Published Release Notes

Visual Data Model enhancements

View your application's full data model, see how its entities are related, edit and delete fields, and add fields to the model without exiting the Visual Data Model. In addition, you can now search the entire data model for fields and select a case or data type class to see its fields and relationships.

For more information, see Exploring the data model.

Use a JSON file to create a data type

You can now use a sample JSON response to create a data type in the Data Type wizard in Integration Designer. Using a sample JSON response reduces development time by providing the response schema when your REST endpoint is not available.

For more information, see Use a JSON file to create a data type.

Indicate download size in offline-enabled mobile apps for iOS

When you publish a client-based mobile app in the Apple App Store that needs to download additional resources before it starts, the app must indicate the size of the download and obtain user consent. To comply with this requirement, you can now build offline-enabled mobile apps that prompt the user before they perform the initial data synchronization. If the user chooses not to download data, the application closes.

For more information about disclosing the data size and how the data size is calculated, see Defining advanced offline configuration for an access group.

Support for decision tables in offline-enabled applications

You can now use decision tables to reduce the implementation time of your offline-enabled applications. By using decision tables you can further automate case processing and derive the logic from the data model. Decision tables can be referenced in a flow rule as a type of decision shape or called from the declare expression rule. No additional configuration is required to use decision tables in offline-enabled applications.

For more information, see Decision table support in offline mode.

Application settings categorization and reuse

Application settings are enhanced so that you can categorize and reuse application settings in all rules. You can reference an application setting in a rule and specify separate values for each production level. At run time, the setting holds the correct value for the application's current production level. This functionality helps you manage your application settings more effectively.

For more information, see Creating an application setting and Categorizing application settings.

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.