Published Release Notes

Data propagation for questionnaires in case types

Pega Platform™ now provides a tool to prepopulate answers in a questionnaire that runs in a case by propagating data from a parent case. At run time, specified questions in a questionnaire that users complete as part of case processing, can display answers by using information that users already provided in the parent case. As a result, you speed up the development of your application and help users process cases and complete questionnaires faster.

For more information, see:

• Deliver user-friendly questionnaires by prepopulating answers (8.6)
• Running a questionnaire in a case

Deprecation of EAR deployments in Pega Platform 8.6

Starting with Pega Platform 8.6, EAR deployments of Pega Platform are deprecated. In the upcoming 8.7 release, EAR deployments will not be supported. The following rules that require EAR deployments will also be deprecated and no longer supported in Pega Platform 8.7:

• Connect EJB
• Connect JCA
• JCA Resource Adapter
• JMS MDB Listener
• Service EJB

With this deprecation, you can use the latest tools and keep your application up to date. 

Upgrade impact

In Pega Platform 8.6, you can still create rules that require EAR deployments and update existing rules. However, after an upgrade to Pega Platform 8.7, rules that require EAR deployments are no longer supported.

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

To prepare your application for this change well in advance of the Pega Platform 8.7 release, see the following table for a list of alternative rules and for guidance on modernizing your application.

For information on the supported platforms that are affected by this deprecation, see Pega Platform 8.6 Support Guide.

Upgrading to the secure threading mechanism for email bots

In Pega Platform™ version 8.6, Pega Email Bot™ includes a more secure threading mechanism to help track emails from customers and other stakeholders in separate threads for an email triage case.

Upgrade impact

If you upgrade from Pega Platform version 8.5 or earlier, in which you configured an Email channel, perform the following steps to ensure that your system uses the new secure threading mechanism:

• Update the service email rule that the system uses to send an email reply as the initial acknowledgment.
• Update the email reply template in the data transform rule that the system uses when a customer service representative (CSR) sends the reply.

For more information about creating an initial acknowledgment email and email reply template, see Creating outbound email templates. For more information about the secure threading mechanism, see Use a secure threading mechanism in emails.

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

For the initial acknowledgment email used by your email bot, update the service method for your email listener rule. On the Response tab for this service email rule, expand the Message contents section. In the Message data section, you specify the rule that defines the structure of the content of the email body. In Pega Platform version 8.6, you use for this purpose the pyEmailAcknowledgement correspondence rule that takes into account the selected built-in template. This template includes the security code tag that the system uses for the secure threading mechanism. If your application uses a different rule in the Message data section, update this definition to match one of the built-in correspondence template rules, for example, EmailAckTemplate_Clear.

The pySetEmailBotReplyTemplate data transform rule sets the name of the email correspondence rule that the system uses as the email reply template. If you do not want to use the default approach using the Classic, Cobalt, or Clear outbound email template themes, override this data transform rule to set the email correspondence rule name for the Param.ReplyTemplate target in the Source column field.

For more information about how to update the service email rule and the data transform rule to ensure that your system uses the secure threading mechanism, see Upgrading to the threading mechanism available in the 8.6 version.

Improved indexing performance by gradual retrieval of data

Search functionality in Pega Platform™ versions from 8.4.5 to 8.6 now includes the option to improve indexing performance when reading query results from a large table in a database. For example, to load the recommended 50 records at a time, in the Pega-SearchEngine ruleset, create the indexing/distributed/fetchsize dynamic system setting, and set the value to 50.

Creating the fetchsize dynamic system setting ensures that your system does not crash while indexing classes with numerous instances.

For more information, see Creating a dynamic system setting.

Automatic packaging of cases for offline use

Newly created mobile channels now support automatic packaging of cases for use in offline mode. The packaging process includes case data from all native list pages that you create from offline-enabled case types and add to the navigation of your mobile app. Previously, automatic packaging was limited to assignments in the work list (and their related work items), and cases that were listed in the data page that you manually designated for packaging.

