Published Release Notes

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.

Support for predictive models in PMML version 4.4

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. 

Support for Apache HBase 2.1 and Hadoop 3.0

Support for these versions extends Pega Platform™ compatibility with HBase releases to ensure that your database implementations integrate seamlessly with Pega Platform.

Pega Platform now supports:

• Apache HBase 2.1 for the HBase data set
• Apache Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) 3.0 for the HDFS data set

For more information, see Enhance your data sets with Apache HBase 2.1 and Hadoop 3.0 (8.5).

Enhancing your revision management process with Deployment Manager pipelines

Pega Platform 8.5 offers improved synergy between revision management and the automated deployment process provided by Pega's Deployment Manager 4.8 pipelines. Use Deployment Manager 4.8 to increase the efficiency of business-as-usual application changes and automatize the deployment of revision packages.

For more information, see Managing the business-as-usual changes.

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).