Published Release Notes

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.

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.

Unit testing support for more rule types

You can now create unit tests for the following additional rule types. You can also create assertions to validate activity status. The expanded rule types for unit testing enable developers to more thoroughly perform regression testing of their application, thereby improving application quality.

• Collection
• Declare expression
• Map value
• Report definition

For more information about unit testing rules, see Pega unit test cases.

Upgrade impact

With the four new rule types, unit test execution and unit test compliance metrics will change. Reports on automated unit testing of the customer application decrease due to the increased pool of supported rules.

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

After a successful upgrade, create Pega unit test cases for the newly supported rules to see updated and accurate unit test metrics.

Use Page-Change-Class method to change a Page class

With the release of Pega Platform™ 8.3, using the Property-Set method to change the Page class shows a guardrail warning. Use the Page-Change-Class method to change the Page class instead.

For more information about the Page-Change-Class method, see Changing the class of a page and Page-Change-Class method.

Data and integration troubleshooting enhancements

Identify how data is loaded in user interface (UI) elements, discover the data sources used, and navigate to the relevant rules by using the new Live Data tool. Use the Live Data tool to quickly troubleshoot data and integrations by providing data page information or autopopulate properties from the UI without searching through the clipboard.

For more information, see Troubleshooting data in UI elements.

Retrieve a flat list of fields from Pega Digital Experience APIs

You can now use the flatListOfFields parameter to retrieve a list of the fields in a case or flow action. With this parameter, you avoid parsing all the layout information for the Pega Digital Experience API, making it easier for you to see only what you need to build your user interface.

The following Pega Digital Experience APIs support the flatListOfFields parameter:

• GET /casetypes/{ID}
• GET /assignments/{ID}/actions/{actionID}
• GET /cases/{ID}/actions/{actionID}

For more information, see Retrieve a flat list of fields from Pega APIs.