Published Release Notes

Use standard Developer portal

Customized versions of the Developer portal rely on legacy components and are not supported.

To avoid backwards compatibility issues, update your access group to point to the standard Developer portal prior to upgrade.

Top-level (named) pages may no longer be classless

Newly created top-level (named) pages may no longer be classless or have a blank pxObjClass property. This change can affect applications upgrading from versions prior to Pega 7 to the latest version, especially when:

• Application logic relies on a blank value in the pxObjClass property.
• An activity assumes a new top-level page is classless and explicitly sets pxObjClass in a Property-Set step.
• A data transform assumes a new top-level page is classless and explicitly sets pxObjClass using a Set action.

To avoid application failures, remove or update any logic that expects a blank pxObjClass. Where possible, use the new engine API that finds a page by both name and class:

findPageWithException(PageName, ClassName);

Activities and data transforms continue to create a top-level page when one does not exist. The class name is now derived from the Pages and Classes tab.

Upgrade changes system name

As of Pega 7.1.7, the following renaming behavior no longer occurs.

The upgrade process renames your system to “PRPC” and modifies any custom requestor rules in your application to use this name. After the upgrade completes, you must apply these changes to revert your system:

1. Identify all custom requestor rules (browser, batch, app, portal) with access groups that point to prior versions of PRPC.
2. Open the relevant access groups (for example, PRPC:Unauthenticated and PRPC:Agents) and update the name and version fields to point to the current PegaRULES application.
3. Reset your system name to its original value. You can set the Dynamic System Setting prconfig/identification/systemName/default or use the Designer Studio > System > Settings > System Name landing page.
4. Restart the system.

Required DB2 settings

For customers using the DB2 Version 4 drivers (“db2jcc4.jar”), it is necessary to set the custom connection property useJDBC4ColumnNameAndLabelSemantics to “false”.   

For customers using DB2 with WebSphere, the useJDBC4ColumnNameAndLabelSemantics property in the DB2 data source needs to be changed from a Boolean to an Integer and set to "2". 

IE8 limits expansion features

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) does not support CSS media queries, which are used by re-expansion features in the Designer Studio. IE8 users with low screen resolution (800 x 600) and a small window size may find that the explorer area in the Designer Studio collapses but cannot re-expand. 

As a work around, access the Designer Studio from another supported browser version and use the recommended, minimum screen resolution width of 1280 pixels.

Use "alternate database" as report source

You can opt to use the the "alternate database" identified in the Reports Database field of the Data-Admin-DB-Table instance that supports the Applies To class of a report as the source for the report. This reduces the load on the database that serves your application when you run the report.

Pinned classes in Application Explorer

The Application Explorer now includes a Pinned Classes section. This feature allows you to interact with a customized list of classes without having to explicitly switch context in the explorer.

Ability to deprecate a rule

You can deprecate any Rule- instance to indicate that it is no longer supported.

Users are warned when they open or reference a deprecated rule instance.

Ability to deprecate a class

You can deprecate any Rule- class to block users from creating new rule instances.

Users are warned when they open the class rule form or any instance of the class.

Designer Studio responds to deprecated rules

Deprecated classes and rule instances in Pega- rulesets are excluded from:

• Search results
• Application Explorer results
• Lists launched from the Records Explorer
• +Create menus

These restrictions do not apply to classes and rule instances deprecated in your application rulesets.