Published Release Notes

Configuration sets to support no-code run time changes

App Studio now provides the option to create configuration sets that define application behavior, which application administrators can adjust at run time, in a no-code way. For example, you can define a configuration that defines the maximum loan amount to offer a Gold account customer to $10,000. If the bank changes the maximum amount, the application administrator can easily change the loan amount at run time, without performing any design-time actions. Configuration sets minimize the need for custom rule overrides, and help you deliver applications that are convenient to maintain and upgrade.

For more information, see:

• Deliver no-code applications with configuration sets (8.6)
• Creating a configuration set

Ability to handle responses to automatic email notifications in email bots

Pega Email Bot™ can now handle email responses to automatic email notifications that a Pega Platform™ application sends for a related case. As a result, customer service representatives (CSRs) can save time because all relevant emails from customers and other stakeholders are available from a single triage case in the system. To use this feature, ensure that you add the same email account to the email bot that you use to send case notifications in your application.

For more information, see Handle customer responses to automatic email notifications.

More specialized data fields

Pega Platform™ now provides more prescriptive and specialized options to reuse data, which replace data relationships. Now, to reuse information across your application, you can create a field that references a case type, a data object, data embedded in a case, or a data page. As a result, you do not need detailed knowledge about how your system stores data to successfully reuse information in your business processes.

For more information, see:

• Creating fields for capturing data
• Embedding data in a case
• Referencing a data page

Update to Intelligent Virtual Assistant official names

To use better and more consistent names for conversational channels in Pega Platform™ and to help distinguish conversational channels from Pega Unified Messaging Edition™, Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant™ (IVA) for Unified Messaging is now called IVA for Digital Messaging. Furthermore, the IVA for Web Chatbot is now officially called IVA for Legacy Webchat.

For more information, see Creating a Digital Messaging channel and Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant features.

Ability to train the text analytics model based on email attachments

You can now train the text analytics model for Pega Email Bot™ based on training data from email attachments. As a result, you improve the natural language processing (NLP) analysis for your email bot so that your system detects the correct language, sentiment, topics, and entities from both the body of emails and their attachments. By default, you train the text analytics model based only on training data from the body of emails.

For more information, see Enabling training the model based on email attachments.

Upgrading to the secure threading mechanism for email bots

In Pega Platform™ version 8.6, Pega Email Bot™ includes a more secure threading mechanism to help track emails from customers and other stakeholders in separate threads for an email triage case.

Upgrade impact

If you upgrade from Pega Platform version 8.5 or earlier, in which you configured an Email channel, perform the following steps to ensure that your system uses the new secure threading mechanism:

• Update the service email rule that the system uses to send an email reply as the initial acknowledgment.
• Update the email reply template in the data transform rule that the system uses when a customer service representative (CSR) sends the reply.

For more information about creating an initial acknowledgment email and email reply template, see Creating outbound email templates. For more information about the secure threading mechanism, see Use a secure threading mechanism in emails.

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

For the initial acknowledgment email used by your email bot, update the service method for your email listener rule. On the Response tab for this service email rule, expand the Message contents section. In the Message data section, you specify the rule that defines the structure of the content of the email body. In Pega Platform version 8.6, you use for this purpose the pyEmailAcknowledgement correspondence rule that takes into account the selected built-in template. This template includes the security code tag that the system uses for the secure threading mechanism. If your application uses a different rule in the Message data section, update this definition to match one of the built-in correspondence template rules, for example, EmailAckTemplate_Clear.

The pySetEmailBotReplyTemplate data transform rule sets the name of the email correspondence rule that the system uses as the email reply template. If you do not want to use the default approach using the Classic, Cobalt, or Clear outbound email template themes, override this data transform rule to set the email correspondence rule name for the Param.ReplyTemplate target in the Source column field.

For more information about how to update the service email rule and the data transform rule to ensure that your system uses the secure threading mechanism, see Upgrading to the threading mechanism available in the 8.6 version.