Published Release Notes

Automate business process tracking by importing Excel files

To track business processes status and data, you can now import Excel files when you create a case or data object in App Studio. This functionality provides the following enhancements:

• You can now upload a CSV file when you create a case or data object in App Studio. By importing a CSV file, you can use the data in your spreadsheet to define your data model.
• You can generate a data import template that you can use to import a file in its original format during production.
• You can upload .xlsx files to avoid resaving your Excel file as a CSV file.

For more information, see Creating a data model from a spreadsheet.

Data APIs support data exploration in React UI tables

Data APIs have been enhanced to support filtering, sorting, paging, and aggregation in React UI tables. You can use that functionality to access your data quickly and intuitively. For example, by using paging, you can query a data page to retrieve the second page of an employee contact list and specify the number of results that are displayed on the page.

For more information, see Data API performance and limitations.

Support for application-specific REST API calls

You can now call an authenticated REST API in the context of any application that is listed on an operator record by using the application alias URL. With the application alias URL, you can also develop REST services without changing the access group in the service package. REST services run in the context of the access group that points to the provided application, instead of the access group that is specified in the service package.

For more information, see Invoking a REST service rule.

Reports with visualizations of performance and automation levels for the email bot

In the Email Manager portal, you can now use built-in reports to visualize Pega Email Bot™ performance and the automation levels that are related to received emails, triaged cases, and created business cases. You can plug the reports to display the report data in other portals, for example the Case Manager portal. Based on the information displayed in the reports, you can adjust the machine learning models to achieve greater automation in the system.

For more information, see Viewing the reports for the Email channel and Built-in reports for the email bot.

Improved experience when building an IVA and Email Bot in App Studio

Build your Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant™ (IVA) and Pega Email Bot™ while working only in App Studio. This approach makes the design process easier and more intuitive, and saves you time. You can now modify the advanced text analyzer configuration while working in App Studio. In addition, if you have access to Dev Studio, you can edit the text analyzer rule from App Studio for your chatbot or email bot by clicking a link to open the settings in Dev Studio.

For more information, see Adding a text analyzer for an email bot and Adding a text analyzer for an IVA.

Triage cases archiving in the email bot (Pega Cloud Services)

For Pega Platform™ that is installed in Pega Cloud^® Services, you can configure Pega Email Bot™ to archive resolved triage cases that are older than a specified number of days. Archiving triage cases improves the overall performance of your system by reducing the primary storage consumption and cost because the system places such resolved triage cases in a secondary storage.

For more information, see Archiving resolved emails for an email bot (Pega Cloud Services).

Failed Robotic Assignments work queue type changed to Standard

The default Failed Robotic Assignments work queue type is now Standard. In previous releases, the default type was Robotic. For usage information, see Configuring a work queue for robotic automation.

Upgrade impact

After upgrading to Pega Platform 8.5 and later, you cannot save case types in which you configure the Queue for robot smart shape to route new assignments to the Failed Robotic Assignments work queue. Existing assignments that you routed to the Failed Robotic Assignments work queue are not affected.

How do I update my application to be compatible with this change?

As a best practice, do not use the Failed Robotic Assignments work queue in your custom implementations. Instead, configure the Queue for robot smart shape to route new assignments to a Robotic work queue. When possible, update existing case types to use the robotic work queues that you created in your application.

Savable data pages support loading pages individually from a page list

You can now load individual pages in a page list from single object data pages to your case and data types. This functionality allows you to save autopopulated properties with the Load each page individually option using a flow action, save data page smart shape, or the activity method.

For more information, see Saving data in a data page as part of a flow.

Usability improvements in the Email Manager and Case Manager portals

Pega Email Bot™ customer service representatives (CSRs) working in the Email Manager, Case Manager, or Case Worker portals can now quickly reply to one recipient or to all recipients. CSRs can also view the sentiment analysis of an email (positive, negative, or neutral) for each received email, displaying the sentiment pattern for the entire email thread in a triage case. The email bot improvements add value for CSRs working in the portals and help them save time when responding to user requests.

For more information, see Understanding the email triage process and Replying to customers by email for an email bot.

New database tables for email bots

Pega Email Bot™ now uses two new database tables that make the system more reliable and improve system performance. The pc_work_triage table stores complete information about email triage cases for the email bot. The pr_index_tracktriageactions table stores information about captured actions in triage cases.

Upgrade impact

During an upgrade to Pega Platform™ 8.5, a dedicated job scheduler automatically migrates resolved and open triage cases to these email bot tables in the background. If you expose additional properties as database columns or expose additional custom columns in the pc_work table, you must prepare your application for this automated migration. For more information, see Migrating triage cases to new tables.

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

If the pc_work table in your application has no additional properties or custom columns, there is nothing to do; if it does, prior to an upgrade to Pega Platform 8.5, you must extend the pyPopulateColumnNamesExtension data transform to any exposed additional columns in legacy tables with this information.

For more information, see Database schema for email bot tables.