This enhancement improves the user experience for mobile app developers by ensuring that the data that is referenced in list pages for offline-enabled case types is automatically available for the users of your offline app.

Upgrading to Hazelcast 4.x requires downtime during upgrades to Pega Infinity 8.6

Upgrade impact statement

On-premises upgrades of Pega Infinity release 8.4.2 and later to version 8.5.1 or later on Tomcat and PostgreSQL are completed with near-zero downtime. However, upgrading to Hazelcast 4.x requires that you shut down and restart your application server.

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

Hazelcast 3.x is enabled by default. For near-zero downtime upgrades, you do not need to perform any action.

For instructions about upgrading to Hazelcast 4.x, see one of the following topics:

• For near-zero downtime upgrades from Pega Infinity release 8.4.2 or later on Tomcat and PostgreSQL, see "Optional: upgrading to Pega Platform version 8.6: Upgrading to Hazelcast 4.x" in Near-zero downtime Upgrade Guide for Pega Platform version 8.4.2 and later for Tomcat and PostgreSQL.
• For all other upgrades, see "Optional: upgrading to Hazelcast 4.x" in the appropriate upgrade guide.

Extend PegaUnit setup and cleanup capabilities using custom fixtures

The set up and clean up capabilities in the PegaUnit framework are now customizable through the use of custom fixtures. Custom fixtures extend the default testing functionality and allow you to define and implement specific runtime actions, such as running a specific test case during set up or sending an email after testing has completed execution. 

For more information, see Setting up and cleaning the context for a test case or test suite. 

Deprecated support for Pega Platform deployments on embedded Cassandra

If you use Pega Platform™ decision management capabilities, Pega Platform uses Cassandra as the underlying storage system for the Decision Data Store (DDS), which manages the Cassandra cluster and stores decision management data in a Cassandra database. Future versions of Pega Platform will no longer support deployments on embedded Cassandra. In Pega Platform version 8.6, deployments using embedded Cassandra are deprecated but still work. To ensure future compatibility, do not create any new installations using embedded Cassandra.

For information about how to configure Pega Platform to access an external database, see Defining Pega Platform access to an external Cassandra database.

Kafka data set enhancements

The Kafka data set is a high-throughput and low-latency platform for handling real-time data feeds that you can use as input for Pega Platform event strategies.

For better integration of Pega Platform with externally hosted Kafka, the following enhancements are implemented:

• Support for Kafka message keys and headers - extended values data format (JSON Data Transform, Apache Avro)
• Custom value processing
• Configuring topic names by using Application Properties
• Data-Admin-Kafka enhancements - supporting a wide range of connection properties

For more information, see Improve your Kafka data set with new enhancements.

Case archiving enhancements in Pega Cloud Services

To provide a more complete archiving solution to Pega Cloud clients, we have introduced several enhancements to the archival functionality for your Pega Platform database. This includes support for your data retention policy to expunge (permanently delete) archived data from Pega Cloud File Storage.

Permanently delete case data with data retention policy

In previous versions, Pega Cloud clients could archive resolved cases and associated data from the Pega database to Pega Cloud File Storage after the cases have been resolved for a specified number of days with an archival policy. Now, clients can permanently delete archived data from Pega Cloud File Storage after the cases have been resolved for a specified number of days with a data retention policy. 

Faster adoption with testing mode

Clients can now enable a testing mode and specify archival policies in minutes instead of days. Now you create and resolve cases, then run archiving process immediately to test the functionality within minutes.

Easier adoptions with enhanced monitoring capabilities

With the addition of the Log-ArchivalSummary class and its associated log files, clients can monitor their archival jobs in a single view. We have also improved logging for archival jobs, offering you greater insight into the success of your archival process.

To learn more about archiving and purging your case data in your Pega Cloud environment, see Improving performance by archiving cases.