Published Release Notes

Removal of Pega Mobile Client 7

You can now use a single Pega Mobile Client™ that improves app performance, app development, and meets all your mobile needs. With the introduction of new functionalities for mobile apps, Pega Mobile Client 7 is removed in Pega Platform™ 8.5.

Upgrade impact

After an upgrade to Pega 8.5, you can no longer build mobile apps based on Pega Mobile Client 7, and existing apps based on Pega Mobile Client 7 no longer connect to Pega Platform. App developers can now configure mobile apps with Pega Mobile Client.

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

Existing clients that upgrade to Pega 8.5 are automatically switched to Pega Mobile Client.

Atom Server and SOAP Server rule forms are deprecated

The Atom Server and SOAP Server rule forms are deprecated. Use the Connect CMIS rule form instead.

Existing rules that were created with the deprecated forms still work, but you cannot create new ones.

New Pega0086 alert and enhanced Pega0019 alert

The PEGA0086 alert is generated when the maximum number of attempts to acquire a lock on a requestor has been exceeded and a thread fails to obtain a lock on the requestor, and as a result, displays the RequestorLockException message. The Pega0019 alert has been enhanced and now contains additional information such as a user name, an application name, and a thread stack trace, which are associated with the long-running requestor.

For more information, see PEGA0086: Requestor locked by a busy thread and PEGA0019 alert: Long-running requestor detected.

Support for character data type on local variables in activities deprecated

Support for the character data type for local variables in activities is deprecated. Use the string data type instead.

For more information about activities, see Activities.

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.

Fingerprint authentication in Pega Mobile Client

The authentication feature in Pega Mobile Client has been extended to support user credentials that are secured by a fingerprint reader. The FingerprintAuthenticator object and its methods replace the TouchID API. A compatibility layer has been created to support custom mobile apps that use the deprecated API. This functionality is available on iOS and selected Android devices.

For more information, see Authentication API.

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.

Use of PegaRULES_Extract_Marker.txt to delete cache is deprecated

The PegaRULES_Extract_Marker.txt file is deprecated. The system uses the presence or absence of the PegaRULES_Extract_Market.txt file to determine at startup whether to delete the static content, service export, and lookup list file system-based caches. In the rare situation that you need to delete these caches manually, use the System Management Application (SMA) ETier Static Content Management page. Using SMA does not require restarting the node.

New delivery method for Pega Survey

The functionality of Pega Survey is now provided by a standard ruleset in the Pega^® Platform. This new delivery method keeps your survey capabilities in sync with the latest features and speeds up development because you no longer need to install or maintain a separate archive.

You must purchase a separate license to use survey capabilities in your application.

For more information about surveys, see the Pega Survey product page.

Attachment migration from Pega database storage to a repository

You can now migrate case attachments from Pega database storage to a repository by using a wizard from Pega Platform™. This ability is useful, for example, when you migrate from an on-premises deployment to a Pega Cloud Services environment and you want to reduce the size of your Pega database and manage all your case attachments in a single location.

For more information, see Migrating case attachments to a repository.