Published Release Notes

New database tables for email bots

Pega Email Bot™ now uses two new database tables that make the system more reliable and improve system performance. The pc_work_triage table stores complete information about email triage cases for the email bot. The pr_index_tracktriageactions table stores information about captured actions in triage cases.

Upgrade impact

During an upgrade to Pega Platform™ 8.5, a dedicated job scheduler automatically migrates resolved and open triage cases to these email bot tables in the background. If you expose additional properties as database columns or expose additional custom columns in the pc_work table, you must prepare your application for this automated migration. For more information, see Migrating triage cases to new tables.

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

If the pc_work table in your application has no additional properties or custom columns, there is nothing to do; if it does, prior to an upgrade to Pega Platform 8.5, you must extend the pyPopulateColumnNamesExtension data transform to any exposed additional columns in legacy tables with this information.

For more information, see Database schema for email bot tables.

Optimized data schema upgrade

Several improvements have been made to optimize the speed of the data schema upgrade to help you experience minimal downtime during upgrade to Pega Platform 8.5™. The data schema upgrade process optimizations include the following improvements:

• Optimized database index creation during upgrade
• Optimized synchronization process to detect duplicate rules during the application import process
• A new upgrade setting for Pega Cloud® Services operators that reduces the time to upgrade clients that run large Pega applications, such as the CRM Suite

For more information, see Limit upgrade downtime with data schema upgrade improvements (8.5).

Support for hotfix file verification

Pega Platform hotfix files are now digitally signed so that they can be verified and authenticated. If your Pega Platform™ instance allows outbound URL connections, hotfix files are verified automatically during installation. If your Pega Platform instance does not allow outbound URL connections, you can verify the files manually by using third-party tools. Alternatively, if your Pega Platform instance does not allow outbound URL connections and you do not use third-party tools to verify hotfix files, you can import a certificate revocation list (CRL) for Pega Platform to use when checking the files to see if they have been revoked. 

For more information, see Verifying the authenticity of hotfix files. 

Scenario tests now honor application stack settings

The application stack defined on the Application Quality Settings page of Dev Studio now serves as a foundation for creating, viewing, and running scenario tests. 

Dev Studio will now:

• Display scenario tests based on the application stack settings on the Dev Studio landing page.
• Store scenario tests with the configured stack settings.
• Report metrics in the application quality dashboard with respect to the configured stack settings.  

For more information, see Creating UI-based tests with scenario testing. 

Run an application test suite from a CI/CD pipeline

Deployment Manager, as well as the existing REST service used to call scenario tests, now accepts a test suite ID when running scenario tests from an application pipeline. By using test suites, you can customize a set of select scenario tests to run as a group, instead of running all the scenario tests that are applied to a particular application.

Only the tests that belong to the suite are run as part of the task. 

For more information, see Creating UI-based tests with scenario testing. 

Access PegaUnit compliance metrics from a centralized location

PegaUnit compliance metrics and execution rate have been added to the PegaUnit metrics tile of the Application Quality dashboard. This dashboard provides a centralized location for all PegaUnit data for a specific application. 

The dashboard also supports granular PegaUnit test information for each case type and data type, similar to the process currently available on the branch quality dashboard. 

For more information, see Analyzing application quality metrics. 

Run PegaUnit tests by using an API call

A new REST API is now available to create and run PegaUnit tests from an external continuous improvement (CI) tool. This synchronous method allows for the processing of large quantities of tests while reducing the possibility of time-out issues. This additional method of performing PegaUnit testing does not impact users who want to continue using their current testing workflow. 

For more information about setting up your environment and making API calls with Deployment Manager, see the Documentation/readme-for-swagger.md file in the DeploymentManager04_08_0x.zip file, found in the Deployment Manager download package. 

Merge application-level test reports by using the Pega API service

A new REST API is now available so that you can merge test coverage reports at the application level without having to perform this task manually. This service accepts the application IDs for the test coverage reports that you want to merge and generates a consolidated report in the target application provided.

For more information about setting up your environment and making API calls with Deployment Manager, see the Documentation/readme-for-swagger.md file in the DeploymentManager04_08_0x.zip file, found in the Deployment Manager download package.

Improvements to scenario testing for increased efficiency

Several enhancements have been made to scenario tests for increased test efficiency. See below for a list of these improvements.

• Scenario testing now supports multiple actions per run, and all events that are configured as part of a scenario test are now triggered sequentially. Previously, only the first event was triggered, and the system ignored the rest. 
• If a scenario test encounters a JavaScript error at any point during the run, the system immediately stops the tests. Refer to the logs for a detailed description of the error. 
• Actions can now be configured and recorded on custom components in the scenario testing tool. 

For more information, see Creating UI-based tests with scenario testing. 

Native synchronization indicators for offline-enabled mobile apps

Offline-enabled mobile apps now include a set of native synchronization indicators. Indicators keep users informed about the data synchronization status, for example, the Syncing indicator appears when an app regains network connectivity and starts receiving responses from the server. You can customize the indicators to better suit the look and feel of your mobile app. For more information, see Customizing synchronization indicators.

Upgrade impact

After upgrading Pega Platform™ to version 8.5, your app does not include native synchronization indicators until you update your application to use UI-Kit 15.

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

Update the UI Kit in your application to version 15. For more information, see Updating the UI Kit in your application.