Published Release Notes

New graphical layout and shapes on the Data Flow form

The Data Flow form has an enhanced layout that improves interaction with objects on the canvas and provides better readability of flow shapes. The enhancements also include the addition of Branch and Data Transform shapes, and the Convert shape, which supports page unpacking. With these enhancements, you can build data flows more efficiently and capture business requirements more effectively.

For more information, see Improvements to the Data Flow rule form and New shapes on the Data Flow form.

Terminate sessions for operators from outside the Pega 7 Platform

The newly added Users REST API allows an authorized administrator to terminate sessions for one or more operator IDs from outside the Pega^® 7 Platform. A typical use case for this API is to terminate a user’s session when the user's security credentials, which are stored externally, are known to have changed.

Access the Pega API by clicking Resources > Pega API.

Improved scrollable layouts in a new harness

By default, you can now create a new harness with a screen layout instead of as a container with a cell structure. This change ensures that you can create an application layout more efficiently; for example, you can specify a scroll area exactly the way you want in a desktop application or a mobile app. You can arrange the header, footer, and main area content at the new harness level by using sections. For example, you can specify headers and footers to be fixed or to scroll with the page. New layout options are configurable in the skin. Different layout selections are available when you use the harness as an app view, a main area, inner harness, or a page view.

For more information, see Configuring a screen layout.

Client page load statistic enhancements

The client page load statistic is the total elapsed time from when the user clicks to when the screen has finished rendering, including network time and time spent in the browser. This statistic gives you visibility into system performance, allowing you to address performance issues in a timely manner. The client page load statistic is now available for usage reporting through the Log-Usage class and in the System Management Application (SMA). In addition, a new alert, PEGA0069, is generated when the page load duration is greater than the threshold. The threshold is set by using the following prconfig.xml file setting:

<env name="alerts/browser/clientPageLoadTimeThreshold/warnMS" value="<milliseconds>" />

The default is 4000 milliseconds.

For more information, see PEGA0069 alert - Client page load time has exceed the alert threshold.

Cluster-wide tracing for service rule

RuleWatch Tracing of Service Rules has been enhanced to support cluster-wide tracing. Cluster-wide tracing makes it easier for you to troubleshoot services in clustered configurations where a load balancer dynamically assigns service requests to nodes in the cluster. This functionality is especially useful for debugging mobile applications, REST Web Services, and other stateless service executions. When tracing across the cluster, the trace feature captures only one trace at a time, which might result in some concurrent service executions not being traced. All other concurrent service executions in the cluster continue unimpeded. When the trace in progress is completed, the next new service execution in the cluster is traced. For example, you might see traces for invocation one on node A, invocation two on node C, and invocation four on node B. This selective tracing approach ensures that tracing with a breakpoint will not stop all service executions across the cluster. The trace/cluster/ServiceRuleWatchmaxProductionLevel Dynamic System Setting has also been added, which allows you to selectively disable tracing based on production level to eliminate performance issues related to tracing in production systems.

As a result of this enhancement, only one user can trace a service rule at any given time. An error message is displayed if you try to trace a service rule that is being traced by another user.

For more information, see Cluster-wide tracing of service rules.

New formats for styling report data grids

When you view a report, the data grid that is displayed is now styled by using either the List report format or the Summarized report format, depending on the report type. With this enhancement, you can display report data differently, and perhaps more effectively, than other grids in your portal. In the skin of your application, these new formats will be added and upgraded automatically by copying the Default format for the Trees & grids layout type, which was previously used to style reports.

For more information, see Modifying data grid formats for reports.

Monte Carlo data set

You can now create a Monte Carlo data set that is filled with varied and realistic-looking data. You can use this type of data set to generate random data records to test strategies and data flows.

For more information, see Creating a Monte Carlo data set record.

System starts slowly after upgrade or update on IBM DB2 for z/OS

Additional tables are added to upgraded and updated systems. If your system starts up very slowly after an upgrade or update, the database statistics on these new tables might not have generated correctly. To correct this issue and improve performance, your database administrator needs to manually rebuild the statistics for all tables in the rules schema.

Support for creating PegaUnit test cases for strategy rules

You can create PegaUnit test cases for strategy rules in Designer Studio and in the decisioning user portals to compare the output of a strategy to the results that are returned by running the strategy. For example, you can verify that the number of propositions per customer is less than or equal to a certain value.

For more information, see:

• Creating test cases for strategy rules, if you are working in the decisioning user portals.
• PegaUnit testing

Conditional filter logic supported in access control policy conditions

In the Access Control Policy Condition rule form, you can now add conditional logic that allows you to apply different access control policy conditions based on different situations, such as different types of users. The policy condition filters that are enforced  are based on the results of Access When rules. Conditional filters can be configured to allow certain highly privileged users to bypass access control security in certain situations. This is accomplished by entering an Access When but leaving the conditional logic field blank.  When such a filter is applied to a read access policy it also should be applied to the corresponding discover policy.

For more information, see Creating an access control policy condition.