Published Release Notes

Work with delegated records in the new Configuration dashboard

Business users can manage and modify delegated items from the new Configuration dashboard on the Case Manager portal. The dashboard allows business users to:

• Create and edit instances (records) of any application data type (including Products and Customers)
• Edit the content of any paragraph rule
• Revise application logic that is defined in basic decision tables

Define function input parameters on the Create or Save As forms

When creating or updating a Rule-Utility-Function ruleset in Designer Studio, use the Create or Save As forms to define or change parameters as a part of the form. The Parameters section on either of these forms allows you to set the function's name and Java type before opening the function.

Previously, you updated these fields on the Parameters tab for the function after the form was created. Moving these fields to the Create and Save As forms helps to proactively detect functions with the same signature in the same ruleset before saving the function.

For more information, see Defining function input parameters on the Create or Save As forms.

Support for Oracle TIMESTAMP data types

The Oracle TIMESTAMP data type is now fully supported throughout the Pega 7 data layer. The TIMESTAMP columns for data provide greater precision than the previously available DATE columns.

This release does not include any columns that use the TIMESTAMP data type at installation. However, after installation or upgrade:

• Any newly created columns (for example, those created when optimizing a property or defining a new table) use the TIMESTAMP column type.
• Any existing data still uses DATE values.
  • Oracle users can manually convert any existing DATE column types to use a TIMESTAMP column type instead.
  • Altering the column type for existing values in a column does not provide any greater precision for those values because they still use DATE values and not DATETIME values.

For more information, see DateTime property mapping in Oracle for Pega 7.

Updates to the Business Intelligence Exchange (BIX) product

The Business Intelligence Exchange (BIX) add-on has been updated with several new features. BIX 7.1.8 fully supports extraction of data from a Pega 7 multi-tenant instance. BIX can also now be run on Pega Cloud instances. Additionally, the new pxExtractDataWithArgs activity can be used by on-premises customers to schedule BIX runs by using Pega Platform agents.

For more information, see the BIX 7.1 User Guide.

Ability to periodically defragment the PR_SYS_LOCKS table

Lock management in Pega 7 is controlled through the database table PR_SYS_LOCKS. Because of the high volume of entries inserted into and deleted from this table during case processing, the data in the PR_SYS_LOCKS table can become highly fragmented, causing degraded performance over time.

You can now periodically defragment this table. The following Dynamic System Settings control when and how often defragmentation takes place using DefragSysLocksDaemon:

• syslocks/defragIntervalType

  • ​Custom interval type to run defragmentation

  • Set this first – determines whether defragmentation occurs daily at a specified hour or at a recurring interval

• ​syslocks/defragHourOfDay
  • ​​Used to run defragmentation at a specified hour
  • Accepts only integer values in the range 0-23
  • Example: run defragmentation daily at 1 AM by entering a value of "1"

  • Can be ignored if syslocks/defragIntervalType indicates a a specified periodic interval

• syslocks/defragIntervalInHours
  • Used to run defragmentation at specified periodic intervals
  • Accepts only integer values > 0

  • Example: run defragmentation every four hours by entering a value of "4"

  • Can be ignored if syslocks/defragIntervalType indicates a specified hour

For more information, see PEGA0056 alert monitors PR_SYS_LOCKS defragmentation performance.

Optimized Storage Stream for reduced BLOB size

All clipboard pages are serialized and are stored in BLOB columns named pzPVStream in the Pega 7 database. The Storage Stream (byte stream) that is stored in these BLOB columns has been optimized to make the BLOB values smaller, and to also make the encoding and reading of these values faster when opening and saving objects.

This update was completed by reducing redundancies in the stored data, redesigning the data structure to be more space efficient, and by selectively encoding only parts of the stream, instead of encoding the entire stream on each read.

For more information, see the help topic Storage Stream.

Custom PL/Java Modules for PostgreSQL 9.3

To install Pega 7 for PostgreSQL 9.3, you must first install the version of PL/Java included in your resource kit. Follow the installation instructions located in:

<Pega 7 installation directory>\ResourceKit\ResourceKitREADME.txt.

Note that if you do not install PL/Java before you attempt to install Pega 7, then the Pega 7 installation fails.

Simplified process for JMS MDB listener deployment

The process for deploying a JMS message-driven bean (MDB) that represents a JMS MDB listener has been streamlined for new enterprise applications. It is now less complicated and can be performed in fewer steps.

For more information on deploying to WebSphere, WebLogic, and JBoss, refer to the PDN article Deploying a JMS message-driven bean (MDB) that represents a JMS MDB listener in Pega 7.

New property pxCommitDateTime

A new property, pxCommitDateTime, records the time when a record or updated rule was committed to the database. This property also allows for incremental extracts when running BIX.

Using SAML 2.0 for web single sign-on

Provide a seamless user-authentication experience across your SAML 2.0-enabled service provider applications by using SAML 2.0 for web single sign-on.

Pega uses this industry-standard protocol to ensure simple and proven connectivity with your Identity Provider (IdP). The Pega 7 platform is fully conformant with the SAML 2.0 web single sign-on and single logout profiles.

For additional information about SAML 2.0 conformance, including configuring Pega 7 as a service provider, see SAML 2.0 conformance for web single sign-on and single logout profiles.