Privilege required for Recent Explorer
Valid from Pega Version 7.1.1
Users with custom roles defined must add the pxUpdateRecents privilege to see work in the Recent Items Explorer.
Use standard Developer portal
Valid from Pega Version 7.1.1
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.
Top-level (named) pages may no longer be classless
Valid from Pega Version 7.1.1
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.
All tabs are accessible on delegated rule forms
Valid from Pega Version 7.1.1
Delegates can now access all tabs in a delegated rule form.
You can continue to customize the development experience for delegated users, such as line managers, who may not require the full set of rule form options. For example, you can prevent users from adding new nodes on the Decision Tree form or using the expression builder on the Map Value form. All users, including delegated users, can remove these restrictions if they hold a rule-editing privilege.
For more details on this process and a list of commonly delegated rules, see How to delegate a rule.
Limits on active data flow runs
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
You can now configure a maximum number of concurrent active data flow runs for a node type. Set limits to ensure that you do not run out of system resources and that you have a reasonable processing throughput. If a limit is reached, the system queues subsequent runs and waits for active runs to stop or finish before queued runs can be initiated, starting with the oldest.
For more information see, Limit the number of active runs in data flow services (8.5).
Upgrade impact
If you have many data flow runs active at the same time, you might notice that some of the runs are queued and waiting to be executed.
What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?
You do not have to take any action. After the active runs stop or finish, the queued runs start automatically. The default limits are intended to protect your system resources, and you should not see a negative impact on the processing of data flows. However, if you want to allow a greater number of active data flow runs to be active at the same time, you can change the limits. For more information, see Limiting active data flow runs.
External data flow rules are deprecated
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
External data flows are now deprecated and no longer supported. To improve your user experience with Pega Platform™, the user interface elements associated with these rules are hidden from view by default. Identifying unused features allows Pega to focus on developing and supporting the features that you need.
For more information, see Deprecated: External data flows.
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.
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.