Published Release Notes

Unit testing support for more rule types

You can now create unit tests for the following additional rule types. You can also create assertions to validate activity status. The expanded rule types for unit testing enable developers to more thoroughly perform regression testing of their application, thereby improving application quality.

• Collection
• Declare expression
• Map value
• Report definition

For more information about unit testing rules, see Pega unit test cases.

Upgrade impact

With the four new rule types, unit test execution and unit test compliance metrics will change. Reports on automated unit testing of the customer application decrease due to the increased pool of supported rules.

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

After a successful upgrade, create Pega unit test cases for the newly supported rules to see updated and accurate unit test metrics.

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.

View application quality metrics by data type

You can now view application quality metrics by data type on the Application Quality landing page. The new Data Types tab displays metrics for data types grouped by data objects, which enables you to more quickly understand the overall coverage of the application's integrations and interfaces.

For more information about data type metrics, see Application Quality landing page.

Scenario tests are reusable

Existing scenario tests are now reusable in different business scenarios. Before Pega 8.3, you had to create a new test every time a user interface or process flow changed significantly. Now, scenario tests are editable to help you maintain the test stack more effectively.

For more information, see Updating scenario tests.

Improvements for automated scenario testing

Test automation authors can group related scenario tests into suites. The scenario test suites can be run manually from the Scenario Testing landing page as part of purpose-specific tests such as smoke tests, regression tests, and outcome-based tests. Additionally, automation authors or release managers who monitor tests for an application can disable or quarantine unstable scenario tests so that they do not run.

For more information about creating and managing test suites for scenario testing, see Creating test suites for scenario testing.

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.

Editable list of build-on application features

Pega Platform™ now provides you with an option to edit the list of features in your application stack. Now you can define the order of the features to generate application documentation that lists the features by their priorities instead of the time of creation. For example, you can reorder the features when you want to communicate to your stakeholders which elements are top priorities.

For more information, see Learning about feature order.

Improvements for test cases and assertions

The process of modifying test cases and assertions has been improved. Adjusting test cases to application changes is now much easier.

You now can:

• Select a page on which to run a tested rule.
• Change the class and rule of unit test cases.
• Create assertions that validate specific error messages on pages, properties, and activities.
• Automatically update decision result assertions with property changes made to a rule.
• Modify a rule's properties directly from decision result assertions.

For more information, see:

• Updating scenario tests
• Setting up your test environment
• Configuring page assertions
• Configuring property assertions
• Configuring decision result assertions

Facilitated application development with saving changes in branches in App Studio

For improved development of your application, you can now define branches in which you save changes that you make to your application in App Studio. Create features in branches so that you can review and merge them without affecting other features in the application. You can quickly identify and review any changes to rules because you know in which application layer they were saved. 

For more information, see Setting branch preferences in Dev Studio, Setting branch preferences in App Studio.