Optimized performance of embedded decision strategies
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
The performance of embedded strategies has now been optimized so that these strategies take less time and fewer CPU and memory resources to complete. This enhancement increases the performance of cloud and on-premises deployments.
For more information, see About Strategy rules.
New method of aggregating real-time events
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
Event Strategy now uses the approximate median for calculating aggregations. Approximate median calculation replaces the existing method because it requires fewer system resources for saving or loading the event strategy state. In addition, you can now calculate aggregated values by using a new Landmark window type. The window type captures all values of specific event properties from the start of the data flow that references the event strategy.
For more information, see Adding aggregations in event strategies.
Extended language support in text analytics
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
Pega Platform™ text analytics now supports 9 more languages. You can build entity and topic detection models to analyze text in the Japanese, Russian, Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Croatian, and Czech languages. In addition, Pega Platform now includes a default small talk detection model for each of these languages.
For more information, see Language support for NLP and Out-of-the-box text analytics models.
Historical data extraction for adaptive models
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
Adaptive models now support the extraction of historical customer responses for offline analysis. Additionally, you can use the historical data to build a model in a machine learning service of your choice.
For more information, see Extract historical responses from adaptive models for offline analysis (8.4).
Improved reliability of Visual Business Director
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
Improvements to the reliability of Visual Business Director (VBD) eliminate the impact of temporary access loss to the VBD cluster. The improvements include the ability to continue writing data to a VBD dataset while the corresponding server node is unavailable, enhancements to single-case data flows that write data to VBD, and a reduction in the VBD cache size.
For more information, see Eliminate the impact of temporary access loss to the VBD cluster (8.4).
Strategies are now available as a condition type in proposition filters
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
When designing proposition filters, you can now include strategy outcomes as a condition to be evaluated. Select a strategy and specify the component that you want to use as output to include more advanced decisioning in your proposition filters.
For more information, see Enrich your Proposition Filter rules with conditions based on strategy results.
Default text analytics model for detecting small talk
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
Enhance your web chat experience by configuring chatbots to detect small talk. Pega Platform™ provides the default model that is a topic detection model, available for English, German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, and French.
For more information, see Configure your chatbot for small talk.
Integrate your application with external Kafka clusters
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
Configure your application to use an external Kafka cluster for managing real-time data. By having an external Stream service provider, you can perform such maintenance tasks as an upgrade or hotfix deployment faster because external nodes do not require restarting.
For more information, see Externally managed Stream service.
Updated architecture of the data flow service
Valid from Pega Version 8.4
Benefit from improvements to data flow architecture that increase the stability of data flow runs and minimize the need for manual restarting of data flow jobs. Real-time data flows now use improved node rebalancing for better handling of failed or restarted nodes. If the topology changes, batch data flows no longer attempt to pause and resume the run. As such, there are fewer interactions with the database and between the nodes, resulting in the increased resilience of the Data Flow service.
If you are upgrading from a previous version of Pega Platform™, see Changes to the architecture of the Data Flow service for an overview of the changes to the Data Flow service compared to previous versions.
Support for predictive models in PMML version 4.4
Valid from Pega Version 8.5
Pega Platform™ now supports the import of predictive models in Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) version 4.4. With this feature, you can import PMML models that use the anomaly detection algorithm.
For a list of all supported PMML models, see Supported models for import.