Published Release Notes

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.

Update to Intelligent Virtual Assistant official names

To use better and more consistent names for conversational channels in Pega Platform™ and to help distinguish conversational channels from Pega Unified Messaging Edition™, Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant™ (IVA) for Unified Messaging is now called IVA for Digital Messaging. Furthermore, the IVA for Web Chatbot is now officially called IVA for Legacy Webchat.

For more information, see Creating a Digital Messaging channel and Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant features.

Ability to train the text analytics model based on email attachments

You can now train the text analytics model for Pega Email Bot™ based on training data from email attachments. As a result, you improve the natural language processing (NLP) analysis for your email bot so that your system detects the correct language, sentiment, topics, and entities from both the body of emails and their attachments. By default, you train the text analytics model based only on training data from the body of emails.

For more information, see Enabling training the model based on email attachments.

Upgrading to the secure threading mechanism for email bots

In Pega Platform™ version 8.6, Pega Email Bot™ includes a more secure threading mechanism to help track emails from customers and other stakeholders in separate threads for an email triage case.

Upgrade impact

If you upgrade from Pega Platform version 8.5 or earlier, in which you configured an Email channel, perform the following steps to ensure that your system uses the new secure threading mechanism:

• Update the service email rule that the system uses to send an email reply as the initial acknowledgment.
• Update the email reply template in the data transform rule that the system uses when a customer service representative (CSR) sends the reply.

For more information about creating an initial acknowledgment email and email reply template, see Creating outbound email templates. For more information about the secure threading mechanism, see Use a secure threading mechanism in emails.

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

For the initial acknowledgment email used by your email bot, update the service method for your email listener rule. On the Response tab for this service email rule, expand the Message contents section. In the Message data section, you specify the rule that defines the structure of the content of the email body. In Pega Platform version 8.6, you use for this purpose the pyEmailAcknowledgement correspondence rule that takes into account the selected built-in template. This template includes the security code tag that the system uses for the secure threading mechanism. If your application uses a different rule in the Message data section, update this definition to match one of the built-in correspondence template rules, for example, EmailAckTemplate_Clear.

The pySetEmailBotReplyTemplate data transform rule sets the name of the email correspondence rule that the system uses as the email reply template. If you do not want to use the default approach using the Classic, Cobalt, or Clear outbound email template themes, override this data transform rule to set the email correspondence rule name for the Param.ReplyTemplate target in the Source column field.

For more information about how to update the service email rule and the data transform rule to ensure that your system uses the secure threading mechanism, see Upgrading to the threading mechanism available in the 8.6 version.

Extend PegaUnit setup and cleanup capabilities using custom fixtures

The set up and clean up capabilities in the PegaUnit framework are now customizable through the use of custom fixtures. Custom fixtures extend the default testing functionality and allow you to define and implement specific runtime actions, such as running a specific test case during set up or sending an email after testing has completed execution. 

For more information, see Setting up and cleaning the context for a test case or test suite. 

Improve application test coverage by running multiple sessions

You can improve the test coverage of your application by using a new test coverage method - Application Coverage. Multiple users can perform coverage sessions which are aggregated into a single report. By using report metrics that show the number of rules that are covered and are not covered by tests, developers can identify which areas of the application need more test coverage.

For more information, see the Test Coverage landing page.

Pega unit test suites are now modular

It is now possible to include test cases and test suites inside test suites. This feature makes test suites modular and improves the management of cases while creating, modifying, and executing them for regression testing.

For more information, see Pega unit test suites.

REST API now fetches the latest version of Application Quality metrics

When you request Application Quality metrics by using the REST service, the service requests a refresh of the metrics. This means that you always get the latest version of the metrics and can decide whether your application is ready for deployment based on that information.

For more information, see Pega API.

Parameter page is automatically removed after each Pega unit test run

The parameter page is automatically removed after each Pega unit test run. The reliability of subsequent tests is increased because they are not influenced by leftover parameter values that were set by the previous test.

For more information, see Cleaning up your test environment.

Start and stop a coverage session by using the REST API

You can now start and stop application-level test coverage by using REST services. You can use the results of the coverage session for gating purposes in a release pipeline.

For more information, see Pega API.