Published Release Notes

Delayed adaptive learning

Data flows, a new rule type in Pega 7.1.7, allow you to store adaptive inputs and interaction results for a given period of time when running a strategy. This makes it possible to capture and learn from responses at a later date. For more information on data flow design for delayed learning, see Data Flow rule form - Completing the Data Flow tab.

Decision data stores

Decision Management in Pega 7.1.7 introduces two new concepts to manage data: decision data stores, and Data Nodes (DNodes). Horizontally scalable, and supported by DNodes, decision data stores take data from different sources, and make it available for real time and batch processing. This infrastructure is managed through the DNode Cluster Management landing page.

Your application can be a SAML service provider

You can quickly establish your application as a SAML service provider, with a web SSO profile, SOAP binding, and HTTP redirect binding to support single logout binding. The service is interoperable with Ping Identity, Tivoli Federated Identity Manager, and many other leading identity service providers (ISPs).

Manage data from different sources using data sets

Data sets define collections of records, allowing you to set up instances that make use of data abstraction to represent information stored in different sources and formats. This new rule type introduces the ability to manage data in database tables, decision data stores, and Visual Business Director data sources. Standard Interaction History and Adaptive Manager data sets manage interaction results and adaptive model data. The DataSet-Execute method supports data management operations on records that are defined by the data set. For more information on this new rule type, see About Data Set rules.

Data flow orchestration

Data flows provide a pattern-guided design experience to orchestrate, combine and sequence data based on a set of instructions from source to destination. You can run and manage data flows using the Data Flows landing page. For more information on this new rule type, see About Data Flow rules.

User interface distortions in the Predictive Analytics Director portal

By default, the New Application wizard configures new applications to include UI-Kit-7 in the list of application rulesets. This ruleset causes user interface distortions in the Predictive Analytics Director portal. Applications created in maintenance level updates previous to Pega 7.1.6, and applications that do not include the UI-Kit-7 dependency, are not impacted by this known issue.

Workaround:

1. Open the application record.
2. In Application Rulesets, remove UI-Kit-7.
3. Save the application record.

Noticeable differences between work objects created in the Decision Manager portal when compared to Designer Studio

In the Decision Manager portal, you create work objects by running flows in the enterprise application that serves as the base application for the application overlay. If the enterprise application does not include the UI-Kit-7 in its application rulesets, work objects can display differently in the Decision Manager portal when compared to Designer Studio because an application overlay is always configured to include the UI-Kit-7 ruleset.

Recommendation:

1. Add the UI-Kit-7 ruleset dependency to the enterprise application.
2. Redesign the user interface to comply with the UI-Kit-7 ruleset.

Rollback functionality is limited to latest revision

The rollback functionality in DSM Revision Manager allows customers to roll back the import of the latest revision to their DSM application. Only one rollback is allowed; after a rollback, the rollback option is disabled until the next revision is imported. If importing two (or more) revisions at once then attempting a rollback, the system only rolls back one revision.

Example: a user has a base DSM application. They import Revision 1, and then import Revision 2. Next, they try to roll back both revisions. The system reverts to the Revision 1 version of the application, and the customer cannot revert all the way back to the base application.

System Management Application displaying listeners that do not require any action

After installing or upgrading to Pega 7.1.7, there is an additional available listener (Data-Decision-DNode-Service:Default) that does not require any action. This listener can be safely ignored and you should not use the System Management Application to manage any of its operations or state.

• The Data-Decision-DNode-Service:Default listener is always running on every PRPC node.
• The state of this listener is internally managed by PRPC. Starting or stopping it through SMA does not have any effect on its state.

Password hashing using SHA-256/SHA-512

Password hashing using the SHA-256 and SHA-512 hash functions is available for use during the the Pega 7 authentication process with operator, ruleset, and update lock passwords. The SHA-256/SHA-512 hash functions join the previously available MD5 and SHA-1 hash functions.

Using SHA-256/SHA-512 hashing when creating or upgrading a password hash results in increased complexity of the hash, making it extremely difficult and time-consuming to determine hashed password values stored in a database.

Note that once you have updated your system to Pega 7.1.7 and have applied password hashing using the SHA-256/SHA-512 hash functions, reverting back to a previous version of Pega 7 is not advised as this causes hashed passwords using SHA-256/SHA-512 to fail.

See About password hashing for more information.