Published Release Notes

Improved view authoring

Case authoring in Cosmos React UI now features updated view authoring tools. The redesigned view tab and overlay provide a more intuitive interface for creating views, applying design templates, and adding fields and controls. This enhanced work environment improves the user experience and reduces context switching, which contributes to a lower development effort.

For more information, see Editing views in a case type.

Default views for cases and data objects

Pega Platform™ now generates default views for new case types and data objects. Because of this feature, your application now automatically creates a case summary and case details view for every new case type, and a list view for each data object. The default views automate a common recurring task, and improve productivity by reducing development effort.

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.

View application quality metrics by data type

You can now view application quality metrics by data type on the Application Quality landing page. The new Data Types tab displays metrics for data types grouped by data objects, which enables you to more quickly understand the overall coverage of the application's integrations and interfaces.

For more information about data type metrics, see Application Quality landing page.

Create and view application settings in App Studio

View your application settings on the new Application settings landing page in App Studio. The landing page displays the categories that you specified for your application settings. If you did not specify a category for an application setting, the application setting appears in the Uncategorized category. Additionally, when you create a new data type, the Data type wizard automatically creates an application setting for the base URLs and the authentication profile. On the Environment settings page, you can edit the application setting to specify a new name or category or accept the default values.

For more information, see Viewing application settings in App Studio and Preparing your data for production.

Upgrade impact

After a successful upgrade, you see the new Application Settings option under Settings in App Studio. 

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

1. If the label (Application Settings) conflicts with your existing extension, change the label by overriding the following field value:
   PEGA-EXT- EXPEXPLORER-SETTINGS-APPSETTINGS PYCAPTIONIEXTENSION!LABEL
2. If you need to disable the landing page and prevent it from appearing in App studio, change the following toggle to No:
   PegaRULES: DisableSettingsLandingPage

Attachment migration from Pega database storage to a repository

You can now migrate case attachments from Pega database storage to a repository by using a wizard from Pega Platform™. This ability is useful, for example, when you migrate from an on-premises deployment to a Pega Cloud Services environment and you want to reduce the size of your Pega database and manage all your case attachments in a single location.

For more information, see Migrating case attachments to a repository.

Task board enhancements for improved tracking of tasks

App Studio and end-user portals, such as Case Manager, now provide an enhanced task board which helps you improve collaboration on task resolution. For example, you can create a checklist within a task, and then update the checklist to inform other users about the progress of the task. Attach content to a task to ensure that all users have the information that they need, and to make tasks more meaningful. Now you can also categorize tasks, and then filter them by category, to quickly access relevant information.

For more information, see Monitoring and tracking tasks in Dev Studio, Monitoring and tracking tasks in App Studio.

File sharing improvements in custom mobile apps

Case management in custom mobile apps that are built for Android and iOS using Pega Infinity Mobile Client™ is now improved with the enhanced Attach content control. You can now attach files of any type from the device storage and from cloud services, for example, Google Drive or iCloud, or from other mobile apps that are installed on the device. Additionally, you can share any file attachments, except for signature files, in external mobile apps.

For more information, see Enabling attaching files to an application.

Automatically generate OpenAPI Specification documentation for application REST APIs

You can now access a clear, standard view of all the REST APIs in your application by using autogenerated OpenAPI Specification (OAS) documentation. In App Studio, you can view the OAS documentation generated for application-specific REST APIs by using the new Application tab in the API channel. Additionally, service package rules now include an OpenAPI tab where you can view the automatically generated OAS documentation for all the REST services included in the service package. With these enhancements, you can easily find, visualize, and test the REST APIs in your application.

For more information, see Generating OpenAPI Specification documentation for application-specific REST APIs.

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.