Published Release Notes

End of support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and quirks mode applications in Pega 7.1.9

In accordance with Microsoft’s announcement to discontinue support for Internet Explorer 8 in January 2016, Pega 7.1.9 does not support Internet Explorer 8, nor does it support non-HTML5 standard user interfaces.

You must upgrade to Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 or later or use Google Chrome, Apple Safari, or Mozilla Firefox. If you are using Internet Explorer 9 or later, you must turn off compatibility mode by accessing the Compatibility View settings.

Note the following:

• Pega 7.1.9 does not support user interface rules that are not based on HTML5 standards (rules in quirks mode).
• If you use applications that are rendered in quirks mode, which enables Pega 7 to correctly display and render non-HTML5 standard user interfaces, you must update them to standards-based HTML5 user interfaces when you upgrade to Pega 7.1.9 or later. Pega 7 provides automated tools to help you migrate your applications.
• Pegasystems Global Customer Support will not investigate or fix any Pega 7.1.9 bugs or support requests that are exclusive to Internet Explorer 8 or quirks mode user interfaces.

You can quickly identify which components of your application user interface are not HTML5 standards-based by clicking Designer Studio > User Interface > HTML5 Application Readiness.

Upgrading to Pega 7.1.9 and a newer browser offers the following benefits:

• These browsers are HTML5 and CSS3 compliant.
• New features are supported and existing features work as intended.
• The Pega 7 Platform user interface is displayed and rendered as intended.
• Browser security is enhanced.

If you have additional questions about browser support, see the Platform Support Guide or contact Pegasystems Global Customer Support.

Schema not found error when importing a Rule-Admin-Product file

If you import a Rule-Admin-Product file (RAP) file that includes a schema that has a view, grammar parsing changes can mean that the Pega 7 Platform is unable to find the schema.

To enable the Pega 7 Platform to find the schema:

1. Review the error message that indicates that the schema was not found and identify the following items:
   • The name of the schema that is causing the error
   • The table name in the format: wrong_schema_name.table_name...
   • The DDL that the Pega 7 Platform is trying to apply
2. Use the table name to identify the correct schema name in your system. This schema is usually your data schema, but might also be an external database.
3. Download the DDL.
4. Correct the schema name and save the DDL.
5. Manually apply the DDL.

Configuration required for data operations on external schema when using a Postgres database

When you use the API for data operations on external schema in the Postgres database, you must update the prconfig.xml file. No other platform requires a prconfig.xml update.

To update the prconfig.xml file:

1. Stop the server and add the following entry to the prconfig.xml file:
   env name="database/databases/postgres_ext/defaultSchema"
   value="externalschema"
   where postgres_ext is the external database that uses the external schema “externalschema”.
2. Restart the server.

Report Browser removed from Designer Studio

The Report Browser and Access landing page have been removed from Designer Studio. In Designer Studio, developers can create, edit, and test reports by using the Report Definition rule form.

The Report Browser is still available in the Case Manager portal.

Real-time pulse processing for multinode systems

Multinode development environments now use real-time pulse processing. Previously, when a change was made on one node, the pulse processing interval could take a minute or more for that change to be reflected on another node. Now, when a rule is changed on one node, that change is immediately reflected on all the other nodes in the cluster. This change helps to ensure that users are running a rule on the same node as where the rule was changed.

Verifying that a Pega 7 Platform instance is running

You can verify whether a Pega 7 Platform instance is up and running by entering this URL: http://<<hostName:port/contextName>>/PRRestService/monitor/pingservice/ping

The Pega 7 Platform Engine responds with HTTP Response Code 200 if the instance is available. The response contains JSON text in the format { "duration":"<time in milliseconds>" }. Any other response codes or timeout indicate that the instance is unavailable.

Text analytics on the Pega 7 Platform

The Pega 7 Platform offers users the capability to analyze units of text, extract quality information, and translate it into business intelligence. The text analytics functionality aims to determine the positive, negative, and neutral polarities (tone) of subjective sentences. It also provides mechanisms for categorizing units of text and classifying text elements into predefined categories. You can use it to analyze text-based content including news feeds, emails, and postings on social media streams, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

For more information, see Introduction to text analytics on the Pega 7 Platform.

Updates to the Data Flow rule

It is now possible to use report definitions as primary and secondary sources in the Data Flow rule. The data flows that are sourced by a report definition can be distributed on multiple nodes. When using a database table data set as the destination of the data flow, you need to select one of the save options for the data set (insert records or insert and update records).

Updates to the Event Strategy rule

When you design event strategies, you can use the Filter shape for basic arithmetic and text expressions. You can also specify start conditions for the tumbling and sliding windows.

Enabling historical compliance score data

Project stakeholders can now track the compliance score for an application over time to better understand and manage ongoing development adherence to Pega 7 Platform guardrails. The compliance score history can be displayed on a line graph on the Compliance Score tab of the Application Guardrails landing page. The data is collected daily and displayed in weekly increments, up to four weeks prior to the current date.

For more information, see Guardrails compliance score, Enabling compliance score history, and Compliance score trend reporting.