Published Release Notes

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

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you can import a certificate revocation list (CRL) for Pega Platform to use when checking the files to see if they have been revoked.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. 

Native synchronization indicators for offline-enabled mobile apps

Offline-enabled mobile apps now include a set of native synchronization indicators. Indicators keep users informed about the data synchronization status, for example, the Syncing indicator appears when an app regains network connectivity and starts receiving responses from the server. You can customize the indicators to better suit the look and feel of your mobile app. For more information, see Customizing synchronization indicators.

Upgrade impact

After upgrading Pega Platform™ to version 8.5, your app does not include native synchronization indicators until you update your application to use UI-Kit 15.

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

Update the UI Kit in your application to version 15. For more information, see Updating the UI Kit in your application.

Search and Reporting does not index large items

When using the Search and Reporting (SRS) microservice in Pega Platform™ 8.5, you might encounter problems with indexing large out-of-the-box rules. The issue is not visible in Queue Processors, but you can access logs to verify which items the system does not index.