Published Release Notes

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.

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.

Predictive models can drive predictions

You can use predictive models as the basis of your predictions. As a data scientist, you can now use Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) to replace models in your system. You can replace a model in a prediction with a PMML, H2O MOJO, or Pega OXL predictive model, as well as a scorecard or field, and then approve the update for deployment to a production environment. You can respond to a Prediction Studio notification that an active model does not generate enough lift and decide to replace the low-performing model with a high-accuracy model. You can also update a prediction on a regular basis, for example, whenever you develop a new churn model in an external environment.

For more information, see Replace models in predictions and migrate changes to production with MLOps.

Enhancing the performance of your Next-Best-Action strategy with globally optimized strategies

Starting in version 8.6, Pega Platform™ combines the versatility of Next-Best-Action Designer with strategy performance enhancements provided by using globally optimized strategies (GOS). Decrease the run time and memory usage of executing the Next-Best-Action strategy in batch or real-time scenarios by using the globally optimized strategies generated by Next Best Action Designer.

GOS is supported by Pega Platform's standard business change management process. GOS rules are automatically included in relevant revision packages.

For more information, see Enhance the performance of your Next-Best-Action strategy with globally optimized strategies (8.6).

Support for picklists with parameterized data pages in App Studio in Cosmos React UI

You can now use data pages with parameters to populate a property of the picklist type with filtered results in App Studio. For example, in a survey case type, you can use a parameterized data page to configure cascading drop-down controls in which the values in a secondary drop-down list are based on the value that the user selects in the primary drop-down list. With dynamically-sourced picklists, you get greater flexibility in configuring picklists, and users see more accurate values.

For more information, see link Dropdown control Properties — General tab.

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.

Association of incoming emails with triage cases

Customer service representatives (CSRs) can now associate an email triage case with existing business cases or service requests. As a result, CSRs can respond more quickly to information about the same issue reported by customers several times. The system displays a list of related service cases for the same customer that CSRs can then associate or disassociate from the open email triage case in the Email Manager or Case Manager portal.

For more information, see Associating service requests with a triage case and Keep related incoming emails together for a triage case.

Secure email threading mechanism in email bots

Pega Email Bot™ now uses a secure built-in threading mechanism to ensure that all email communication between customer service representatives (CSRs), customers, and other stakeholders is secure and organized in separate threads for a triage case. For this purpose, the system embeds a unique encrypted security code in the body of outbound emails that identifies related triage cases, service requests, and forwarded emails.

For more information, see Understanding email triage process and Use a secure threading mechanism for emails.

Easier customer record management in Customer Profile Designer (early preview)

The new Customer Profile Designer module of Pega Customer Decision Hub™ makes it possible for marketing analysts and strategy designers to define the associated data for each customer context directly in the Pega Customer Decision Hub portal. It is also possible to define more complex associated data structures that use a custom data flow, or define associated data of different types, such as RDBMS and Cassandra, for the same customer context.

Customer Profile Designer is available in Pega Customer Decision Hub 8.6 version as an early preview version. The functionality will be further expanded in future releases.

For more information, see Manage customer records in Customer Profile Designer (8.6).

Ability to handle responses to automatic email notifications in email bots

Pega Email Bot™ can now handle email responses to automatic email notifications that a Pega Platform™ application sends for a related case. As a result, customer service representatives (CSRs) can save time because all relevant emails from customers and other stakeholders are available from a single triage case in the system. To use this feature, ensure that you add the same email account to the email bot that you use to send case notifications in your application.

For more information, see Handle customer responses to automatic email notifications.