Published Release Notes

Descendant class instances now included in reports

The Report on descendant class instances option on the Data Access tab of the Report Definition rule has a new option to now include data from all descendant classes of the report's primary class. If descendant classes are mapped to multiple class tables, the generated SQL query performs UNIONs to include this data. Previously, only a single class was included in the report.

You can select a subset of descendant classes to include or exclude by adding a filter condition on pxObjClass.

Existing reports retain the older behavior for this option after an upgrade or update. To use the new option, you must set it for each existing report. New reports created in Designer Studio and out-of-the-box Pega 7 Platform template reports from which new reports are created in the Report Browser (pyDefaultReport and pyDefaultSummaryReport) default to the new option. If you have created custom template reports for some application classes, you must change them to enable the new option in reports that are created in the Report Browser for these classes.

See Reporting on data in multiple class tables.

Report Definition query filters can search embedded properties

Filter conditions on Report Definition rules that query the Elasticsearch indexes can now reference embedded properties. Previously, filter conditions could reference only the top-level properties of a class. To reference an embedded property within a filter condition, specify indexes for embedded page lists and page groups, for example, Customers(1).Addresses(1).City = Boston OR Customers(1).Addresses(1).State = MA.

These indexes are ignored in the generated query, and so can potentially match any value in a page list or group. However, filter conditions that reference multiple embedded properties in the same page list or page group, as displayed above, might not be satisfied on the same page.

BIX extracts can be scheduled and run from the Pega 7 Platform by using agents

You can create an agent that periodically invokes the new pxExtractDataWithArgs activity to run a BIX Extract rule. The activity takes the class and extract rule name, as well as an additional input string with a list of BIX command-line parameters, as input parameters to use for the run.

Discontinued support for list view and summary view rules

The list view rule and the summary view rule are deprecated, and support for these rules has been discontinued. Existing list view and summary view reports will continue to work on supported browsers. However, the last version of Internet Explorer that list view and summary view rules support is Internet Explorer 11.

You cannot create new list view or summary view reports. Instead, create list reports and summarized reports by using the report definition rule. To prevent display issues, re-create the custom list view and summary view reports that you need as report definition reports.

Report Definitions can query tables in multiple schemas

You can create a Report Definition that queries class tables in multiple schemas in the same database. Previously, queries on tables that were mapped to PegaRULES and PegaDATA schemas could not include tables that were mapped to other schemas, because other schemas were assumed to be in a different database. The schemas to which queried class tables belong are no longer validated when you save the Report Definition, so you can now query tables in schemas other than PegaRULES and PegaDATA. However, Report Definitions that query tables that are in more than one database fail when run.

Enhanced reliability and stability of scenario tests

Several enhancements have been made to scenario tests to increase their stability and reliability. With enhanced improvements, you can now:

• Delay the execution of a step within a scenario test to add latency to a web browser and actions on a web page. This prevents tests from failing when a dynamic web page does not load all page element at once, but the test finds page elements that are immediately rendered.
• Automatically rerun failed scenario tests, which might fail because there are temporal stability issues on the environment or because the application UI is slowly renders.
• View the run history of scenario tests so that you can analyze the history of a test over time.

For more information, see the following:

• Delay the execution of a step within a test and rerun failed scenario tests for enhanced scenario test stability (8.5)
• Changing application quality metrics
• Automatically rerunning failed scenario tests
• Creating scenario tests

Scenario tests now honor application stack settings

The application stack defined on the Application Quality Settings page of Dev Studio now serves as a foundation for creating, viewing, and running scenario tests. 

Dev Studio will now:

• Display scenario tests based on the application stack settings on the Dev Studio landing page.
• Store scenario tests with the configured stack settings.
• Report metrics in the application quality dashboard with respect to the configured stack settings.  

For more information, see Creating UI-based tests with scenario testing. 

Run an application test suite from a CI/CD pipeline

Deployment Manager, as well as the existing REST service used to call scenario tests, now accepts a test suite ID when running scenario tests from an application pipeline. By using test suites, you can customize a set of select scenario tests to run as a group, instead of running all the scenario tests that are applied to a particular application.

Only the tests that belong to the suite are run as part of the task. 

For more information, see Creating UI-based tests with scenario testing. 

Access PegaUnit compliance metrics from a centralized location

PegaUnit compliance metrics and execution rate have been added to the PegaUnit metrics tile of the Application Quality dashboard. This dashboard provides a centralized location for all PegaUnit data for a specific application. 

The dashboard also supports granular PegaUnit test information for each case type and data type, similar to the process currently available on the branch quality dashboard. 

For more information, see Analyzing application quality metrics. 

Run PegaUnit tests by using an API call

A new REST API is now available to create and run PegaUnit tests from an external continuous improvement (CI) tool. This synchronous method allows for the processing of large quantities of tests while reducing the possibility of time-out issues. This additional method of performing PegaUnit testing does not impact users who want to continue using their current testing workflow. 

For more information about setting up your environment and making API calls with Deployment Manager, see the Documentation/readme-for-swagger.md file in the DeploymentManager04_08_0x.zip file, found in the Deployment Manager download package.