Published Release Notes

Decision Management

This release contains a number of fixes that improve the configuration and execution of Batch decisions – specifically, a number of usability improvements and addresses some issues when creating strategies on IE8.  

• Batch Decision functionality has been enhanced in the NBAM environment.
• In NBAM, users can run the strategy execution batch based on the Seed list class instead of the customer class. 
• Interaction data will now work even if Action or Organization  dimensions do not have values set.
• Running a strategy which includes a Data Import of a structured page reference will work in batch mode.
• Security was enhanced on the VBD Planner.
• The Access of Role to Object rules have been enhanced to allow users to create new Dimension Operator records.
• The NBAM Segment On Canvas will now fetch the SegMap data, even when the generated extended segment class has not been added to the Pages and Classes of the strategy.  The SegMap property will (if it exists) be added to a list of properties to fetch, even if the strategy indicates that it is not used.
• When a strategy is defined on a customer class, users may now specify the list of required properties to fetch for the input definition.
• When creating a new strategy, there is now a section to add a Strategy Results class like Business Issue or Group.

Decision Strategy Manager

Fixes were made that improve the configuration and execution of Batch Decisions. In particular,  the capability to use Structured Data has been enhanced. Some notable improvements have also been made to the UI of Visual Business Director.

• The structured data input configuration will now work even though there is no data.
• VBD has been enhanced to work with Version 7.1.
• The structured data input configuration will now work with nested structures.
• Association rules from Version 6.3 will now work with 7.1 structured data.

Flexible inputs in strategies

Decision parameters allow business users to influence the decision through flexible inputs that do not require changing strategies. System architects use extension points to configure the data model and user interface supporting decision parameters. Decision parameters are used in strategies, and changes to the values of decision parameters become immediately available without requiring any changes to the strategy.

The rule pxRunDecisionParameters supports the use of decision parameters through activities.

Enable business users to own parts of an enterprise application

Decision Manager functionality allows business users to own parts of an enterprise application within the boundaries defined by IT. PegaDM includes the Pega-DecisionManager ruleset that supports this functionality.

System architects define the boundaries for business users in the Decision Manager portal using revision management and proposition authorization facilities in Designer Studio. Access control is provided through custom roles, which system architects can create based on granular privileges. The Decision Manager portal provides business users with a controlled environment for the workflow, and the activities necessary to address the objectives of a revision.

Predefined inputs when designing and testing strategies

External input settings allow for propagating results to other strategies, providing strategy designers with a mechanism to reuse strategies and test strategies with predefined inputs.

Design segmentation trees in strategies

You can include the traditional segmentation tree pattern in your strategies using the following features:

• Exclusion components to conditionally stop the propagation of decision results.
• Split components to branch the decision results according to the percentage of cases covered by the result.
• The Otherwise label for component connections where one of the outgoing connections has a defined label.

Simplified Adaptive Decision Manager Deployment

The Adaptive Decision Manager (ADM) server relies on automatic detection of the database dialect. This simplifies the number of deployable archives used to set up the ADM service.

Cumulative calculation in strategies

Iteration components provide strategies with a mechanism to perform cumulative calculations.

User interface distortions in the Decision Manager portal

By default, the New Application wizard in Pega 7.1.6 configures new applications to include UI-Kit-7 in the list of application rulesets. This ruleset causes user interface distortions in the Decision Manager portal. Both applications created in previous maintenance level updates and applications created in Pega 7.1.6 that do not include the UI-Kit-7 dependency are not impacted by this known issue.

Workaround:

1. Open the application record.
2. In Application Rulesets, remove UI-Kit-7.
3. Save the application record.

Application overlays are enhanced to include more rules types that business users can change through the Decision Manager portal

Revision management overlays have been extended to include additional rule types (decision tree, and map value), enhancing the extent to which business users can review and change the logic used in strategies. For more information on this new feature, see the Revision Management landing page.