Published Release Notes

Extract data from Pega Cloud to an on-premises database

You can now use Pega^® Business Intelligence Exchange (BIX) to extract data from Pega Cloud to an on-premises relational database management system. Extracting data from Pega Cloud directly to an on-premises database improves efficiency by eliminating the need for file extraction and the development of a file extraction infrastructure.

For more information, see Extracting data from Pega Cloud to an on-premises database.

Improved connection pooling performance

HikariCP is now used for connection pooling for databases that are configured by using a URL. HikariCP improves connection pooling performance; however, more database connections might be used than in previous versions of Pega^® Platform.

As a result of the switch to HikariCP, you cannot use the System Management Application (SMA) to get diagnostic data from your application. For instructions about how to get diagnostic data by using REST services, see Obtaining connection pool diagnostic data by using REST services.

No longer supported translator configuration options

The following translator configuration options are not needed and are no longer supported. If you previously configured any of these system settings, remove them from the system settings to avoid a warning message. For example, if you set translator/useparserfamily, the following message is displayed at startup: "Translator option, 'translator/useparserfamily' is not needed and no longer supported. Remove this from the system settings."

• translator/useparserfamily
• translator/usecodegenerator
• translator/usenativedouble
• translator/optimization/use71BlockAnalysis
• translator/optimization/use71ConstantFolding
• translator/optimization/use71AssignmentTypeSimplification
• translator/optimization/use71IntrinsicFunctions
• translator/use71PropSetGeneration
• translator/use71ParserAssignment
• assembly/model/useBlock4ContiguousSets
• /translator/pandc/comparepandcalgorithms
• /translator/pandc/use6xalgorithms
• /Compatibility/CheckForTopLevelClassMismatch

In addition, the com.pega.pegarules.generation.parseoverride bootstrap option is no longer supported. Remove this option from the system settings.

System state data is saved for 90 days

System state data is now saved to the database for 90 days and can be downloaded as a JSON file. Having previous system state data available is useful for debugging system problems. Operators with the pzSystemOperationsObserver privilege can download system state data from the Cluster Management landing page for either the entire cluster or a single node. In addition, the PersistClusterState and PersistNodeState agents have been added to the Pega-RulesEngine ruleset for persisting system state data to the database.

For more information, see Downloading the system state.

PegaDATA connection settings now required in the prconfig.xml file

If you use the default prconfig.xml file that is included with Pega^® Platform, and you have not removed the PegaDATA connection settings, no action is required. If you use a custom prconfig.xml file, for example, for running tests, ensure that the database connection settings for PegaDATA are not blank.

For more information about the connection settings, see PegaDATA connection settings in the prconfig.xml file.

Node classification replaces NodeID-based configuration

For simpler cluster administration and better application resiliency, Pega^® Platform is moving toward a node classification model. Although agents will continue to work by using NodeIDs for several upcoming releases, use node types instead of NodeID configuration for agents, listeners, and decisioning services for more efficient operations and upgrades.

For more information, see Node classification.

Unit testing support for more rule types

You can now create unit tests for the following additional rule types. You can also create assertions to validate activity status. The expanded rule types for unit testing enable developers to more thoroughly perform regression testing of their application, thereby improving application quality.

• Collection
• Declare expression
• Map value
• Report definition

For more information about unit testing rules, see Pega unit test cases.

Upgrade impact

With the four new rule types, unit test execution and unit test compliance metrics will change. Reports on automated unit testing of the customer application decrease due to the increased pool of supported rules.

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

After a successful upgrade, create Pega unit test cases for the newly supported rules to see updated and accurate unit test metrics.

Use Page-Change-Class method to change a Page class

With the release of Pega Platform™ 8.3, using the Property-Set method to change the Page class shows a guardrail warning. Use the Page-Change-Class method to change the Page class instead.

For more information about the Page-Change-Class method, see Changing the class of a page and Page-Change-Class method.

View application quality metrics by data type

You can now view application quality metrics by data type on the Application Quality landing page. The new Data Types tab displays metrics for data types grouped by data objects, which enables you to more quickly understand the overall coverage of the application's integrations and interfaces.

For more information about data type metrics, see Application Quality landing page.

Scenario tests are reusable

Existing scenario tests are now reusable in different business scenarios. Before Pega 8.3, you had to create a new test every time a user interface or process flow changed significantly. Now, scenario tests are editable to help you maintain the test stack more effectively.

For more information, see Updating scenario tests.