Published Release Notes

Data schema error on z/OS split schema upgrades from versions before Pega 7.1.8

When upgrading to a split schema on Pega 7.x with IBM DB2 for z/OS, you see an error during the data schema upgrade when the system tries to drop the PRPC_Updatescache procedure. Because triggers on rules tables use PRPC_Updatescache, you must use the ZOSDisableTriggerScripts to disable these triggers before you update the data schema.

1. Follow the instructions in the Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide to upgrade the rules schema, but stop immediately before you upgrade the data schema with the upgrade.bat or upgrade.sh script. The Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide is on the Support > Deployment Guides page.
2. Copy the contents of the <distribution>\ResourceKit\ZOSDisableTriggerScripts directory into the <distribution>\scripts\ directory.
3. Run fixZosTriggers.bat or fixZosTriggers.sh with the following arguments:
   --action preupgrade
--dataschema <data schema name>
   --oldrulesschema <old rules schema name. If you are upgrading from a single-schema system, this is the data schema name.>
   --newrulesschema <new rules schema name>
   --automaticddl <Optional. Set to true to automatically apply the disable trigger SQL scripts.>

   For example:
   fixZosTriggers --action preupgrade --dataschema pegadata --oldrulesschema pegarules --newrulesschema newrules --automaticddl false

4. If you did not set --automaticddl to true in the previous step, run the <distribution>\schema/disable.sql script to manually disable the trigger SQL scripts.
5. Run the data schema upgrade as described in the Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide.

Improved search indexing performance

Search indexing now uses a queue processor to improve indexing performance. Indexing can automatically restart if the database goes down temporarily. This saves time and manual action. As a result of using the queue processor for indexing, the following changes have been made to the Search Landing page.

• You cannot cancel indexing from the Search landing page. Cancel indexing by stopping the queue processor from the Data flow landing page.
• The progress message is not shown. View progress on the Queue Processor landing page.
• Queue processor information has been added.

For more information, see Stopping or pausing search reindexing.

More visibility of your production level

You can now see the production level of your environment in a new gadget that is available in all Pega Platform™ workspaces. To ensure that you immediately recognize your current environment, you can give it a unique name that is displayed when you click the gadget. In addition to specifying your production level and environment name on the System form in Dev Studio, you can now specify those values on the System & nodes page in Admin Studio.

For more information on Admin Studio, see Modifying your environment name and production level.

For more information on Dev Studio, see Specifying the production level.

Rule revalidation after updating properties without restarting nodes

When you update certain property attributes, such as a property's maximum length, rule types that reference the property might not reflect the change. You do not always have to restart nodes to revalidate the referencing rules when they cannot be resaved, for example, when they are in a locked ruleset. For Pega Platform™ 8.1 and later, for non-stream rules, such as activities, data transforms, and so on, use the reassemble API in Admin Studio or truncate the assembled classes table.

For stream rules, such as sections, harnesses, paragraphs, and so on, reassemble the rules and restart the nodes. For more information, see More about properties.

For previous versions of Pega Platform, use the System Management Application (SMA) to revalidate stream and non-stream rules.

Changes in JSON results when checking the health of your system

Beginning with Pega Platform™ 8.2, the JSON results that are returned when you ping a Pega Platform instance have changed. JSON results now include node type and health information, including test name, status, state, and node ID. The following samples show JSON results from versions before 8.2 and as of 8.2.

JSON results for pre-Pega Platform 8.2:

{ "duration":"3954.448601", "count":"0" }

JSON results for Pega Platform 8.2 and later:

{"node_type":["WebUser"],"health":[{"last_reported_time":"2019-02-14T16:10:49.589Z","test_name":"Sample-Stream-Check","status":"success"}],"state":"healthy","node_id":"10.10.10_samplenode"}.

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.

Condition builder enhancements

To enhance the precision of condition builder in both App Studio and Dev Studio, the new instances include comparator helps you specify the number of field group and field group list instances to which a when rule applies. In addition, a search option that returns results on keypress helps you easily look for existing values.

For more information, see Create conditions in an enhanced condition builder (8.5), Defining conditions in the condition builder.

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

Support for nested Declare Trigger rules

Pega Platform™ now supports nested Declare Trigger rules so that you can conveniently create correlations between actions in your case types. Declare Triggers rules invoke an action when a specified event takes place in a case type. You can now design more complex scenarios faster by nesting more Declare Trigger rules that work in the context of running another Declare Trigger rule. For example, when a case participant changes a postal code in their personal details, a Declare Trigger rule runs and a respective customer service representative (CSR) receives an email. After the CSR receives the email, a nested Declare Trigger rule runs and your application creates a document with the updated personal details and attaches it to the case.

For more information, see Develop applications faster with nested Declare Trigger rules (8.5), Declare Trigger rules.

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.