services. For guidance on the use of requestor pools in your application, see the EnableRequestorPools entry in Dynamic system settings data instances.

Upgrade impact

Requestor pools are disabled by default in Pega Platform 8.4 in client-managed cloud deployments. Clients who deployed previous versions of Pega Platform on a Kubernetes environment and who upgrade to Pega Platform 8.4 could see that their services behave differently.

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

If clients that are deployed in a Client-managed cloud environment need to configure their services to use requestor pools and they understand how to configure requestor pools for their optimized use, these clients can re-enable requestor pools. Clients should review the best practice for configuring requestor pools before they re-enable requestor pools. To re-enable requestor pools, you modify the EnableRequestorPools setting in the Pega-IntegrationEngine Owning ruleset from “disabled” to Enabled [no value]. For details, see Editing a dynamic system setting.