Published Release Notes

Control group configuration for predictions

You can now configure a control group for your predictions in Prediction Studio. Based on the control group, Prediction Studio calculates a lift score for each prediction that you can later use to monitor the success rate of your predictions.

For more information, see Customizing predictions.

Response timeout configuration for predictions

You can now set a response timeout for your predictions in Prediction Studio. By setting a response timeout, you control how Prediction Studio registers customer responses that later serve as feedback data for your predictions.

For more information, see Customizing predictions.

External data flow rules are deprecated

External data flows are now deprecated and no longer supported. To improve your user experience with Pega Platform™, the user interface elements associated with these rules are hidden from view by default. Identifying unused features allows Pega to focus on developing and supporting the features that you need.

For more information, see Deprecated: External data flows.

Visual Business Director data is automatically cleaned after a retention period expires

To avoid negative impact on system resources, such as memory and disk space, Pega Platform™ automatically cleans out collections data accumulated in Visual Business Director after the time period specified in the vbd/dataRetentionTimeout dynamic system setting.

Upgrade impact

In versions of Pega Platform earlier than 8.5, collections data was not automatically removed. From version 8.5, the data is removed after 465 days (15 months) by default.

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

If the default data retention period does not meet your requirements, you can change it by editing the vbd/dataRetentionTimeout setting.

For more information, see "Configuring the data retention period for Visual Business Director" in the Pega Customer Decision Hub 8.5 Upgrade Guide on the Pega Customer Decision Hub product page.

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.

Ability to restrict access to the Import wizard

You can now restrict access to the Import wizard so that users implement an automated pipeline to deploy changes between environments such as staging and production. Deployment Manager is one method by which to create pipelines. By using pipelines to propagate changes, users can apply a standardized and automated deployment process for migrating their applications.

For more information, see:

• Ensuring that users migrate applications with a pipeline by restricting the Import wizard
• Understanding model-driven DevOps with Deployment Manager

Optimization check utility available for legacy strategies

Ensure that your strategies are compatible with the optimized strategy execution engine introduced in Pega Platform™ 8.1 by running a post-upgrade utility that checks strategies within your application for areas that you can optimize, for example, by reducing the number of page properties that are copied from one shape to another. Running the utility produces a report that you can use to plan the required updates to your strategies.

For more information, see Make your strategies compatible with the optimized strategy execution engine by using a check utility.

Optimized data schema upgrade

Several improvements have been made to optimize the speed of the data schema upgrade to help you experience minimal downtime during upgrade to Pega Platform 8.5™. The data schema upgrade process optimizations include the following improvements:

• Optimized database index creation during upgrade
• Optimized synchronization process to detect duplicate rules during the application import process
• A new upgrade setting for Pega Cloud® Services operators that reduces the time to upgrade clients that run large Pega applications, such as the CRM Suite

For more information, see Limit upgrade downtime with data schema upgrade improvements (8.5).

Support for hotfix file verification

Pega Platform hotfix files are now digitally signed so that they can be verified and authenticated. If your Pega Platform™ instance allows outbound URL connections, hotfix files are verified automatically during installation. If your Pega Platform instance does not allow outbound URL connections, you can verify the files manually by using third-party tools. Alternatively, if your Pega Platform instance does not allow outbound URL connections and you do not use third-party tools to verify hotfix files, you can import a certificate revocation list (CRL) for Pega Platform to use when checking the files to see if they have been revoked. 

For more information, see Verifying the authenticity of hotfix files. 

Uploading customer responses into adaptive models is no longer available

The option to train adaptive models by uploading a static list of historical interaction records has been deprecated in Pega Platform™ 8.5.

Upgrade impact

In versions of Pega Platform earlier than 8.5, it was possible to train an adaptive model by uploading historical data of customer interaction. After the upgrade to version 8.5, this option is no longer available.

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

Use data from a report definition to train adaptive models. For more information, see Training adaptive models.