Published Release Notes

Verify ML Readiness error: Upgrades from Pega 7.1.0 through 7.1.8 do not replace nonversioned rules

Upgrading from any Pega 7 Platform version between Pega 7.1 and Pega 7.1.8 to Pega 7.2 does not automatically replace nonversioned rules. If you revalidated and saved a Pega 7.1.x rule after the timestamp on the Pega 7.2 version of the rule, upgrading to Pega 7.2 does not overwrite the saved rule. You might see either of the following behaviors:

• The upgrade fails with the following error message:
  Verify ML Readiness
• The upgrade succeeds, but you might be unable to open changed rule forms.

If the upgrade fails, see the Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide to force the upgrade.

This known issue does not affect Pega 7.1.9. After the upgrade has finished, apply Hotfix 27288. For information about obtaining and applying hotfixes, see Hotfix Manager.

Unused agents run in background

The Update PegaRULES database table statistics agent and the Collect PegaRULES database blob size statistics agent have been added to support future development. These agents run in the background, but they do not do anything. You can, but do not need to, disable them from the Edit Agent Schedule landing page.

For more information, see Agent Schedule form - Completing the Schedule tab.

Prediction Studio notifications

Prediction Studio now displays notifications when adaptive or predictive models encounter problems. For example, if the performance of a model decreases suddenly, a notification appears, which you can use to immediately investigate the cause of the problem.

For more information, see Accessing Prediction Studio notifications and Prediction Studio notification types.

Production data sampling and migration for decision strategy simulations

Pega Platform™ now supports the sampling and migration of data from the production environment to the simulation environment. The data that is migrated for simulations includes customer details, Adaptive Decision Management information, and interaction history. By running a simulation on that sample data in Pega Marketing™ or Pega Customer Decision Hub™, you can verify how the changes to your decision logic impact the results. You can use that information to optimize and adjust your decision algorithms and processes.

For more information, see Deploying sample production data to a simulation environment for testing.

Integrate text analytics with decision strategies through the Interaction API

The Interaction API provides more context for making next-best-action decisions by integrating text analytics with decision management components such as strategies, propositions, and interaction history. By including natural language processing in your decisioning solution through the Interaction API, you ensure that the next-best-action decisions that you make are more informed and accurate.

For more information, see Customizable Interaction API for text analytics.

BIX ruleset is now included with Pega Platform

The Pega Business Intelligence Exchange™ (BIX) ruleset is now included with Pega Platform™, which eliminates the need for additional provisioning for Pega Cloud customers and for a separate BIX installation for on-premises customers. To add BIX to your application, add the Pega-BIX:<version> ruleset to your application rulesets.

For more information, see Data extraction.

Upgrade impact

After a successful upgrade, the BIX ruleset is available within Pega Platform. You should synchronize the BIX ruleset and Pega rules to avoid extraction errors.

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

After the upgrade is complete, change the ruleset version for Pega Platform and BIX to use the same, latest version.

Set a time zone for the DateTime control

The DateTime control now supports the selection of a specific time zone. Apart from the default local time zone, you can choose a Java-supported time zone or enter a property. For example, you can make it easier for a manager working in New York to schedule a task for a worker in London by configuring a calendar picker on user forms to show a date and time for Europe/London.

Beginning with this release, the calendar picker defaults to the current time in the time zone that is defined in the operator record. Previously, it defaulted to the local time zone of the system.

For more information, see Specifying a time zone for a DateTime control.

Upgrade impact

After a successful upgrade, the DateTime gadget displays the time in the current operator's locale, which is defined on the operator rule form or in the browser.  

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

If you need to display the system time from which the user has logged in, and if this is not the same as the time in the user's locale (based on the browser setting), set the Locale field in the operator ID to be blank so that the browser-based setting and the displayed time are the same as the system time.

Support for machine learning as a service models

In Pega Platform™, you can now run advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence models that you develop in third-party tools. By configuring a connection with an external machine learning as a service provider, such as Google AI Platform, you can use the predictive power of your custom models to improve the predictions in your customer strategies.

For more information, see Connecting to a Machine Learning as a Service model and Configuring a machine learning service connection.

Accelerated design of sections

The user interface design of your application now supports actions such as copy, paste, or delete on multiple user interface components at the same time. This enhancement accelerates the user interface design in Dev Studio when you work with templates and in App Studio when you design the sections of your run-time interface.

Dynamic configuration of the primary navigation of a web interface

The web channel interface of your application now supports adding, removing, and reordering user interface pages that are relevant to your application. By configuring the layout directly in a web channel interface, you get a dynamic overview of the current web interface and design the navigation experience.

For more information, see Configuring the navigation menu for a portal and Modifying the name and icon of a page.