Published Release Notes

Support for an external Elasticsearch cluster for on-premises deployments

On-premises customers can configure an Elasticsearch cluster that is external to the Pega Platform™ by using client-server mode. Using an external search configuration makes Elasticsearch more highly available and scalable. 

You can view the status of your external Elasticsearch service on the Search landing page. For more information, see link to Viewing the status of an external search service.

Additional adaptive model predictors based on Interaction History

Customer interactions are now automatically used in adaptive models to predict future customer decisions. For example, a phone purchase registered in Interaction History allows an adaptive model to predict that a customer is more likely to accept supplementary coverage for a new device. Such interactions, collected in a predefined Interaction History summary, are applied as an additional set of predictors in an adaptive model.

The aggregated Interaction History summary predictors are enabled by default for every adaptive model configuration.

For more information, see Enabling Interaction History predictors for existing adaptive models.

Update text analytics models instantly through an API

Use the pxUpdateModels API to automatically retrain text analytics models for which you gathered feedback as a result of the pxCaptureTAFeedback activity. The pxUpdateModels API provides an option to update the model with the latest feedback without having to open Prediction Studio. Instead, you can use the activity from your application, for example, through a button control.

For more information, see Feedback loop for text analytics.

Managed real-time data flow runs

Pega Platform™ now fully manages the life cycle of real-time data flow runs which helps you save time and reduce maintenance efforts. You no longer need to re-create the runs in every environment and manually pause and restart them after every modification. The application manages such runs by seamlessly implementing your changes and keeping the runs active until they encounter a specified number of errors or until you exclude the runs from the application.

For more information, see Tutorial: Using managed data flow runs and Creating a real-time run for data flows

REST APIs for system management

New REST APIs are available for reports, agent management, requestor management, cache management, queue processing, and node management. Call these APIs to troubleshoot issues, or perform administrative functions in Cloud applications.

For more information, see Pega API.

Import only new instances of specific classes

To bypass updates for specific classes and only import new instances of those types, edit the product rule definition.  For more information, see Specifying product rule deployment options.

Create configurable node types with purpose-specific names

To meet your specific business needs, you can now configure your own node types that you can segregate by purpose, and also define their behavior. Pega Platform™ supports node types that you can associate with multiple resources, like agents or job schedulers. For ease of use, apply meaningful names to your node types.

For more information, see Node classification, Creating configurable node types.

New roles required for system management features and APIs after upgrade

The pzSystemOperationsObserver and pzSystemOperationsAdministator privileges are no longer used for accessing system management features in Admin Studio and for system management APIs. Pega Platform™ has new privileges for individual system management functions and new roles configured with these privileges. Use the following roles to access system management features and APIs:

• PegaRULES:SysOpsAdministrator – has all administrator and observer privileges
• PegaRULES:SysOpsObserver – has all observer privileges
• PegaRULES:SysAdm4 – has all administrator and observer privileges

After upgrading, you can include one or more of these roles in your access group or create a custom role. For more information about access roles, see Access roles.

Enabling access to upgraded help

After upgrading to Pega Platform ™ 8.1, the default URL to the upgraded help files might be incorrect. To enable access to the latest help files, reset the URL:

1. In the header of Dev Studio, click Configure > System > Settings > URLs.
2. Enter the Online Help URL:

   https://community.pega.com/sites/default/files/help_v81/

3. Click Save.
4. Log out and log back into Pega Platform.

Prediction Studio notifications

Prediction Studio now displays notifications when adaptive or predictive models encounter problems. For example, if the performance of a model decreases suddenly, a notification appears, which you can use to immediately investigate the cause of the problem.

For more information, see Accessing Prediction Studio notifications and Prediction Studio notification types.