Published Release Notes

Submit application changes made in Pega Express to a continuous integration and delivery pipeline

After you make changes to your application in Pega^® Express, you can submit these changes into a continuous integration and delivery pipeline that is configured in Deployment Manager. By using Pega Express to submit your application changes into staging, preproduction, and production systems, you can quickly start builds without involvement from IT.

For more information, see Starting a continuous delivery build.

Ability to run report definitions against an Elasticsearch index

To improve report generation performance, you can now run report definitions against Elasticsearch indexes instead of using SQL queries directly against the database. This feature is disabled by default and does not apply to reports that have features that are not supported by Elasticsearch. If a report query cannot be run against Elasticsearch indexes, Pega^® Platform automatically uses an SQL query.

For information about enabling and using this feature, see Configuring a report definition to run against an Elasticsearch index.

Search index fields can retain the original property type

You can now configure fields in the search index to retain the property type of the original property. By default, properties in an indexed class are converted to a string before they are placed in fields in the search index, referred to as a typeless index. Type-aware search indexes let you run report queries with filters, date calculations, and aggregations directly in the query. To configure a class to have type-aware properties, use a dedicated index.

For more information, refer to Custom search properties.

Support for the WebChat conversational user channel

You can now embed standard chat capability on any website by creating the WebChat channel interface as the Pega^® Intelligent Virtual Assistant. Users can communicate with a Pega Platform application, for example, to open a case to report a problem or to display a menu of commands to ask for assistance. The WebChat channel does not require any additional accounts or third-party installations, and you have full control over the end-to-end communication.

For more information, see Configuring the WebChat channel.

Pulse enhancements

The enhanced layout of the Pulse interface provides a better user experience for posting messages, adding attachments, bookmarking content, and so on. You can now post messages in your activity feed, format messages, add inline images and links to messages, reference cases, and view the list of users who like messages. The Pulse email templates have also been improved to display email content in a coherent and structured format.

For more information, see:

• Pega Express 7.4 – Communicating with Pulse
• Pega Platform 7.4 – Pulse enhancements for social collaboration

Pega API available in Pega Express

The Pega^® API is now included on the Channels and Interfaces dashboard in Pega Express. You can configure Pega APIs to access Pega application functionality directly from Pega Express without switching to Designer Studio.

For more information about channel interfaces, see Channels and interfaces. For more information about the Pega API.

Ability to connect to REST data sources in Pega Express

You can now connect to REST data sources in Pega^® Express to see REST data in your application without leaving the end-user portal. Connecting to a REST data source is similar to testing an endpoint. You enter the endpoint URL, test the endpoint, and start using the data source. REST data sources in Pega Express are high performing because they use the new JSON data transform to directly map to the data page without requiring integration classes and properties.

For more information, see Adding a data type for remotely stored data by using REST.

View attachments inline

You can now view thumbnails of PDF file and image attachments and icons of video attachments in Pulse, cases, and other areas of the application that allow you to attach files. Thumbnails provide a preview of your attachments inline. You can also play video attachments and expand the thumbnails of PDF file and image attachments to view them in readable formats.

For more information, see Inline preview of attachments.

Enhancements to PegaUnit testing

PegaUnit test cases and test suites have been enhanced to provide ways to identify and respond to slow run times.

You can take the following actions:

• To temporarily stop non-critical test cases from running when they are failing, you can set a test case as "Disabled."
• To identify slow PegaUnit test cases, you can make a test case fail if its run time takes longer than expected.
• To keep track of test suite run times, you can set an expected run time.
• To identify slow PegaUnit test suites, you can make a test suite fail if its run time takes longer than expected.

For more information about PegaUnit testing, see PegaUnit testing.

Compact style sheet for creating PDF files

You can now use a compact style sheet when you create PDF files by using the Create PDF smart shape in a case type or when you use the HTMLtoPDF activity. This style sheet overrides the style sheet that is used by the harness skin and correctly renders certain elements such as headings and inline grid tables. It also renders PDF files more quickly.

For more information, see Creating PDF files by using a compact style sheet and PDF file rendering scenarios.