Published Release Notes

Support for large reference data in offline mobile apps

A data page in a Pega 7 Platform mobile application with offline capability enabled can now be marked as a large data page. This feature improves performance significantly when you have a large amount of data in which only individual records change.

In this situation, after the initial sync to the mobile app, only the changes in the large data page are synced instead of the entire large data page. The database table is created for such large data pages in the encrypted SQLite database on the device. Changes such as add, delete, or update are reconciled as row-level updates. Furthermore, you can use JavaScript to query against this data. A large referenced data page is supported by list-based components such as repeating dynamic layout, auto-complete, a dropdown list, and radio button.

Support for offline and online cases in a single mobile app

A single offline-enabled application can now support both the creation and processing of online-only and offline-ready cases.

For online-only cases, a list of both the offline and online cases is always available. Case assignment and processing is performed on the server so that a case is available only when the device is connected to the Internet or to data. When a connection is not available for processing an online-only case, an error message is displayed.

For offline-ready cases, a user can open an assignment and perform tasks on that case. There is also an option to explicitly display a harness from a server instead of a client store.

Offline mobility improvements

Several offline mobility improvements have been made in this release. Additional use cases have been added for configuring offline-enabled mobile apps at design time. Read-only grids with limited features are now supported offline. You can configure auto-populated properties, and you can create work with parameters. It is also possible to open work by handle. You can use decision shapes with Boolean expressions (no when rules) in screen flows. Barcode scanning is now available in offline mode.

Mobile user interface updates

Several improvements have been made to the mobile-related user interface of the Pega 7 Platform. The content of the Mobile tab on the Application rule form has been redesigned. The Offline Configuration and Mobile Certificates landing pages are now available. The Signature Capture control has improved. Post-processing can now occur after the signature has been captured. You can auto-submit with the form submit. You can apply the signature to a page instead of applying it as an attachment to the case. The clear action completely removes the signature from the work object, keeping only the latest iteration of the signature. Touch interactions have been significantly improved. Response time is faster and there is better feedback on the touch action.

Reports with visualizations of performance and automation levels for the email bot

In the Email Manager portal, you can now use built-in reports to visualize Pega Email Bot™ performance and the automation levels that are related to received emails, triaged cases, and created business cases. You can plug the reports to display the report data in other portals, for example the Case Manager portal. Based on the information displayed in the reports, you can adjust the machine learning models to achieve greater automation in the system.

For more information, see Viewing the reports for the Email channel and Built-in reports for the email bot.

Low-code styling in mobile apps

The mobile channel now supports enhanced low-code styling and branding of mobile apps. For example, you can customize app icons in three different ways: by uploading an image, by selecting from a list of font icons, or by using the default text-based icons. This enhancement helps you to conveniently customize the look of mobile apps to match the branding guidelines of your company and provide a consistent experience for users across different channels.

For more information, see Applying a custom theme to mobile apps.

Improved experience when building an IVA and Email Bot in App Studio

Build your Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant™ (IVA) and Pega Email Bot™ while working only in App Studio. This approach makes the design process easier and more intuitive, and saves you time. You can now modify the advanced text analyzer configuration while working in App Studio. In addition, if you have access to Dev Studio, you can edit the text analyzer rule from App Studio for your chatbot or email bot by clicking a link to open the settings in Dev Studio.

For more information, see Adding a text analyzer for an email bot and Adding a text analyzer for an IVA.

Offline support for Cosmos-based mobile apps

Mobile apps that are based on the Cosmos design system now support offline mode. Previously, offline-enabled apps had to rely on the classic look. Now, you can use the low-code Cosmos solutions to design apps that operate reliably regardless of the connection status. 

For more information, see Designing apps for offline mode.

Removal of Pega Mobile Client 7

You can now use a single Pega Mobile Client™ that improves app performance, app development, and meets all your mobile needs. With the introduction of new functionalities for mobile apps, Pega Mobile Client 7 is removed in Pega Platform™ 8.5.

Upgrade impact

After an upgrade to Pega 8.5, you can no longer build mobile apps based on Pega Mobile Client 7, and existing apps based on Pega Mobile Client 7 no longer connect to Pega Platform. App developers can now configure mobile apps with Pega Mobile Client.

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

Existing clients that upgrade to Pega 8.5 are automatically switched to Pega Mobile Client.

Triage cases archiving in the email bot (Pega Cloud Services)

For Pega Platform™ that is installed in Pega Cloud^® Services, you can configure Pega Email Bot™ to archive resolved triage cases that are older than a specified number of days. Archiving triage cases improves the overall performance of your system by reducing the primary storage consumption and cost because the system places such resolved triage cases in a secondary storage.

For more information, see Archiving resolved emails for an email bot (Pega Cloud Services).