Published Release Notes

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.

Enhanced interoperability with enterprise content management products

The Content Management Interoperability service (CMIS) capabilities of the Pega 7 platform now provide enhanced interoperability with enterprise content management products. This improvement uses modern web services components that require a Pega platform running Java 7 or higher when CMIS connectivity through SOAP web services are utilized.

Access REST services and APIs by using OAuth 2.0

You can now allow external client applications to access REST services on your behalf by using the OAuth 2.0 protocol client credentials grant. The Pega 7 Platform acts as an OAuth 2.0 provider to grant trusted applications access to functions in Pega 7 Platform applications. Additionally, you can provide access to the Pega API by using OAuth 2.0.

Improvements for the PMML models

The Pega 7 Platform extends support for the PMML models to include PMML 4.2 features and validations. Additionally, the PMML files that contain custom functions can be imported into the Pega 7 Platform and used in strategies.

For more information, see Predictive Model rule form.

Support for the JSON Web Token Bearer grant type for accessing external APIs

You can now access external APIs by using the new OAuth 2.0 JSON Web Token (JWT) Bearer grant type, in an OAuth 2.0 authentication profile. To use the JWT Bearer grant type as a client assertion, source the JWT from an active SSO session, a token profile, or a property reference. You can use JWTs that you obtain during an OpenID Connect SSO in connectors, to achieve user impersonation flows, such as the On-Behalf-Of (OBO) flow. The OAuth 2.0 type authentication profile now also supports authentication of client applications by using Private Key JWTs.

Instances of the OAuth 2.0 provider are now deprecated. As a best practice, use the new, unified authentication profile configuration instead.

For more information, see Configuring an OAuth 2.0 authentication profile.

Upgrade impact

After an upgrade to Pega Platform 8.4 and later, Authentication Profiles can take advantage of the new JWT based OAuth 2.0 grant type and client authentication features. To take advantage of this and other new security features, you must update any existing Authentication Profiles formats must to use those in Pega Platform 8.4 and later.

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

Since these features are available only for profiles created in Pega Platform 8.4 and later, clients must open and then save existing 'Authentication Profile' instances to ensure that the configuration is compatible with the latest authentication formats.

Import and export feature for generic decision data

New import and export functionality improves the management of generic decision data records (the records that do not belong to the Strategy Results class). You can now configure generic decision data records in a CSV file and later import that file to the Pega 7 Platform. You can also export the existing generic decision data record configuration from the Pega 7 Platform to a CSV file, and save that file in a directory that is external to the Pega 7 Platform.

For more information, see Decision data rule type enhancements.

Optionally reverse update to return to original version

You can now roll back to a prior release after performing an out-of-place, split-schema update on a Pega 7.1.7 development system. For example, you can update from Pega 7.1.5 to 7.1.7, and then reverse the update to return to 7.1.5.

For more information, see the Maintenance Level Update - Deployment Guide.

All search data is encrypted

All search data in Pega Cloud deployments is now encrypted, both at rest and in transit. The encryption of search data makes search compliant with regulatory requirements.

For more information about search, see Full-text search.

Data encryption support for system data

You can now control system-level data security by using data encryption in Pega Platform™. Encryption of system-level data improves the overall security of your system.

For more information, see Configuring the platform cipher and Configuring a keystore for a master key from a custom source.

Support for Apache HBase 2.1 and Hadoop 3.0

Support for these versions extends Pega Platform™ compatibility with HBase releases to ensure that your database implementations integrate seamlessly with Pega Platform.

Pega Platform now supports:

• Apache HBase 2.1 for the HBase data set
• Apache Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) 3.0 for the HDFS data set

For more information, see Enhance your data sets with Apache HBase 2.1 and Hadoop 3.0 (8.5).