Visual Business Director data is automatically cleaned after a retention period expires
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
To avoid negative impact on system resources, such as memory and disk space, Pega Platform™ automatically cleans out collections data accumulated in Visual Business Director after the time period specified in the vbd/dataRetentionTimeout dynamic system setting.
Upgrade impact
In versions of Pega Platform earlier than 8.5, collections data was not automatically removed. From version 8.5, the data is removed after 465 days (15 months) by default.
What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?
If the default data retention period does not meet your requirements, you can change it by editing the vbd/dataRetentionTimeout setting.
For more information, see "Configuring the data retention period for Visual Business Director" in the Pega Customer Decision Hub 8.5 Upgrade Guide on the Pega Customer Decision Hub product page.
Optimization check utility available for legacy strategies
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
Ensure that your strategies are compatible with the optimized strategy execution engine introduced in Pega Platform™ 8.1 by running a post-upgrade utility that checks strategies within your application for areas that you can optimize, for example, by reducing the number of page properties that are copied from one shape to another. Running the utility produces a report that you can use to plan the required updates to your strategies.
For more information, see Make your strategies compatible with the optimized strategy execution engine by using a check utility.
Uploading customer responses into adaptive models is no longer available
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
The option to train adaptive models by uploading a static list of historical interaction records has been deprecated in Pega Platform™ 8.5.
Upgrade impact
In versions of Pega Platform earlier than 8.5, it was possible to train an adaptive model by uploading historical data of customer interaction. After the upgrade to version 8.5, this option is no longer available.
What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?
Use data from a report definition to train adaptive models. For more information, see Training adaptive models.
More flexibility for Date Time predictors in adaptive models
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
You can configure adaptive model predictors that indicate the amount of time that has elapsed since a particular event. In versions of Pega Platform™ earlier than 8.5, you could only specify the absolute date and time, for example, the date when a subscriber last visited one of your brick-and-mortar store locations. In Pega Platform 8.5, you can also indicate the amount of time that has passed, for example, the number of days since a subscriber purchased a new service plan.
For more information, see Adding a predictor to an adaptive model.
Close button on a pop-up application update removed from App Studio
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
When you open an existing application that you created in previous releases without support for the Pega Express methodology, App Studio now displays a pop-up window to support Microjourneys™ without a Close button, to improve the usability of App Studio.
Upgrade impact
The UI automation script might require a change if the script mentions clicking on the Close button.
What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?
If you have a UI automation script that uses the Close button, update the UI automation script to delete reference to clicking on the Close button.
For more information, see Creating a Microjourney for customer success.
Improving basic access control
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
Pega Platform™ has implemented a new basic access control (BAC) to protect your application from unauthorized server calls from otherwise authenticated users.
For more information, see Access Control Checks.
Upgrade impact
After you upgrade to Pega 8.5, all the functionality in the model configurations that use auto-generated controls and actions continues to work as before. However, you must secure any customized JavaScript in your application layer that makes AJAX (server) calls by using registration or encryption mechanisms.
What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?
After upgrade, to migrate custom JavaScript functionality, see Access Control Checks.