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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Improved management of batch indexing

You can now cancel and check the status of a batch index process directly from the Search landing page in Dev Studio. The landing page now refreshes automatically every 10 seconds so that you can easily see the most recent status of the batch index process. Additionally, the reindex operation is now 20% faster than in previous versions. These features provide greater visibility into batch indexing and improve your ability to fix issues with a batch indexing process.

For more information about batch indexing, see Rebuilding search indexes from the user interface.

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