Published Release Notes

Guided tours and online help added to application guides

You can now create application guides that display content from a Pega^® Platform help topic or a sequence of tour stops in a guided tour. By providing supporting information in an interactive format, you can help users complete tasks more quickly.

For more information about displaying help topics, tour stops, and other types of information in a task, see Interactive tasks in an application guide.

Question template added to surveys

You can now import a question template to create multiple questions at once. By providing question data in a format that your application processes in bulk, you can speed up the development of your surveys.

For more information about the types of questions that you can import, see Question templates.

Update activity for button and link formats

To update existing Button controls or Link controls to current, simplified formats (Strong, Standard, and Simple), use the pzUpdateButtonLinkFormats activity. Using the report definition and other parameters that you specify, the system retrieves the sections to be converted, loops through each section rule to find Button controls and Link controls, and updates their formats.

For more information, see Updated button and link formats and Update-Button-Link-Formats.

Ability to edit questions in the Facebook channel preview console

You can now edit questions directly in the preview console when you simulate a Facebook chatbot conversation. This feature eliminates the need to edit Case Manager settings when you want to modify the text of a question for a configured Facebook channel interface.

For more information, see Simulating a chatbot conversation.

Changes to User Interface menu in Designer Studio

The User Interface menu in Designer Studio has changed. For example, menu options related to localization are now grouped under Application readiness.

For more information, see Designer Studio - Landing Pages.

Decision Analytics portal renamed to Analytics Center

The Decision Analytics portal is renamed to the Analytics Center portal. In this work area for predictive analytics and text analytics, the business scientist can control the full model life cycle by building predictive models, importing PMML models, building sentiment analysis and text classification models, creating and monitoring adaptive models, and updating any existing models.

For more information, Analytics Center portal.

New alert for distinct values query

The PEGA0093 alert identifies performance issues when a distinct values query from virtual reports or the getDistinctValuesForProperty API take longer than the threshold. For more information, see PEGA0093: Distinct values query took more than the threshold.

Support for sending emails by using Microsoft Graph

Email integration with Microsoft Office 365 now supports sending emails by using Microsoft Graph. With this enhancement, you can send email with a more secure protocol that complies with your organization’s security policy.

For more information, see Creating an email account.

App Studio enhancements further support Pega Express methodology

App Studio now includes improvements that you can use to plan your Microjourney™ in a more convenient way. The Overview workspace now includes a button to edit application details, such as name, description, and business objectives, without having to switch to Dev Studio. You can also access relevant information faster, because Case Designer displays additional details about channels, data objects, and attachments associated with a case type directly in a properties pane. For improved management of your features, feature categories are now available in the application inventory so that you can clearly communicate to your development team what type of features need implementation.

For more information, see:

• Editing application details in App Studio 
• Associating personas with channels 
• Adding features to application inventory 
• Creating a Microjourney for customer success

Conversation flow and smart shapes for the Digital Messaging chatbots

When creating Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant™ (IVA) for Digital Messaging, chatbot developers can now use new conversation smart shapes in a dedicated flow, making the design process simpler, more robust, and intuitive. With the new smart shapes, the chatbot displays text messages or asks questions to users in one of several ways. In addition, developers do not have to create additional rules, switch tabs, or perform manual validation. You can associate the conversation flow that you create for your IVA with a business case, use the flow on its own, or reuse it in another conversation flow, improving the overall chatbot design process.

For more information, see Adding a stand-alone conversation process for a conversational channel, Adding a case type conversation process for a conversational channel, Editing the conversation smart shapes and Flow shapes.