What's new in Process Commander 6.1SP2

Service Pack 2 can be used with a broader set of platform and client facilities:

• SP2 can be installed on IBM z/OS system with IBM's WebSphere 7 application server using IBM's DB2 database. An installation guide is available for this platform.
• Installation scripts for tables in the PegaRULES database are available for double-byte Unicode, on all platforms.
• The Manager and User composite portals are supported with Google's Chrome 5 and 6 for Windows browser, Apple's Safari 3, 4 and 5 for Windows, Firefox 2, 3.5 and 3.6, and Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8. (ActiveX capabilities are available only with Internet Explorer.) REVALIDATE
• SP2 provides support for Microsoft Office 2010, including Visio, Excel, and Word. GRP-18134 (Some one-time set-up is necessary for developers who access Visio 2007 or Visio 2010 from Microsoft Vista or Windows 7 workstations.)

Numerous enhancements are available for report definition rules:

• Report definition rules support trend reports. You can identify time periods and other values using standard SQL function alias rules, which eliminate the need for custom GetContent activities. A new Function Builder tool lets you reference these rules when defining reports. See:
  • Report Definition rules — Completing the Data Access tab
  • Report Definition rules — Using the Function Builder
  • About Function Alias rules
  • Atlas — Standard SQL Function Alias rules
• From the Manager portal, help topics are available for the Report Browser and Report Viewer.
• When choosing the fields that are to appear as columns, you can select columns that correspond to indexed values of embedded properties. GRP-11532/GRP-14096 See Report Definition rules — Completing the Data Access tab.
• Report categories and report shortcuts are rule types. As a result, both categories and shortcuts are included in RuleSet versions and can be migrated from system to system. See About Category rules and About Shortcut rules.
• Reports on work objects or work object history can use a work pool as the Applies To key part. Report contents will include all work types in the work pool.. GRP-17252. See Report Definition rules — Completing the New or Save As form.
• When selecting columns for a report, you can include fields from joined abstract classes. You can also define multistep joins. See Report Definition rules — Completing the Data Access tab.
• A report can select rows based on comparisons of two property values. See Rows to Include in Report Definition rules — Completing the Design tab.

Version 2.2 of the optional Business Intelligence Exchange (BIX) product is available. Use BIX to extract transaction data from your Process Commander application for use in data warehouses or other systems. See BIX and About Extract rules.

A new portal provides direct access to the features needed by business analysts, such as the Discovery Map and the Use Case Explorer. See:

• About the Business Analyst portalGRP-15658
• Business Analyst portal — Home display
• Business Analyst portal — About landing pages
• Atlas - Standard Portal rules

Business analysts using the Business Analyst portal can monitor the success of the application through Key Performance Indicators, by installing the Key Performance Indicator solution framework. GRP-14913

A help topic is available for each landing page. Click the help button () on any landing page to access the topic. GRP-15754

For flows that have an associated Discovery Map, you can view the Discovery Map from the flow rule form itself. See Flow form — Interacting with the Diagram tab. GRP-16027

The Organization Setup wizard is enhanced to create an operator ID named BusinessAnalyst@company.com and an appropriate corresponding access group, to support standard access using the Business Analyst portal. GRP-18342 See Organization & Security category — Organization page.

The default login screen displays the System Version, build, and node ID. Optionally, you can present the Short Description of the system name rather than a system-derived hexadecimal value. See How to modify the splash image and log-in form.GRP-18056

A new rule type — Connect CMIS — allows your applications to connect to enterprise content management systems, such as Alfresco™,that support the OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services v1.0 standard. This optional capability requires the Pega-Content RuleSet. GRP-15961 See:

• Content Management Interoperability Services
• About Connect CMIS rules
• About SOAP Server data instances
• About Atom Server data instances

After you've configured a CMIS connector, your application can store file attachments in the content management system, rather than in the PegaRULES database. GRP-17333 GRP-18425 See:

• Application Overview landing page (Advanced gadget)
• Understanding work object attachments
• Application form — Completing the Advanced tab.

Connect HTTP rules now support binary MIME attachments GRP-5752-1 See Connect HTTP rules — More about Connect HTTP rules.

Service Portlet rules support features of the JSR-286 portlet standard V2.0. See About Service Portlet rules.

Optionally, your application can intercept processing of correspondence items in which one or more property values were blank, so that users can research the issue and take remedial action. See More about Correspondence rules. GRP-16765 GRP-16937 GRP-17196.

When the system sends outbound email, if the connection to the email server fails, messages are automatically queued for resending later. No configuration changes are needed.

HTML property rules are now known as control rules. They are part of the User Interface category. GRP-14732

V6.1SP2 introduces new auto-generated control rules. These control rules generation the HTML, JSP tags, and JavaScript code as you save the section rule or other rule that references them. Such rules provide superior security, improved performance, broader browser support and greater ease of customization than the hand-crafted control rules (which continue to be available and supported.) A new Control tab accepts the parameters that support auto-generation. See About Control rules and Control rules — Completing the Control tab.

