Published Release Notes

MBeans deprecated in favor of Pega API

The use of MBeans for cluster management has been deprecated, although MBeans will continue to function for legacy deployments. The recommended best practice for automating system management is to use the Pega API. For more information, see Pega API.

Gadget configuration by using IAC gateway console is no longer supported

The Internet Application Composer (IAC) gateway was deprecated in Pega Platform™ 7.2.1 and is no longer supported. The IAC was used to embed a Pega Platform application, such as a gadget, on the pages of a web application that was located on your intranet, extranet, or internet site.

Upgrade impact

After an upgrade to Pega Platform 8.5, the configuration of gadgets through the IAC gateway console is no longer supported.

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

To make subsequent changes to your current web mashup, use Pega Web Mashup. 

For more information, see Tutorial: Creating a mashup with Pega Web Mashup.

Upgrading to the secure threading mechanism for email bots

In Pega Platform™ version 8.6, Pega Email Bot™ includes a more secure threading mechanism to help track emails from customers and other stakeholders in separate threads for an email triage case.

Upgrade impact

If you upgrade from Pega Platform version 8.5 or earlier, in which you configured an Email channel, perform the following steps to ensure that your system uses the new secure threading mechanism:

• Update the service email rule that the system uses to send an email reply as the initial acknowledgment.
• Update the email reply template in the data transform rule that the system uses when a customer service representative (CSR) sends the reply.

For more information about creating an initial acknowledgment email and email reply template, see Creating outbound email templates. For more information about the secure threading mechanism, see Use a secure threading mechanism in emails.

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

For the initial acknowledgment email used by your email bot, update the service method for your email listener rule. On the Response tab for this service email rule, expand the Message contents section. In the Message data section, you specify the rule that defines the structure of the content of the email body. In Pega Platform version 8.6, you use for this purpose the pyEmailAcknowledgement correspondence rule that takes into account the selected built-in template. This template includes the security code tag that the system uses for the secure threading mechanism. If your application uses a different rule in the Message data section, update this definition to match one of the built-in correspondence template rules, for example, EmailAckTemplate_Clear.

The pySetEmailBotReplyTemplate data transform rule sets the name of the email correspondence rule that the system uses as the email reply template. If you do not want to use the default approach using the Classic, Cobalt, or Clear outbound email template themes, override this data transform rule to set the email correspondence rule name for the Param.ReplyTemplate target in the Source column field.

For more information about how to update the service email rule and the data transform rule to ensure that your system uses the secure threading mechanism, see Upgrading to the threading mechanism available in the 8.6 version.

Support for building apps as Android App Bundles

As of August 2021, Google Play Store requires that you submit new apps in the Android App Bundle publishing format instead of the APK format. You can now build Pega mobile apps in the Android App Bundle format so that they comply with this new requirement.

For more information about generating installation packages for Pega mobile apps, see Generating installation packages. For more information about the Android App Bundle publishing format, see the Android for Developers documentation.

Data page unit test case setup and cleanup

You can now use one or more data pages, data transforms, or activities to set up a clipboard page with the appropriate properties before you run a data page unit test case. You can also use activities to create any required test data, such as work or data objects.

After you run a data page unit test case, the data pages that were used to set up the test environment are automatically removed. You can now also apply additional data transforms or activities to clean up the clipboard.

For more information, see Setup and cleanup of data page unit test cases.

New assertions for data page unit test cases

You can now configure the following assertions for data page unit test cases:

• Result count assertions for page lists, page groups, value lists, and value groups
• Unordered list and ordered list assertions for page lists

The Pega 7 Platform now supports these assertions in addition to expected run-time assertions for the data page and property assertions for any property type.

For more information, see Data page unit test case assertions.

End of support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 in Pega 7.2.1

In accordance with Microsoft’s announcement to discontinue support for Internet Explorer 9, Pega 7.2.1 will not support Internet Explorer 9. You should not upgrade to Pega 7.2.1 if you are still using Internet Explorer 9. Otherwise, upgrade to Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 or later, or use Google Chrome, Apple Safari, or Mozilla Firefox, which support certain HTML5 and CSS3 standards not supported in Internet Explorer 9.

For more information about browser support, see the Platform Support Guide or contact Pegasystems Global Customer Support.

New options to manage proposition validity

Manage your decisioning strategy more effectively with proposition validity settings. You can now set your propositions as always active, inactive, or active only within a defined time period. Setting a validity period for your propositions helps you to plan your strategy and automatically activate or deactivate propositions in the future.

For more information, see Proposition validity.

Ability to import data into a Pega Cloud database

You can export a custom Pega 7 Platform database table into a CSV file and import it into a Pega Cloud database or other Pega 7 Platform database by using the Data Upload utility. This utility is available only for Postgres databases and tables that do not contain BLOB columns. This utility is useful, for example, for updating a product catalog that is used in a Pega Cloud application.

For more information, see Importing data into a Pega Cloud database.

Ability to schedule schema updates for Pega Cloud

You can schedule BLOB size and table statistic updates to database schemas to run automatically by using agents. Scheduling schema updates is useful for performance monitoring and tuning in the Pega Cloud. This feature is available only for customers who use a Postgres database.

There is an agent for updating the average and maximum BLOB sizes, and an agent for updating table statistics. Each agent can be configured separately for each schema. You can configure whether to schedule the agent to run daily or weekly. You can deactivate a running schedule on the Schema Tools landing page by clicking Designer Studio > System > Database > Schema Tools. From the Schema Tools landing page, you can configure more complex scheduling on the Edit Agent Schedule landing page. In addition, you can configure these agents by using Dynamic Data System Settings.

For more information, see Scheduling schema updates.