Published Release Notes

Chrome support for editing specification descriptions in Word

If you use Google Chrome 42 and later, you can now create, save, and update specification descriptions even if you are not using the Microsoft Silverlight NPAPI plug-in.

The new Upload Word document as description option provides you with the functionality to upload a Word document that contains the specification description. In addition, you can use the Export to Word option to export the description that you entered in the rich text editor to a Word document.

Accessibility improvements

Several improvements are now available that enable application accessibility. These improvements affect the wait indicator, overlays, and collapsible layouts.

The wait indicator, or throbber, announces its status to an assistive technology such as JAWS.

• When loading, the throbber announces “Loading content” or other text that can be edited in the pyThrobberLoadingText property.
• When loading is completed, the throbber announces “Loading completed” or other text that can be edited in the pyThrobberLoadingCompletedText property.
• The loading announcement is set by default to a three-second delay, which can be modified in the pyThrobberAnnouncementDelay property.

Overlays are announced by an assistive technology and overlay content can be tabbed through by using the Tab key without closing the overlay. Overlays can be closed by pressing the Esc key. This behavior applies to all overlays and modal dialog boxes that are opened as local actions and popovers that are part of the autogenerated UI.

All users, including those not using an assistive technology, can focus the expand and collapse feature of a layout by using the Tab key. The expanded or collapsed state is announced by screen readers.

Date control for past and future years

The Date control can be configured to show only past dates, only future dates, or any date range that includes the current year. The Display range can be set to include a configurable range of previous years or next years. The number of years is relative to the user’s date.

Enabling run-time edit in Live UI

When you inspect a rule with the Live UI tool, you can enable editing if editing has not yet been enabled for the application. The Enable live editing link at the top of the property panel adds a run-time edit branch to the current application's definition. A similar option is available when you add or move elements by using Live UI.

Pega 7 Platform supports X-Forwarded-* (XF*) HTTP headers

When deployed behind a load balancer, the Pega 7 Platform can formulate absolute URLs while responding to requests, without any additional configuration. The load balancer must be configured to use XF* headers. Consequently, the configuration property contextrewriteenabled is deprecated.

Interact with cases from external applications

You can now achieve API case integration by using the Integration case-wide property to generate code that allows you to interact with cases from external applications. The Generate create case microservice code option for microservice APIs automatically generates code that is specific to your case type. This option complements the Generate mashup code option, which generates code that you can use to embed Pega 7 Platform content in another application's web page.

Connect to external REST APIs by using OAuth 2.0

You can now connect to external REST services that are provided by web applications, such as Twitter and Facebook, by using the OAuth 2.0 protocol client credentials grant. Your Pega 7 Platform application acts as an OAuth 2.0 client to access protected API resources. For example, you can connect to Twitter by using OAuth 2.0 to obtain a collection of tweets that match a specific query.

For more information, see Accessing protected API resources by using OAuth 2.0.

Access REST services and APIs by using OAuth 2.0

You can now allow external client applications to access REST services on your behalf by using the OAuth 2.0 protocol client credentials grant. The Pega 7 Platform acts as an OAuth 2.0 provider to grant trusted applications access to functions in Pega 7 Platform applications. Additionally, you can provide access to the Pega API by using OAuth 2.0.

Report Definitions can query tables in multiple schemas

You can create a Report Definition that queries class tables in multiple schemas in the same database. Previously, queries on tables that were mapped to PegaRULES and PegaDATA schemas could not include tables that were mapped to other schemas, because other schemas were assumed to be in a different database. The schemas to which queried class tables belong are no longer validated when you save the Report Definition, so you can now query tables in schemas other than PegaRULES and PegaDATA. However, Report Definitions that query tables that are in more than one database fail when run.

Use multiple built-on applications to enhance ruleset reuse

Applications can now have multiple built-on applications, allowing rules to be reused as a part of a built-on application at run time while being developed independently at design time.

Previously, applications built in Pega 7.1 and earlier versions were assembled in a single linear application stack--one application built on top of another application, and so on. Attempting to reuse rulesets and frameworks across applications resulted in having to splice applications together, creating challenges when attempting to support the use of these custom created applications. Starting in Pega 7.2, applications are built on to other applications by using a hierarchical tree structure, and the Pega 7 Platform automatically converts this tree into a linear application stack.

For more information, see Using multiple built-on applications and the Ruleset behavior at design time section in Application stack hierarchy for multiple built-on applications.