Published Release Notes

Improving basic access control

Pega Platform™ has implemented a new basic access control (BAC) to protect your application from unauthorized server calls from otherwise authenticated users.

For more information, see Access Control Checks.

Upgrade impact

After you upgrade to Pega 8.5, all the functionality in the model configurations that use auto-generated controls and actions continues to work as before. However, you must secure any customized JavaScript in your application layer that makes AJAX (server) calls  by using registration or encryption mechanisms.

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

After upgrade, to migrate custom JavaScript functionality, see Access Control Checks.

Add custom controls to section palettes

You can add custom controls to the Basic or Advanced palettes in sections. With this enhancement, Pega^® Platform developers have easy access to custom controls. The Show in authoring menus check box is available in the HTML tab of the custom control rule. You can add a custom icon to display in the menu with the custom control.

For more information see Adding custom controls to the section palette in Designer Studio.

New JWT access token format: Authorized Access Token

Pega Platform™ is changing from using opaque tokens to using JSON Web (JWT) tokens and the JWT access token format: Authorized Access Token (AAT). An AAT enables a client application to validate the server for user permissions and authorizes a specific application to access specific parts of a user’s data.

The major benefits to using the JWT format are:

• The JWT is a self-contained token that has authentication information, expire time information, and other user-defined claims digitally signed.
• A single token can be used with multiple applications.
• The tokens are short-lived and can minimize damage if transport security is compromised, as the token signature is verified.
• As the token is verified with the signature, there is no need to verify against a database, thus reducing latency (usually important for Web APIs).

For more information, see Understanding authorized access tokens.

Actions available for custom controls

All standard actions that are available for autogenerated controls are available on non-autogenerated custom controls as well. You can configure actions on custom controls by using the legacy actions options or the standard options that are available to custom and autogenerated controls. By using the standard options, developers can now configure multiple action sets for different types of events on a single custom control.

For more information, see Actions tab.

Improved access to Cosmos UI settings

The Settings tab in the App Studio case designer now includes tools for configuring Cosmos UI. With this enhancement, you can adjust design system settings without the need to specialize individual When rules in Dev Studio, which simplifies UI creation and saves development time.

For more information, see Managing Cosmos UI settings in case designer.

Enhanced autocomplete control with combo box functionality

You can now add combo box functionality to an autocomplete control. You enable this functionality on the Presentation tab of the control. In the combo box, search results that match the search criteria are displayed in a list that you can scroll through by clicking the down arrow.

For more information about how to configure an autocomplete control as a combo box, see Autocomplete Properties — Presentation tab.

Tour IDs and Test IDs in UI controls

Many UI controls now support the Test ID and Tour ID fields in the General tab of the layout properties. The Test ID setting generates a data-test-id attribute to provide a fixed reference to a UI control for automated testing. You can use Tour IDs to create a guided tour of your user interface for users. For more information, see Test ID and Tour ID for unique identification of UI elements.

Test IDs and Tour IDs have been extended to the following UI controls.

Both Test IDs and Tour IDs are supported in the following types of controls:

• Autocomplete
• Button
• Check box
• Date time
• Drop-down
• Formatted text
• Icon
• Label
• Link
• Radio button
• Text area
• Text input

Test IDs are supported in the following controls:

• Grid
• Hidden text
• Tree
• Tree grid

Tour IDs are supported in:

• Dynamic layouts

Privilege inheritance support through access roles

Privilege inheritance simplifies the process of defining privileges that are relevant in multiple classes. When determining whether a user should be granted a named privilege that allows a type of access to a class, Pega^® Platform searches for Access of Role to Object (Rule-Access-Role-Obj) rules that are relevant to the target class and to the access roles listed in the user's access group, and considers the privileges granted or denied in those rules. When privilege inheritance is enabled within an access role, the search for relevant Access of Role to Object rules begins with the target class and, if necessary, continues up the class hierarchy until a relevant rule is found.

For more information, see Privilege inheritance for access roles.

Custom DX API attributes for auto-generated controls

Auto-generated controls now include the option to add custom attributes for use with the Pega Digital Experience (DX) API. The attributes are part of the DX API response to the front end and you can use them to modify the run-time behavior of the UI elements in your application. For example, you can add an attribute to a field that displays a tooltip text for that field at run time. This enhancement introduces significant flexibility to application development and gives you greater control over UI components.

For more information, see Adding custom attributes for version 1 DX API to auto-generated controls.

Property-level security for full-text search

Property-level security has been added to full-text search so that you can limit access to sensitive data. From the Search landing page, you can specify whether to include properties with access control policies in search results. In addition, for custom search, you can select which properties to include in full-text search by selecting options on the Search landing page and Custom Search properties instance.

For more information, see Specifying custom search properties and Excluding properties with access control policies from search results.