Published Release Notes

Rule revalidation after updating properties without restarting nodes

When you update certain property attributes, such as a property's maximum length, rule types that reference the property might not reflect the change. You do not always have to restart nodes to revalidate the referencing rules when they cannot be resaved, for example, when they are in a locked ruleset. For Pega Platform™ 8.1 and later, for non-stream rules, such as activities, data transforms, and so on, use the reassemble API in Admin Studio or truncate the assembled classes table.

For stream rules, such as sections, harnesses, paragraphs, and so on, reassemble the rules and restart the nodes. For more information, see More about properties.

For previous versions of Pega Platform, use the System Management Application (SMA) to revalidate stream and non-stream rules.

Deprecated support for passing symbolic index as strings to value lists and page lists

Starting with the next release after Pega Platform™ 8.2, passing symbolic indexes as strings in parameters, properties, and string literals to both value lists and page lists will no longer be supported. The following examples show the syntax that still works in Pega 8.2, that will not work in the next release:

myPageList("<LAST>")

and

param.str = "<LAST>"
myPageList(param.str)

The following example shows syntax that currently is not supported and gives a validation error. This syntax will also not work in future releases.

param.str = <LAST>
myPageList(param.str)

To avoid issues after upgrading to Pega 8.3, refactor all occurrences of this syntax in your code. For instructions on how to find occurrences of this syntax in your code, see Refactoring unsupported symbolic index syntax for value lists and page lists.

For more information about the correct use of symbolic indexes, see Symbolic indexes – APPEND, CURRENT, INSERT, LAST, and PREPEND.

Make important content visible by promoting spaces

Now you can make highly relevant content more visible and more easily accessible with promoted spaces. Highlight promoted spaces on a separate tab in spaces to ensure that the most relevant content is quickly available and clearly organized. Promoted spaces are available for every user; however, only users with Super Admin privileges can promote a space.

For more information, see Granting Super Admin privileges.

Mobile channel enhancements

The Mobile channel now supports several enhancements to Pega Infinity Mobile Client™ and provides custom mobile app options that are arranged in a more intuitive, consistent, and convenient layout. By default, custom mobile apps that you configure within the Mobile channel are generated with Pega Infinity Mobile Client. You can choose between a single webview web portal or a multi webview application layout, and configure such options as: bottom bar navigation rule, the bottom bar style, and the full screen search widget. You can also build a custom mobile app with Pega Mobile Client 7, or select a specific version of the client application.

For more information, see Configuring a custom mobile app.

Enhanced Pega Infinity Mobile Client

With the new Pega Infinity Mobile Client™ you now can build online apps that launch quickly, provide instantaneous navigation, and immediately react to user input. Pega Infinity Mobile Client uses native components for faster navigation between the screens of your custom mobile app; every tab opens in a separate webview, which accelerates switching between the tabs. Pega Infinity Mobile Client protects your sensitive information through safe and convenient single sign-on authentication and additional locking mechanisms.

For more information, see Pega Mobility and mobile clients.

Offline support for optional processes

You can now offer greater flexibility to the users of an offline-enabled custom mobile app by enabling them to start and continue optional processes while their phone is offline. When you configure a Run script action on a button within a user form, users can choose optional work, and continue it regardless of their internet connection.

For more information, see Enabling offline support for an optional flow.

Pega Mobile Preview app

You can now use Pega Mobile Preview to access multiple mobile channels and preview your Pega Platform™ application, for example, to verify that it is displayed correctly and operates as intended. Pega Mobile Preview is a native application that runs on Android and iOS devices. Compared with Pega Mobile Express, it enables switching between mobile channels and supports enhanced layout configuration options.

You can download Pega Mobile Preview from the Apple App Store or from Google Play.

For more information, see Pega Mobile Express and Pega Mobile Preview.

Changes in JSON results when checking the health of your system

Beginning with Pega Platform™ 8.2, the JSON results that are returned when you ping a Pega Platform instance have changed. JSON results now include node type and health information, including test name, status, state, and node ID. The following samples show JSON results from versions before 8.2 and as of 8.2.

JSON results for pre-Pega Platform 8.2:

{ "duration":"3954.448601", "count":"0" }

JSON results for Pega Platform 8.2 and later:

{"node_type":["WebUser"],"health":[{"last_reported_time":"2019-02-14T16:10:49.589Z","test_name":"Sample-Stream-Check","status":"success"}],"state":"healthy","node_id":"10.10.10_samplenode"}.

Naming pattern changed for file data sets

File data sets are used to import from and export data to a file repository. In case of data export, prior to version 8.6.3, the first file exported had the same file name that was provided by the user in the data set, and any subsequent file exported to the repository had a unique identifier appended to it. Starting in Pega Platform version 8.6.3, each file has a unique identifier, automatically generated based on the data flow node, thread ID, and timestamp.

Upgrade impact

If your process to consume output files expects files with a specific name, it may not be able to process the resulting files correctly.

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

If you have configured the process before updating to Pega Platform version 8.6.3, but the exported files are no longer recognized by downstream processing logic after the upgrade, ensure that the downstream tool is configured to recognize the files by a pattern rather than the full name. For example, when referring to files exported to the repository, use the * character to indicate a pattern instead of using the full file name. For example, use Export*.csv to refer to the files.