Published Release Notes

Consistent search experience in App Studio

Pega Platform™ now supports a unified search mechanism in App Studio. Instead of manually locating a single item, such as a case type, a channel, or a data object, you can simply use the Search option in the navigation pane. You can also use Search in case types and personas landing pages, to conveniently access the information that you need, for example channels and case types associated with a persona.  

For more information, see Plan your Microjourneys more conveniently in an improved Case Designer (8.5), Creating a Microjourney for customer success.

Automatically update dependent applications to use the latest versions of built-on applications

You can now automatically update dependent applications to use the latest versions of built-on applications. When you import an archive that you created from a product rule, you can update all dependent applications to be built on the latest application versions in the archive.

For more information, see Updating dependent applications with the latest versions of built-on applications.

Automated project estimation in App Studio

App Studio now supports estimating projects in an intuitive and automated way, so that you can plan your work with greater efficiency and accuracy. Estimations include the number of hours that you will need to deliver an application, based on multiple factors such as the delivery methodology, the number and complexity of features to implement, and the number of teams involved. After you provide the required data, the project estimator calculates the expected duration of application development. To share your project estimates outside Pega Platform™, for example with your stakeholders, you can also export estimates to an .xlsx file.

For more information, see Estimate projects automatically in App Studio (8.5), Estimating application development.

Enhanced application inventory to support features

Now the application inventory in App Studio also includes features that represent elements of your application to implement, such as language packs, along with personas and data objects. The inventory provides the option to add new features or reuse existing features from built-on applications. With the enhanced inventory, application development planning and tracking is faster and more intuitive because you can now easily check the features that your development team needs to implement. For greater clarity, the inventory supports different methods of grouping features, for example, by release or complexity.     

For more information, see Managing application inventory.

Enhanced Case Designer in App Studio

For greater clarity when visualizing your business processes, App Studio now has an improved Case Designer. In Pega Platform™ 8.5, every persona displays a list of associated channels, and every data object lists associated systems, instead of showing multiple entities for different channels or systems. Additionally, for better distinction every channel and system displays a unique icon. To fully convey your business process using just one screen, Case Designer now also supports visualizing attachments required for your microjourney, as well as creating draft associations between personas and channels.

For more information, see Plan your Microjourneys more conveniently in an improved Case Designer (8.5), Creating a Microjourney for customer success.

Searching for Pulse messages available in spaces

Pega Platform™ now supports searching for Pulse messages within a space. For greater accuracy of the results, you can search by applying different filters, such as keywords, message authors, and a time range for posting of the messages. The results return private and public posts, comments, and attachments that match the search filters. When the result is a comment, Pulse displays the whole message thread for full context.

For more information, see Search for Pulse messages in spaces (8.5), Searching for Pulse messages in spaces.

Alerts for long-running queue processor and job scheduler activities

Pega Platform™ now saves an alert in the performance alert log when a queue processor activity or a scheduled job runs longer than the configured threshold value. Use the alerts to identify potential performance issues with long-running processes.

The alerts are enabled by default. You can change the alerts for dedicated queue processors and job schedulers at the rules level. For standard queue processors, you can also set the threshold value for the Queue-For-Processing command in an activity. You disable the alerts in dynamic system settings.

For more information, see:

• PEGA0117 alert: Long-running queue processor activity
• PEGA0118 alert: Long-running job scheduler activity

Automatic draft off mode for processes in case types

App Studio now supports automatically turning off the draft mode for processes in your case types. Any process that you add to a case type is in draft mode by default so that you can run the case type to check the run-time behavior even if the process contains errors. However, in a production environment, processes in draft mode do not work. To save time and deliver your projects faster, any process that has no errors now automatically switches off draft mode when you save the case type. Additionally, Case Designer now displays a list of errors that processes in your case type include, so that you can quickly locate any issues.

For more information, see Save time and effort with automatic draft off mode for processes in case types (8.5), Draft mode of case processes.

Enhancements for fields in views and data models

Pega Platform™ now provides a unified experience of adding fields to views, the case type data model, and the application data model, by using an intuitive dialog box. For greater clarity, a new field type, data relationship, replaces data references, field groups, and field group lists. As a result, you can conveniently reuse data objects in your application. 

When you upgrade to Pega 8.5, your system automatically converts your field groups, field group lists, and data references to data relationships. The case type data model now displays all the fields by default, including any referenced fields, and provides an application layer that contains each field. Use this functionality to view how the data is organized across your system.

For more information, see Define fields in data objects intuitively (8.5), Adding data relationships to fields and data models.

Introduction of Search and Reporting Service

Pega Platform™ now uses Search and Reporting Service, which is an independent microservice. The new enhancement provides a convenient way to manage your application data, and is easier to maintain. For example, because of the cloud-based architecture of Search and Reporting Service, any bug fixes and performance improvements occur seamlessly, and have no impact on your overall experience in Pega Platform.

For more information, see Search and Reporting overview.