Published Release Notes

Use standard Developer portal

Customized versions of the Developer portal rely on legacy components and are not supported.

To avoid backwards compatibility issues, update your access group to point to the standard Developer portal prior to upgrade.

Core Engine

This release contains fixes related to clipboard and declarative features, including data pages and autopopulate.

• A rule may be changed using Private Checkout, and then checked into a higher RuleSet Version for that RuleSet.
• Agents may now use a 24-hour time period for scheduling, as well as a 12-hour time period (which required the selection of AM or PM).
• Caching and performance have been enhanced.
• Declare expressions will work with embedded page lists when creating forms.
• Mandatory parameters on a data page can handle blank values.
• Properties may be auto-populated using a reference property which is created with a Property-Ref method in an activity.
• System will use "private edit" rules in developer's personal RuleSet when that rule overrides the "standard" rule available to all.
• The Page-Remove method will now remove Data Pages at the Thread level and the Requestor Level.
• When copying a page using the "Set" action on a data transform, the Declare Indexes defined on that data will be updated.
• When creating a data page, the Reload Once per Interaction checkbox can be checked to set the refresh strategy. 

Top-level (named) pages may no longer be classless

Newly created top-level (named) pages may no longer be classless or have a blank pxObjClass property. This change can affect applications upgrading from versions prior to Pega 7 to the latest version, especially when:

• Application logic relies on a blank value in the pxObjClass property.
• An activity assumes a new top-level page is classless and explicitly sets pxObjClass in a Property-Set step.
• A data transform assumes a new top-level page is classless and explicitly sets pxObjClass using a Set action.

To avoid application failures, remove or update any logic that expects a blank pxObjClass. Where possible, use the new engine API that finds a page by both name and class:

findPageWithException(PageName, ClassName);

Activities and data transforms continue to create a top-level page when one does not exist. The class name is now derived from the Pages and Classes tab.

Designer Studio

Many refinements to the Designer Studio were made around performance and user experience. Based on feedback, we have made a number of bug fixes and strategic improvements that improve the overall user experience.

• The Developer Portal connects to the PDN's RSS feed without needing a DigiCert certificate for validation. The RSS feed is just headlines; to open and read any of the articles, users will still have to log into the PDN.
• Expression Builder has been enhanced to work with IE8.
• New applications built in Version 7.1 will automatically redirect users to the PRPC login page upon logout. A new template has been added, to allow developers to customize their applications to redirect users to a logout page, if they wish.
• Performance improvements were made when saving and validating rules.
• Performance of the Guardrails Dashboard has been improved.
• The display of circumstanced rules in Application Explorer has been enhanced.

User Interface

This release had a focus around improving support for accessibility for all the PRPC UI Components as well as extending capabilities for responsive design with grids and tabs. A series of cosmetic changes and fixes are included.

• Improvements have been made for action items being opened in a dynamic container.
• Row repeat functionality in sections has been improved to better handle source properties.
• Screen layouts have been optimized for the iPhone platform
• The display on dynamic containers has been enhanced to provide the same behavior for both single-mode and multi-mode.
• The Launch Harness feature has been improved to launch into a pop-up window.
• The operator menu will now display from the Case Manager portal.
• The Primary Page functionality has been enhanced for control-defined Repeating Tab Headers.
• Using local actions defined as modal windows has been enhanced to work in an iPAD using a Safari browser.
• When using a modal dialog to open a flow action in a repeat grid, to add an item to the list, users may now cancel out of this dialog if no changes are needed.

Designer Studio

Numerous usability improvements were made for this release. A group of cosmetic, functional, and performance enhancements were also included.

• Treegrid controls work more quickly in IE9 and IE10.
• On application ruleforms, the 5.4 "Place Properties on Thread Page" checkbox will work in 7.1.
• Message error handling has been improved.
• Log messages have been cleaned up.
• Connectors may now be used in Data Pages.
• Move Rules wizard has been enhanced to work in Version 7.1.

User Interface

Issues for cross-browser support for Designer Studio have been addressed. Improvements were made in run-time performance for data pages with grids, and a number of cosmetic changes and fixes were made.

• Improved loading of Javascript files during saving Harness rules.
• Login Performance improvements
• A cursor pointer issue was addressed in Case Manager.
• In reports, data in columns will now right-align.
• Improved section validation functionality
• Harnesses with screen layouts will now save when there is a refresh condition on a panel.
• Outline View tree has been improved.
• Improvements to Repeat Grids using Data Pages as a source.
• Formatted text cells can be put into a grid to display the value of a property retrieved from a Report Definition join.
• Designer Studio changes to support IE9 and IE10.
• Improved designer studio layout
• Designer Studio changes to support quirks mode in IE8 and IE9.
• Improvements to SmartLabels in Data Pages
• Tab groups will take parameters for pre-activities in a defer load setup.
• Sections support nested dynamic layouts.

Internet Explorer 11 support

7.1.5 now provides support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). For those customers interested in information about IE11 support in previous releases, refer to the Platform Support Guide.

Guardrails compliance score

The Application Guardrails landing page has been enhanced to help you build more guardrail-compliant applications. Increase transparency and accountability on your projects by responding to the following compliance score metrics:

• A weighted compliance score (0-100) based on warnings, severity, and justification
• A percentage of compliant rules in your application
• Total number of rules in your application
• Total number of rules in your application with warnings (justified and unjustified)

Additional metrics include alert and interaction count trends over the last four weeks.

For more information, see Guardrails compliance score.

Automatically remove all inline styles

To ensure reusability and ease of maintenance, you can remove inline styles from all sections in all unlocked ruleset versions in your application from the HTML Application Readiness landing page. In the Sections Using Inline Styles section, click the Remove inline styles from all sections button.