Published Release Notes

PegaWAI ruleset deprecated in 8.5

Accessibility functions that were contained in the PegaWAI ruleset are now integrated into the main Pega Platform™. Consequently, the user interface in your applications now features accessibility functions out of the box, so you no longer need to use the PegaWAI ruleset to ensure accessible behavior in your application.

For more information, see Building an accessible UI.

Faster starting offline-enabled mobile apps

Pega Platform™ and Pega Infinity Mobile Client™ now support access group data prepackaging when you build the executable files for an offline-enabled mobile app. This shortens the time needed to start a mobile app for the first time, because only the data that differs between the package and the current server state is synchronized. The data that is prepackaged comes from the access group cache, and you can decide what access group cache data should be excluded or additionally included in the package.

For more information, see Enabling access group data prepackaging during build.

Test coverage support for more rule types

Test coverage has been expanded to include the following rule types. Test coverage support for these rule types enables developers to more accurately measure the effectiveness of their tests.

• Collection
• Declare trigger
• Map value
• Navigation 
• Report definition
• Scorecard

For more information about test coverage, see Test coverage.

Upgrade impact

The new rule types may impact the test coverage metrics for your applications. Due to the increased number of supported rules, the reported test coverage percentage will decrease.

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

Run your coverage reports after upgrading to see the latest metrics.

The Create Build button appears grayed out when configuring and building a mobile application

When you attempt to configure and build your Android or iOS mobile application from the Mobile tab, the Create build button might appear dimmed. This issue occurs if any of the access roles in the access group were cloned from the PegaRULES:SysAdm4 access role.

Refer to Troubleshooting Pega Mobile Client to learn how to fix this issue in your application.

Enhanced options for resolution stages

When configuring a stage that resolves cases in Case Designer, you can now:

• Create a new resolution status.
• Select the status that is assigned to a case when it completes the last step in the stage.
• Instruct your application to close all open assignments when a case is resolved.

At run time, the audit trail of a case includes entries that capture the time that the case was resolved and open assignments were closed. To access the configuration options for a resolution stage, click Resolve the case on the General tab of the contextual property panel in Case Designer.

For more information about configuring a resolution stage, see Options for a stage that resolves cases.

Guided tours can be started automatically

You can configure a guided tour to start automatically by using the pxGuidedTourAutoStart control. You can configure the control to start a tour the first time or every time a user visits the screen where the control is used.

For more information, see Automatically start guided tours.

Support for application-specific REST API calls

You can now call an authenticated REST API in the context of any application that is listed on an operator record by using the application alias URL. With the application alias URL, you can also develop REST services without changing the access group in the service package. REST services run in the context of the access group that points to the provided application, instead of the access group that is specified in the service package.

For more information, see Invoking a REST service rule.

Tamper-proof Pega Web Mashup loading

To protect your application from hackers, Pega Web Mashup is now loaded in a more secure way. The system generates a channel ID in the mashup code for validation on the server, before passing the mashup request. 

For more information, see Creating a mashup.

Upgrade impact

After an upgrade to Pega Platform 8.5, existing mashups, which do not have the channel ID parameter in their code, cannot load and users see the access control warning.

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

If you need to maintain full availability of the mashup during the upgrade of the production environment, perform the steps in Migrating existing mashups.

Offline configuration limitation

When enabling the offline capability for a case type, do not select the Enable offline check box in Case Designer because it incorrectly sets the locking strategy. Instead, select the Enable offline mode check box on the Advanced tab of the Case Type form.

To open the Case Type form from Case Designer, click Open on the Actions menu.

Automatic separation of date input

Date fields in Date Time controls now automatically divide strings of input into days, months, and years. In single fields, the system adds slashes (/) as the user types the value. For example, an input string of 10102020 becomes 10/10/2020. In separate day/month/year fields, the system automatically switches from one field to the next as the user types the value. This enhancement improves the user experience by helping to users provide input in a more convenient and time-efficient manner.

For more information, see Configuring a Date Time control.