Published Release Notes

Select values gadget optimization enhancements

The Select values gadget includes several enhancements that help reduce performance issues when a data set is very large. Administrators and developers can now add and remove optimizations for fields directly in Designer Studio. Additionally, Select values gadgets were added to the proposition import shape and history shape in the Strategy rule form.

For more information about Select value gadgets and field optimization, see Optimizing properties in Select values gadget.

Use of PegaRULES_Extract_Marker.txt to delete cache is deprecated

The PegaRULES_Extract_Marker.txt file is deprecated. The system uses the presence or absence of the PegaRULES_Extract_Market.txt file to determine at startup whether to delete the static content, service export, and lookup list file system-based caches. In the rare situation that you need to delete these caches manually, use the System Management Application (SMA) ETier Static Content Management page. Using SMA does not require restarting the node.

Custom scaling on x-axis for bubble charts

Bubble charts now support custom scaling for the x-axis as well as the y-axis. For example, you can now configure a fixed range for the x-axis.

For information about including a chart in a report, see Adding or editing charts from the Report Definition rule form.

Enable users to save charts as .png files

You can now enable users to save a report chart as a .png file. On the Chart tab of the Report Definition rule form, click General settings and select the Export chart to image check box. When you select this option, users are provided with the Save as image option, which they can use to save an image of the chart to include in a Word document or email.

For information about including a chart in a report, see Adding or editing charts from the Report Definition rule form.

Enhancements to exporting reports to Excel

When you export report results to Microsoft Excel, the process now creates a Data sheet and an Info sheet in the Excel file. By default, the Info sheet contains the report title, filters used to generate the report, the date when the report was generated, and the number of results returned.

If you want the report title and filters to display in the first sheet instead of the Info sheet, you can disable the default functionality. For more information, see Disabling the creation of an Info sheet in Excel output.

New alert for distinct values query

The PEGA0093 alert identifies performance issues when a distinct values query from virtual reports or the getDistinctValuesForProperty API take longer than the threshold. For more information, see PEGA0093: Distinct values query took more than the threshold.

Behavior changes when reporting on descendant classes

Report Definitions that use the Report on descendant class instances option with the Include all descendant classes option apply only to the Applies to Class. Join classes are not included as they were in previous Pega^® Platform versions. The following example shows what happens for each possible scenario for Report on descendant class instances when the report is defined on ClassA with a class join with Work-.

• If Report on descendant class instances is disabled, the report runs against ClassA and the join happens with Work-. The behavior is the same in Pega 7.3.1 as it is in previous Pega Platform versions.
• If Report on descendant class instances is enabled, and Include single implementation class is selected, the report runs against ClassA and the join happens with the MySampleClass implementation class. The behavior is the same in Pega 7.3.1 as it is in previous Pega Platform versions.
• If Report on descendant class instances is enabled, and Include all descendant classes is selected, the report runs against ClassA and its descendants and the join happens with Work-. In previous Pega Platform versions, the join happened with the MySampleClass implementation class.

Improved security after hiding SQL values

In Pega Platform™ version 8.6, the default value of the showSQLInList dynamic system setting changes to FALSE, which suppresses the visibility of the SQL values in the Clipboard tool. With this setting disabled, when you run a report definition the clipboard does not display sensitive values in the pxSQLStatementPre and pxSQLStatementPost properties, which makes your system less vulnerable. If you want to display the values, in the .prconfig file, set the prconfig/security/showSQLInListPage/default to TRUE.

Additional connection pool parameters for JDBC URL external databases

For improved external JDBC URL database connection performance, Pega Platform™ now supports multiple Hikari connection pool parameters directly in the Data-Admin-DB-Name rule. Previously, Pega Platform supported a limited number of connection pool parameters to optimize your database connection using dynamic system settings (DSS). Now you can optimize your JDBC URL connection pool sizing to meet your traffic requirements through additional parameters without switching rules. Additional parameters include client-request parameters to maximize the connectivity to your external databases.

For more information, see Creating and updating external database instances with JDBC URLs.

Upgrade impact

During an upgrade to Pega Infinity™ release 8.6 and later, clients who previously specified their JDBC URL connection parameters through dynamic system settings (DSS) or prconfig file must delete the corresponding DSS or prconfig elements immediately after upgrade. The old parameters that you previously specified through DSS or the prconfig file override the equivalent parameters that you specified in the JDBC URL rule after your upgrade.

For more information about deleting your previous DSS or prconfig elements, see Deleting dynamic system setting connection parameters and Deleting connection parameters in the prconfig file.

Enhanced PEGA0104 alert

The PEGA0104 alert now includes the thread pool size, a list of activities that are waiting in the queue for a thread to become available, and details on how long it took to capture the thread dump.  By default, the alert also includes the thread dump.  You can disable the inclusion of the thread dump by changing the related configuration option. 

For more information, see PEGA0104 alert: Background tasks have exceeded a threshold time when attempting to acquire a thread from pool or executor.