Published Release Notes

Ignore locale settings requires refresh after server restarts

The Ignore locale check box in operator preferences is selected to display Designer Studio in U.S. English. After a server restarts, screens initially ignore this setting. When the screen is refreshed or reopened, the screen is rendered as expected.

Open authoring for rule forms has been removed

Open authoring for rule forms has been removed. You can now edit decision tables and map values by using the application and supported browser of your choice; Microsoft ActiveX controls are no longer required. In addition, support for external XML, HTML, and Java IDE editors has been removed.

Stakeholder management extended to case followers

You can now control which users follow a case. By actively involving the people with relevant skills and roles in your application, you can resolve cases more quickly.

For more information, see Case followers.

getRuleMessage APIs no longer prepend asterisks

The Public APIs getRuleMessage(String aMsgDescr) and getRuleMessage(String aMsgDescr,String messageClass) no longer prepend asterisks ("**") to the message description when they fail to find a Rule-Message instance whose name matches the input message description. For information about these APIs, access the Public API documentation in Designer Studio by clicking Resources > Engine API.

HDFS data sets support Parquet files

The Parquet file format has been added to the list of supported file formats for data storage in the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) data set record. On the Pega 7 Platform, you can now access an HDFS data set that stores data in the Parquet file format and perform various operations on that data set.

For more information, see Big Data enhancements in decision management.

Extract marker file not created at startup

The extract marker file (PegaRULES_Extract_Marker.txt) is not created at startup, because the rule utility libraries no longer need it. If you used to use the extract marker file to clear the static content file-based cache, to look up lists, or to control starting activities with web nodes, you can delete the contents of the PegaRULES temporary directory instead.

Deprecation of override rulesets in run-time ruleset lists

Pega 7.2.1 is the last release where override rulesets can be incorporated in the run-time ruleset list. The ability to create override rulesets was originally deprecated in Pega 7.1. However, any override rulesets that were created in releases prior to Pega 7.1 in the application ruleset lists were still incorporated into the run-time ruleset lists at the appropriate location. In releases after Pega 7.2.1, override rulesets will be ignored and will not be incorporated in the run-time ruleset list. Therefore, it is recommended that you use production rulesets in access groups instead of override rulesets.

Design templates in Pega Express

You can now use design templates to control the layout of form fields in Pega Express. Use the form builder Layouts tab to select a layout for the form and organize the fields in the layout regions.

For more information, see Adding a design template to a form in Pega Express.

Internal rules in search results and explorers

Using old: is no longer supported in search. You can include internal rules in search results and make them available in the Application and Records explorers. Include internal rules in search results either by adding the PegaDevelopmentruleset to your application or by clicking the Enable diagnostic features option in your operator preferences.

Ability to set default values when importing data

You can now set default values for data that you import for a data type from a .csv file. By setting defaults, you can ensure that even when the .csv file data is incomplete, all of the data is imported. In addition, you can set default values for custom fields that do not have a matching source column in the .csv file. This feature is available for the Add and update and Add only import options. For mapped fields, the default value is used for new records if the source field is blank, and for existing records if both the source and target fields are blank. For custom fields, the default value is used for new records if a default value is provided, and for existing records only if the target field is blank.

For more information, see Importing data for a data type.