Published Release Notes

Support for Cloud AutoML topic detection models

In Prediction Studio, you can now connect to topic detection models that you create in Cloud AutoML, Google's cloud-based machine learning service. You can then use the models to categorize and route messages from your customers.

For more information, see Broaden your selection of topic detection models by connecting to third-party services (8.5).

Control group configuration for predictions

You can now configure a control group for your predictions in Prediction Studio. Based on the control group, Prediction Studio calculates a lift score for each prediction that you can later use to monitor the success rate of your predictions.

For more information, see Customizing predictions.

Response timeout configuration for predictions

You can now set a response timeout for your predictions in Prediction Studio. By setting a response timeout, you control how Prediction Studio registers customer responses that later serve as feedback data for your predictions.

For more information, see Customizing predictions.

External data flow rules are deprecated

External data flows are now deprecated and no longer supported. To improve your user experience with Pega Platform™, the user interface elements associated with these rules are hidden from view by default. Identifying unused features allows Pega to focus on developing and supporting the features that you need.

For more information, see Deprecated: External data flows.

Enhancements for fields in views and data models

Pega Platform™ now provides a unified experience of adding fields to views, the case type data model, and the application data model, by using an intuitive dialog box. For greater clarity, a new field type, data relationship, replaces data references, field groups, and field group lists. As a result, you can conveniently reuse data objects in your application. 

When you upgrade to Pega 8.5, your system automatically converts your field groups, field group lists, and data references to data relationships. The case type data model now displays all the fields by default, including any referenced fields, and provides an application layer that contains each field. Use this functionality to view how the data is organized across your system.

For more information, see Define fields in data objects intuitively (8.5), Adding data relationships to fields and data models.

Visual Business Director data is automatically cleaned after a retention period expires

To avoid negative impact on system resources, such as memory and disk space, Pega Platform™ automatically cleans out collections data accumulated in Visual Business Director after the time period specified in the vbd/dataRetentionTimeout dynamic system setting.

Upgrade impact

In versions of Pega Platform earlier than 8.5, collections data was not automatically removed. From version 8.5, the data is removed after 465 days (15 months) by default.

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

If the default data retention period does not meet your requirements, you can change it by editing the vbd/dataRetentionTimeout setting.

For more information, see "Configuring the data retention period for Visual Business Director" in the Pega Customer Decision Hub 8.5 Upgrade Guide on the Pega Customer Decision Hub product page.

Optimization check utility available for legacy strategies

Ensure that your strategies are compatible with the optimized strategy execution engine introduced in Pega Platform™ 8.1 by running a post-upgrade utility that checks strategies within your application for areas that you can optimize, for example, by reducing the number of page properties that are copied from one shape to another. Running the utility produces a report that you can use to plan the required updates to your strategies.

For more information, see Make your strategies compatible with the optimized strategy execution engine by using a check utility.

Uploading customer responses into adaptive models is no longer available

The option to train adaptive models by uploading a static list of historical interaction records has been deprecated in Pega Platform™ 8.5.

Upgrade impact

In versions of Pega Platform earlier than 8.5, it was possible to train an adaptive model by uploading historical data of customer interaction. After the upgrade to version 8.5, this option is no longer available.

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

Use data from a report definition to train adaptive models. For more information, see Training adaptive models.

More flexibility for Date Time predictors in adaptive models

You can configure adaptive model predictors that indicate the amount of time that has elapsed since a particular event. In versions of Pega Platform™ earlier than 8.5, you could only specify the absolute date and time, for example, the date when a subscriber last visited one of your brick-and-mortar store locations. In Pega Platform 8.5, you can also indicate the amount of time that has passed, for example, the number of days since a subscriber purchased a new service plan.

For more information, see Adding a predictor to an adaptive model.

Close button on a pop-up application update removed from App Studio

When you open an existing application that you created in previous releases without support for the Pega Express methodology, App Studio now displays a pop-up window to support Microjourneys™ without a Close button, to improve the usability of App Studio. 

Upgrade impact

The UI automation script might require a change if the script mentions clicking on the Close button.

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

If you have a UI automation script that uses the Close button, update the UI automation script to delete reference to clicking on the Close button.

For more information, see Creating a Microjourney for customer success.