Published Release Notes

Decision Analytics portal replaces Predictive Analytics Director portal

The Decision Analytics portal replaces the Predictive Analytics Director (PAD) portal, the Text Analytics landing page, and the Adaptive Models Reporting landing page. In this new work area for predictive analytics and text analytics, the business scientist can control the full model life cycle by building predictive models, importing PMML models, building sentiment analysis and text classification models, creating and monitoring adaptive models, and updating any existing models.

For more information, see Overview of the Decision Analytics work area.

Create application guides that direct users through tasks

Use the new Application Guide rule to create a guide that directs users through a set of tasks. A task can provide instructions to the user and include links to a landing page, wizard, URL, rule, or data record. After you add an application guide to a portal, users can open the guide from the Resources menu.

For more information, see Creating an application guide.

Data Flow transformation shapes cannot be used in combination with the Compose or Merge shapes

When you reference another data flow from a data flow that contains the Compose or Merge shape, the referenced data flow cannot contain transformation shapes (EventStrategy, Decision strategy, Convert).

Data flow validation does not currently prevent you from designing a data flow that goes against this design pattern. Make sure that your data flows follow this design pattern by checking the referenced and referencing data flows.

Failed Robotic Assignments work queue type changed to Standard

The default Failed Robotic Assignments work queue type is now Standard. In previous releases, the default type was Robotic. For usage information, see Configuring a work queue for robotic automation.

Upgrade impact

After upgrading to Pega Platform 8.5 and later, you cannot save case types in which you configure the Queue for robot smart shape to route new assignments to the Failed Robotic Assignments work queue. Existing assignments that you routed to the Failed Robotic Assignments work queue are not affected.

How do I update my application to be compatible with this change?

As a best practice, do not use the Failed Robotic Assignments work queue in your custom implementations. Instead, configure the Queue for robot smart shape to route new assignments to a Robotic work queue. When possible, update existing case types to use the robotic work queues that you created in your application.

Internet Application Composer mashup code generation

Case types can be added to an external web page by using the mashup code created in Case Designer. The mashup code is custom HTML that can be added to Internet Application Composer (IAC) codes.

The Actions menu in Case Designer includes the ability to automatically generate IAC HTML from a case type. The HTML is then copied and pasted into the target web page through standard IAC options.

The generated code is optimized for responsive web sites and responsive Pega applications. See Generating a mashup code in case configuration.

Savable data pages support loading pages individually from a page list

You can now load individual pages in a page list from single object data pages to your case and data types. This functionality allows you to save autopopulated properties with the Load each page individually option using a flow action, save data page smart shape, or the activity method.

For more information, see Saving data in a data page as part of a flow.

Consistent search experience in App Studio

Pega Platform™ now supports a unified search mechanism in App Studio. Instead of manually locating a single item, such as a case type, a channel, or a data object, you can simply use the Search option in the navigation pane. You can also use Search in case types and personas landing pages, to conveniently access the information that you need, for example channels and case types associated with a persona.  

For more information, see Plan your Microjourneys more conveniently in an improved Case Designer (8.5), Creating a Microjourney for customer success.

Improved experience when building an IVA and Email Bot in App Studio

Build your Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant™ (IVA) and Pega Email Bot™ while working only in App Studio. This approach makes the design process easier and more intuitive, and saves you time. You can now modify the advanced text analyzer configuration while working in App Studio. In addition, if you have access to Dev Studio, you can edit the text analyzer rule from App Studio for your chatbot or email bot by clicking a link to open the settings in Dev Studio.

For more information, see Adding a text analyzer for an email bot and Adding a text analyzer for an IVA.

Enhancements to branches

Several enhancements to branches make it possible for you to now do the following tasks.

• You can see all branches in your application and built-on applications by clicking App > Branches.
• You can view all the rules in a branch in addition to quality statistics, such as the number of merge conflicts and guardrail warnings.
• You can run PegaUnit tests that are configured on rules in a branch.
• You can import branches from and push branches to a repository.
• You can create reviews of branch contents.

For more information, see Enhanced features for branches.

Improved diagnostics and logging for Decision Data Store nodes

On the Decision Data Store tab, you can view additional metrics from the Decision Data Store nodes that help with diagnosing Cassandra database problems. You can also set the logging level to control interactions from and to Decision Data Store nodes.

For more information, see Decision Data Service node status information and Configuring the Decision Data Store service.