Published Release Notes

End of support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 in Pega 7.2.1

In accordance with Microsoft’s announcement to discontinue support for Internet Explorer 9, Pega 7.2.1 will not support Internet Explorer 9. You should not upgrade to Pega 7.2.1 if you are still using Internet Explorer 9. Otherwise, upgrade to Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 or later, or use Google Chrome, Apple Safari, or Mozilla Firefox, which support certain HTML5 and CSS3 standards not supported in Internet Explorer 9.

For more information about browser support, see the Platform Support Guide or contact Pegasystems Global Customer Support.

Ability to import data into a Pega Cloud database

You can export a custom Pega 7 Platform database table into a CSV file and import it into a Pega Cloud database or other Pega 7 Platform database by using the Data Upload utility. This utility is available only for Postgres databases and tables that do not contain BLOB columns. This utility is useful, for example, for updating a product catalog that is used in a Pega Cloud application.

For more information, see Importing data into a Pega Cloud database.

Ability to schedule schema updates for Pega Cloud

You can schedule BLOB size and table statistic updates to database schemas to run automatically by using agents. Scheduling schema updates is useful for performance monitoring and tuning in the Pega Cloud. This feature is available only for customers who use a Postgres database.

There is an agent for updating the average and maximum BLOB sizes, and an agent for updating table statistics. Each agent can be configured separately for each schema. You can configure whether to schedule the agent to run daily or weekly. You can deactivate a running schedule on the Schema Tools landing page by clicking Designer Studio > System > Database > Schema Tools. From the Schema Tools landing page, you can configure more complex scheduling on the Edit Agent Schedule landing page. In addition, you can configure these agents by using Dynamic Data System Settings.

For more information, see Scheduling schema updates.

Immediate drain available for the quiesce process when using high availability

The quiesce process, which is used to take a server out of service for maintenance in a highly available system, can now be modified to use the immediate drain method. When using the default slow drain method for quiesce, users are placed in a passivation queue. When using the immediate drain method, users can continue to access the node being quiesced until it is removed from the load balancer.

Organizations should determine which quiesce method to use based on the overall needs of their users. However, for applications that have implemented long poll requests, it is recommended to use the slow drain method.

For more information, see the Pega 7.2.1 High Availability Administration Guide.

Access work items directly after login

You can now directly access work items that you receive as email notifications or URLs. The Pega 7 Platform opens the work item after successful user authentication instead of redirecting you to the portal. For a valid user, the type of authentication or number of failed login attempts does not affect this direct access.

For systems that use basic or secure basic authentication, administrators can disable the redirect URL by setting the authentication/basicschemes/redirectToLoginScreen switch to false.

Support for Hotfix Manager in service-enabled system management

You can manage hotfixes by using a REST service from Hotfix Manager in the service-enabled system management utility. With service-enabled system management, you can manage hotfixes simultaneously on more than one Pega 7 Platform system. You can manage the following hotfix operations: install, scan, commit, rollback, and GenerateDDL.

For more information, see Managing hotfixes (service-enabled).

Improved Pega 7 Platform upgrade and update time

The Pega 7 Platform upgrade and update tools have been improved to streamline indexing. Upgrading and updating are faster than with previous releases.

Option to resume failed upgrades and updates

When you upgrade or update to Pega 7.2.1, you can opt to have the system resume the deployment after a failure to avoid restarting the deployment and to save time. The deployment resumes at the point of failure and does not repeat any successful steps. This functionality is not supported for new installations. For more details, see the Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide and the Pega 7 Platform Update Guide.

Open access to quiesced servers when using immediate drain

When using the immediate drain method to perform quiesce on a node, any operator can now access a quiesced server for root cause analysis or remediation, regardless of their user role or privileges. For quiesced server access when using the slow drain method, you must still include either the PegaRULES:HighAvailabilityAdministrator or PegaRULES:HighAvailabilityQuiesceInvestigator user role in a user's access group. Administrators using the slow drain method without either of these user roles are exiled from the quiesced node and are redirected to an active node.

For more information, see Immediate drain available for quiesce when using high availability.

New passivation and activation activities

Two new activities have been implemented, pyPrePassivation and pyPostActivation, which are run every time operator passivation occurs, regardless of the node quiesce state. These activities save and restore the requestor state during passivation and activation. In order for the pyPrePassivation or pyPostActivation activity to be run as expected, you must implement the activity by using the correct Applies To class (@baseclass).

The previous activities that were run during the quiesce process, pyPreQuiescePassivation and pyPostQuiesceActivation, have been deprecated.

For more information, see the Pega 7.2.1 High Availability Administration Guide.