Published Release Notes

Support for sending emails by using Microsoft Graph

Email integration with Microsoft Office 365 now supports sending emails by using Microsoft Graph. With this enhancement, you can send email with a more secure protocol that complies with your organization’s security policy.

For more information, see Creating an email account.

Conversation flow and smart shapes for the Digital Messaging chatbots

When creating Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant™ (IVA) for Digital Messaging, chatbot developers can now use new conversation smart shapes in a dedicated flow, making the design process simpler, more robust, and intuitive. With the new smart shapes, the chatbot displays text messages or asks questions to users in one of several ways. In addition, developers do not have to create additional rules, switch tabs, or perform manual validation. You can associate the conversation flow that you create for your IVA with a business case, use the flow on its own, or reuse it in another conversation flow, improving the overall chatbot design process.

For more information, see Adding a stand-alone conversation process for a conversational channel, Adding a case type conversation process for a conversational channel, Editing the conversation smart shapes and Flow shapes.

Support for REST connectors to route network traffic via proxy

To easily route network traffic, you can now configure proxy details for individual REST connectors. This enhancement allows you to manage your proxy settings so that you can securely access online resources that lie beyond your proxy servers.

For more information, see Configuring a REST connector.

Connect-HTTP support discontinued

Pega Platform™ no longer supports Connect-HTTP rules. HTTP connectors were used to start HTTP request/response interactions between Pega Platform and external systems identified by a Connect HTTP rule (Rule-Connect-HTTP rule type).

After an upgrade to Pega Platform 8.6 and later, you can still use and modify existing HTTP connectors, but you cannot create new ones. As a best practice, use REST connectors instead, which offer more capabilities and have better support from development teams.

For more information, see Connect REST rules.

Data import wizard compatibility with Cosmos applications

The data import wizard is now Cosmos-compliant. When you launch the data import wizard as a page, you can leverage the new features provided by Theme-Cosmos, such as adding custom buttons and functionality to your Cosmos applications.

Ability to forward emails in triage cases

When working on customer emails in the Email Manager or Case Manager portal, customer service representatives (CSRs) can now forward emails to additional stakeholders, for example, third-party vendors or sellers. As a result, CSRs that work with Pega Email Bot™ save time, improve responsiveness to customer inquiries, and make email triaging more efficient. The email bot keeps each forwarded email conversation in a separate email thread from the customer conversation, making the system more consistent and secure.

For more information, see Communicate with stakeholders on a customer query by forwarding emails and Forwarding emails to other stakeholders for an email bot.

Outbound email templates for email bots

Pega Email Bot™ now provides built-in templates for outbound email and an option to create your own, custom templates. You can use this feature to standardize branding for your applications and the company through your communication channels. For example, customer service representatives (CSRs), who use the Email Manager or Case Manager portals, can apply these templates to strengthen your brand's presence in every email that they send or that the email bot automatically sends as an acknowledgment for a user email.

You select an outbound email template when you configure the Email channel. The system provides you with three built-in outbound email templates that you can select or modify to fit the requirements of your organization.

For more information, see Creating an Email channel and Creating outbound email templates.

Support for configuring and saving external data in App Studio

You can now configure a savable data plan to easily replace or update related data directly from App Studio, and persist those changes during the case lifecycle. This enhancement allows you to work directly in App Studio, without being limited to read-only access of data from case types.

Automation performance enhancements

To improve the performance of automation-based REST services and DX APIs, you can now configure JSON inputs and outputs in automation rules. The automation passes the JSON object directly to an automation-based REST service or DX API, eliminating the need to transform data on a page to JSON first. You can also take advantage of this enhancement if you are calling an automation from an activity. Additionally, you can simulate a JSON response in the automation rule and update the JSON sample if needed.

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Support for creating automations

You can now create automations in Pega Platform. By creating an automation, you clearly define a contract to perform a specific task. For example, you can create an automation that retrieves a list of data objects that are available in the application.  

For more information, see Creating an automation.