Published Release Notes

Unicode-enabled database for international language support

The Pega 7 Platform database has been enhanced to natively support Unicode multibyte character set encoding when using Postgres on Pega Cloud. This enhancement allows you to store data in languages such as Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

Improvements to the Document Application tool

Application profile documents and application documents generated by the Document Application tool have been improved to present information in a more logical order based on how the application was built (for example, by case life-cycle management). Also, these types of documents now include all specifications linked with an implementation rule, presented in logical order under the implementation rule.

In addition, to help you more efficiently drive decisions by stakeholders, you can specify whether to include related built-on application layer assets in application profile documents and application documents. For specification documents, you can specify whether to include specifications from the built-on application layer.

For more information, see Document Application tool.

Change the type of an existing field

You can now change the type of an existing field on the Data model tab of a case type or data type, resulting in a more efficient development process at design time. If there are any validation issues when changing a type, an error message is displayed, and the type cannot be modified by using this method.

For more information, see:

• Modifying the type of a field
• Troubleshooting validation errors when changing the type of an existing field

Open authoring for rule forms has been removed

Open authoring for rule forms has been removed. You can now edit decision tables and map values by using the application and supported browser of your choice; Microsoft ActiveX controls are no longer required. In addition, support for external XML, HTML, and Java IDE editors has been removed.

Pega Express application views simplify portal creation

Pega Express application views offer a simple, intuitive authoring experience for portals. Application view templates support responsive application development and offer mobile-specific templates. You can create portals by selecting from a predefined set of application view templates.

For more information, see Application views.

Rule form search

You can now search for content within some rule forms by clicking Search rule on the Actions menu. The search results and the tabs of the rule form that contain the search results are highlighted.

For example, you can find the properties that are used in a when condition inside an activity without navigating to each tab, when condition, transition, and method in the activity.

Delegate service-level agreements

You can now delegate service-level agreements (SLAs) to your business line by clicking Actions > Delegate. You can also delegate circumstanced versions of SLAs.

For more information about delegations, see Delegating a rule or data type.

Circumstance a rule by different properties

You can specialize or circumstance a rule by a different property even if the base rule is circumstanced by another property. This flexibility can help address cases where the same rule needs to be circumstanced by different properties. When you circumstance a rule by different properties, the circumstanced versions of the rule must be in different rulesets or Applies To classes.

You can circumstance a rule by a different property in the same ruleset, but in a higher version, by withdrawing the existing circumstanced versions.

For more information, see Circumstance a rule with different properties or templates.

Usability improvements in Pega Express

The following enhancements have been made in Pega Express to improve your development experience:

• Case Designer now has an option to create a case so that you can quickly test changes to the configuration of your case types.
• There are fewer steps in the process for configuring a dynamic view.
• Some controls on the screen have been repositioned for easier access and support for users who are not using a mouse.
• Some elements on the Life cycle tab of Case Designer support keyboard navigation when you use the Tab, Enter, Right Arrow, or Left Arrow keys.
• The status of a case can be set at the assignment level.

For more information about these changes, see:

• Creating a case
• Configuring a dynamic view
• Configuring a case at run time
• Adding an assignment to a process

Associate specifications on implementation rule forms

You can now view, add, and delete the specifications that are associated with a rule on the new Specifications tab of most rule forms. The Specifications tab is available for almost all implementation rules, except for administrative and deprecated rule types. By associating specifications with the rules that implement them, you improve the end-to-end traceability of your specifications.

For more information, see Associating specifications on implementation rule forms.