Eight auto-generated controls are introduced and recommended for use in new development. Three are available through the Basic control group on the Layout tab of the Harness, Section, and Flow Action forms. See:

• About Section rules
• Section rules — Adding a Text Input control
• Section rules — Adding a Text Area control
• Section rules — Adding a Button control

All eight auto-generated controls are described on the Atlas — Standard Auto-generated control rules topic.

The Grid, Tree, and TreeGrid layouts introduced in V6.1 support GRP-14186 GRP-16399 sorting and embedded panes (when you click a row, the editable fields for that row populate a detail area below the grid or tree).GRP-12805

• Adding a Grid layout
• Adding a Tree layout
• Adding a TreeGrid layout

You can set widths of individual columns in Grid and TreeGrid layouts.

The Grid layout supports runtime paging, row numbering, and can use a report definition as a data source. See More about Report Definition rules.

You can use the Branding wizard to define styles for elements of the Grid, Tree, and TreeGrid layouts. These styles can be previewed in design mode. See GRP-7426Michael Proj-429 Nimbus Proj-431 Pixel Perfect Help: Branding Wizard — Layouts.

The Application Express wizard is enhanced to support creation of one-time sample applications. See About the Application Express wizard.

You can attach Microsoft Word documents to use cases while developing an Application Profile. These documents are merged into the generated Application Profile document. GRP-18373

The Application Profile document is enhanced to contain the Discovery Map diagram. No configuration changes are necessary.

You can view and edit the Discovery Map (rather than the detailed flow diagram) on the Diagram tab of the flow rule. See Flow rule — Completing the Diagram tab. GRP-16027

Optionally, you can include flows that are not starter flows in DCO generated documentation. The Document as starting process? checkbox does not change how your application works. See Flow rule — Completing the Process tab.

Consult the Pega Developer Network for instructions and examples of DCO features.

SP2 introduces new case management facilities:

• A new landing page lets you define cases and subcases in a tree structure. See Process and Rules category — Case Management page. GRP-15685
• a new Case Management portal supports application users who work with complex cases. GRP-16482 GRP-15686 See About the case management portal.

Changes to the Case Type rule let you define which subcases users can create, and under what conditions. See Case Type rules  — Completing the Processes tab. GRP-15279

A new Application Packaging wizard allows you to create a product rule for an entire application, including data instances as well as RuleSets. See Application category - Tools menu and About the Application Packaging wizard.

Optionally, your applications can provide users with full-text search capabilities for many file attachments, those that are saved Microsoft Office files (including Word, Excel, and Powerpoint) and those that are in Adobe System's Portable Document Format (PDF). See Systems category — Settings page and Understanding Full-text Search.

The command line utilities (prpcUtil.bat and prpcUtil.sh) are enhanced with a new option ExportRAP which allows export of ZIP archives based on a product rule. GRP-13939 Used together with other prpcUtil options, this option allows fully automated migration of applications from one system to another.

When importing a ZIP archive into your system, you can learn more about the contents of the archive before starting the import. See Import gadget — Completing the Import ZIP file option.

The Rule Security Analyzer, implemented by the optional Pega-SecurityVA RuleSet, is enhanced to allow users to compose regular expressions to use in scanning application rules. See Rule Security Analyzer. Levi Proj-445 Spy-vs-Spy REMOVED Version 2.2 of the Virtual Enterprise Repository is available. See Virtual Enterprise Repository. GRP-15562

In development systems, a new Property Optimizer tool simplifies many database changes. It provides:

• column exposure for top-level Single Value properties
• index generation for embedded or aggregate properties,
• automatic population of column values through a background agent.

See About the Property Optimizer tool. GRP-15741, GRP-15419 16938 and others GRP-15423 GRP-16714

In development systems, each time the Application Accelerator or Application Explorer creates a new class group (work pool) it will also automatically cause the system to create a new database table with the appropriate columns and structure for the work objects. See More about Database Table data instances.

A new landing page gadget simplifies the process of identifying any final rules in your application that may conflict with final rules in Process Commander itself. See: GRP-17168 Application Category — Application Structure page.

A new alert PEGA0042 identifies those PegaRULES database queries that take longer than a specified threshold (initially 0.5 seconds) to complete the sending of all retrieved rows to the server. See How to detect lengthy PegaRULES database operations.

SP2 incorporates several performance improvements in various features. Notable performance improvements were achieved in the following areas:

• Rules assembly and rule compilation
• Declarative networks for backward chaining
• Interactions with Grid, Tree, and TreeGrid layouts
• The Rich Text Editor can handle larger quantities of input text.

Several enhancements provide easier testing facilities:

• New scheduling settings to run unit test suites (Run Now, run as other operator, send multiple confirmation emails) GRP-15900, GRP-15901, GRP-16718
• Ability to ignore differences for flow, activity, and SOAP service rules directly from the unit test suite report. GRP-15914
• Ability to ignore top-level pages and save ignored properties across all test cases for activities and SOAP services (in addition to flow rules). GRP-16492
• A new standard email account (AutomatedUnitTesting.Notify) that sends the completion emails from unit test suite runs.