Published Release Notes

Decision Strategy Manager

Fixes were made that improve the configuration and execution of Batch Decisions. In particular,  the capability to use Structured Data has been enhanced. Some notable improvements have also been made to the UI of Visual Business Director.

• The structured data input configuration will now work even though there is no data.
• VBD has been enhanced to work with Version 7.1.
• The structured data input configuration will now work with nested structures.
• Association rules from Version 6.3 will now work with 7.1 structured data.

DCO

In this release, specification support in Case Designer was improved.  Also, improvements and fixes were made to the New Application Wizard.

• Changes were made to support a split schema environment
• Shared and Component RuleSets can be copied.
• Can edit in Word from either Grids or Lists.
• More than 50 case types are now supported for an application.

Integration

Usability enhancements have been made to the integration wizards. The REST end-point integration has been improved, and XML parsing functionality has been enhanced.

• PRPC services can return Report or Listview data as XML.
• Work items may now be processed when accessing from a link in system-created emails.
• An SMTP outage will not cause an application to stop working.
• File listener will now read files using a leading asterisk (*).
• XML Parse rule will handle schema validation.
• PegaImageViewer will now work with Version 7.1.
• Security measures are enhanced for SOAP connections to web services.
• After generating rules using REST wizard, the Undo Generation button will delete all the generated rules.
• Email wizard has been improved.

Reporting

This release had a focus on extending key capabilities to improve the functionality and ease of use of reporting features based on early adopter feedback.  A series of cosmetic changes and fixes are also included.

• Multiple boxes may be checked on List view checkboxes
• Dashboard Charts slider has been improved.
• Summary View reports and charts have been enhanced.
• Column properties can be added to a report in the Report Editor.
• List view column widths can be set by Smart Info.
• Listviews will display correctly for updated systems.
• Improvements to the GuardRail Report.

System Management

The PRPC installer has been enhanced to handle additional error conditions related to partial installs and duplicate keys; additionally, the hotfix rollback feature has been improved, and the Rulebase compare tool now supports HTTP(S) environments.

• Rollback feature has been enhanced.
• RuleBase Compare will work for secure (HTTPS) environments as well as  non-secure (HTTP) environments.
• Install will gracefully handle the presence of a duplicate key during import.
• When install fails, system will set tables back to original state.
• Remote MBean methods will now work on multi-servant load-balancing systems.
• Enhancements were made to harnesses in Split Schema systems.

User Interface

Issues for cross-browser support for Designer Studio have been addressed. Improvements were made in run-time performance for data pages with grids, and a number of cosmetic changes and fixes were made.

• Improved loading of Javascript files during saving Harness rules.
• Login Performance improvements
• A cursor pointer issue was addressed in Case Manager.
• In reports, data in columns will now right-align.
• Improved section validation functionality
• Harnesses with screen layouts will now save when there is a refresh condition on a panel.
• Outline View tree has been improved.
• Improvements to Repeat Grids using Data Pages as a source.
• Formatted text cells can be put into a grid to display the value of a property retrieved from a Report Definition join.
• Designer Studio changes to support IE9 and IE10.
• Improved designer studio layout
• Designer Studio changes to support quirks mode in IE8 and IE9.
• Improvements to SmartLabels in Data Pages
• Tab groups will take parameters for pre-activities in a defer load setup.
• Sections support nested dynamic layouts.

Data schema error on z/OS split schema upgrades from versions before Pega 7.1.8

When upgrading to a split schema on Pega 7.x with IBM DB2 for z/OS, you see an error during the data schema upgrade when the system tries to drop the PRPC_Updatescache procedure. Because triggers on rules tables use PRPC_Updatescache, you must use the ZOSDisableTriggerScripts to disable these triggers before you update the data schema.

1. Follow the instructions in the Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide to upgrade the rules schema, but stop immediately before you upgrade the data schema with the upgrade.bat or upgrade.sh script. The Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide is on the Support > Deployment Guides page.
2. Copy the contents of the <distribution>\ResourceKit\ZOSDisableTriggerScripts directory into the <distribution>\scripts\ directory.
3. Run fixZosTriggers.bat or fixZosTriggers.sh with the following arguments:
   --action preupgrade
--dataschema <data schema name>
   --oldrulesschema <old rules schema name. If you are upgrading from a single-schema system, this is the data schema name.>
   --newrulesschema <new rules schema name>
   --automaticddl <Optional. Set to true to automatically apply the disable trigger SQL scripts.>

   For example:
   fixZosTriggers --action preupgrade --dataschema pegadata --oldrulesschema pegarules --newrulesschema newrules --automaticddl false

4. If you did not set --automaticddl to true in the previous step, run the <distribution>\schema/disable.sql script to manually disable the trigger SQL scripts.
5. Run the data schema upgrade as described in the Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide.

Updated Word merge support with Microsoft Silverlight plug-in

Starting in this release, Pega 7 features that integrate with the Word merge capability are now cross-browser. ActiveX controls (which are only compatible with Internet Explorer) have been replaced with Microsoft Silverlight. This plug-in must be downloaded separately from Microsoft because it is not shipped with Pega 7.

Common features that are affected by this change include the Specification form and Case Type landing page.

Prior to using these features, see the release note Word merge support with Microsoft Silverlight plug-in for more information about setting up their client systems.

Real-time event processing

Real-time event processing is a mechanism that can be used to analyze a high velocity stream of events entering the system and derive conclusions from them. It is possible to define metrics, measurements, and conditions under which subsequent trigger events are generated.

For details, see Real-time event processing.

End of support for form-based rule forms in Pega 7.1.9

Rule forms that are configured to render as forms are no longer supported in Designer Studio or end-user applications. Form-based configurations are found on custom rule types that were created in earlier versions of Pega 7 and are characterized by pop-up windows that are rendered externally from Designer Studio.

Reconfigure Pega 7 applications that use such rule forms by using standard harnesses and sections.

1. Open the class form.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Select Harness from the Rule formmenu.
4. Create a new harness and new sections that implement the logic of the custom rule, using standard user interface layouts and controls.

Migrating custom rule forms to harnesses and sections offers the following benefits:

• User interfaces become HTML5 WC3 compatible and responsive to different screen sizes.
• User interfaces become cross-browser compatible, rendered consistently in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
• Rendering performance on modern browsers is dramatically improved.
• User interface pop-up behavior is eliminated; all windows are rendered inside Designer Studio and end-user applications.