Published Release Notes

Automated Unit Testing (AUT) content removed from the help

Information about Automated Unit Testing (AUT) has been removed from the Pega 7 Platform help, beginning with version 7.2.2. The AUT information is still available in earlier versions of the Pega 7 Platform help and on the PDN in the topic category Testing Applications.

PegaUnit testing is now supported on data pages, activities, data transforms, strategies, decision tables, and decision trees, which you can use to quickly and easily create test cases for your Pega 7 Platform applications instead of using AUT.

For more information, see:

• Pega 7.2.2 behavior when switching between PegaUnit testing and Automated Unit Testing features
• Automated Unit Testing

Push real-time notifications to your clients

You can now set up a real-time notification system based on the publish/subscribe (pub/sub) messaging pattern where a node in the cluster can push notifications to your browser clients. Nodes publish notifications to a channel that can broadcast to all the subscribed browser clients.

You can create a notification channel from the Notification channels landing page and subscribe to the channel by selecting the On Load action, which is available under action sets.

For more information, see Real-time applications and push notifications in the Pega 7 Platform.

SAML 2.0 single sign-on authentication in multitenant environments

Multitenant application environments can now use SAML 2.0 for single sign-on (SSO) and single logout (SLO). Application users can access any authorized SSO multitenant applications without logging in to each application individually. SAML simplifies the login and logout process for users, mitigates security risks, and reduces the implementation costs that are associated with identity management.

For more information about configuring SAML 2.0 for single sign-on, see Web single sign-on (SSO) with SAML 2.0.

New PegaRULES:PegaAPISysAdmin​ role

The role PegaRULES:PegaAPISysAdmin​ has been added to the Pega 7 Platform. This required role gives system administrators access to the Pega API REST User Services and is not required for other services.

For more information, see Securing the Pega API.

Issue with the Sandbox directive on the Content Security Policy rule form has been fixed

An issue that related to the Sandbox directive not being applied, even after a value in the Content Security Policy rule form was selected, has been fixed. As a result, restrictions that are applied based on the settings in the Sandbox directive are now more closely aligned with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specification than in previous releases. You should test your Content Security Policy to ensure that this change does not cause unexpected behavior in your application, such as making the security policy too restrictive.

Business logic-based routing cards enhancements

To ensure that the sequence of business logic-based routing cards conforms to your business requirements, you now have the option to change the order of the cards. For easier navigation across multiple routing cards, the system automatically collapses the cards for you, and you can then easily expand the cards that you need to display.

For more information, see Navigate easier across business logic-based routing cards (8.5), Assigning users automatically at run time.

New JWT access token format: Authorized Access Token

Pega Platform™ is changing from using opaque tokens to using JSON Web (JWT) tokens and the JWT access token format: Authorized Access Token (AAT). An AAT enables a client application to validate the server for user permissions and authorizes a specific application to access specific parts of a user’s data.

The major benefits to using the JWT format are:

• The JWT is a self-contained token that has authentication information, expire time information, and other user-defined claims digitally signed.
• A single token can be used with multiple applications.
• The tokens are short-lived and can minimize damage if transport security is compromised, as the token signature is verified.
• As the token is verified with the signature, there is no need to verify against a database, thus reducing latency (usually important for Web APIs).

For more information, see Understanding authorized access tokens.

Improvements to OAuth 2.0 Services with Token Introspection Service and Token Denylist Service

Increase the security of user sessions by using the newly supported Token Introspection and Denylist services for OAuth 2.0.

Token Introspection service

Use the Token Introspection service to validate JSON Web Tokens (JWT). The Token Introspection service requires authentication. 

Pega now uses OAuth 2.0 access tokens called Authorized Access Tokens (AAT). 

Token Introspection service endpoint

The Token Introspection service endpoint provides the information about the status of access token and refresh token. Token introspection can be used to validate if a given token is still active or inactive. The token introspection endpoint determines whether the token is valid. The status indicates whether an access token or refresh token is valid or invalid: 

• Valid tokens have the “active”:true status
• Invalid tokens have the “active” :false status.

The inactive status can also be due to revocation. 

Token Denylist service

You can add tokens to the deny list in cases where suspicious activity might have occurred. The Token Denylist service provides a method for denying user access to the application by revoking the user's access token. This service can prevent a token from being used more than the specified number of times, which can be helpful in preventing replay attacks. Stolen tokens should be revoked using this service. A GET API is also available to get the list of denied tokens.

Keys endpoint

Pega Platform™ is changing from using opaque tokens to JSON Web (JWT) tokens. If this JWT is used by any other system, the public key is needed for signature verification. A new endpoint is exposed to provide these public keys in JWK format: https://host:port/prweb/api/oauth2/v1/token/keys.

For more information, see OAuth 2.0 Management Services.

Enhanced refresh token strategy

You now have more precise control over your refresh token expiration strategy. When a refresh token is enabled, you can choose to set its initial expiration based on the value provided by the IDP. The refresh token expiry can be derived from IDP’s session timeout when SSO is used with external IDP for user authentication in the authorization code grant flow. You can also specify a separate refresh token expiration strategy based on your use-case. 

These can be configured in the OAuth2 Client registration rule form.

For more information, see Enhanced refresh token strategy.

Enhancements to token lifetime limits

Pega Platform™ uses OAuth 2.0 authorization codes, access tokens, and refresh tokens to provide flexible token-based security for applications. Expiration settings for these codes and tokens now adhere to certain strict value range based on industry leading practices. For example, the lifetime specified for the authorization code must be in the range 1-600 seconds.

These can be configured in the OAuth2 Client registration rule form.

For more information, see OAuth 2.0 Management Services.