More accessible keyboard navigation

To ensure better alignment with the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standards for accessibility, the Pega Platform version 8.7.6 introduces a changed keyboard navigation in Theme Cosmos applications. While this enhancement provides a better experience to users who rely on assistive technologies, it produces a slightly different user experience.

For more information about the updated table navigation standards, see Accessible navigation in tables.

New dynamic system setting to maintain the expanded sections after page refresh

The HonourExpandWhenOnRefresh dynamic system setting was introduced in Pega Platform version 8.7.3 and 8.6.5 to prevent the dynamic layouts from collapsing in certain configurations when the section refreshes.

Update impact

Previously, if a collapsible layout included autocomplete, text, or dropdown controls and a refresh trigger, the top level collapsed after entry of a value.

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

You can prevent this behavior by setting the value of HonourExpandWhenOnRefresh to true. This way, you maintain the expanded sections during a refresh. The default of HonourExpandWhenOnRefresh is false.

Duplicated records are removed from search

In Pega Platform version 8.7.3 and 8.6.5, you can now conveniently use search to retrieve required data, because the results no longer include duplicated records. With this enhancement, you save time on analysis and maintain clarity in search results.

Update impact

In Pega Platform version 8.7, search results might display duplicated data records for Data- classes.

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

1. Create an external data class, and then add records for several properties.
2. Create custom search properties and a dedicated index for the data class.

   For more information, see Specifying custom search properties.

3. Reindex the dedicated index, and then analyze the number of records.

   For more information, see Indexing class data.

4. Modify any data record, and then verify the number of records for the respective dedicated index.
   Note: The number of records should not change.

Enhanced SSA metrics are available

To help you better diagnose delays related to the time when a campaign is scheduled to start and the time when the data flow starts to run, enhanced Static Single Assignment (SSA) metrics are available in Pega Platform versions 8.6.5 and 8.7.3.

Update impact

After patching to Pega Platform version 8.6.5 or 8.7.3, your system generates metrics that cover key performance-intensive areas of a strategy run. You can also collect additional lower-level internal metrics related to the SSA engine that is running, and gather more runtime insight for diagnosis.

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

To enable the collection of additional Level 2 SSA internal metrics, set the dataflow/shape/strategy/detailed_metrics/level2 dynamic system setting in the Pega-DecisionEngine ruleset to true. You can view the metrics by clicking the eye icon on the Component statistics tab in a data flow run.

New settings to control DSM clipboard page serialization

An error in DSM clipboard page serialization occurs when Pega Platform consumes a message from an external Kafka topic and the following conditions apply:

• A Kafka data set in a real-time data flow is used to consume the message.
• The message has a page list structure and a JSON data transform is used for the mapping.

Pega Platform reports the following error:

Update impact

After patching to Pega Platform version 8.6.5 or 8.7.3, you can control how the system generates DSM clipboard pages with the following dynamic system settings:

• dataset/class_name/data_set_name/JSONDataTransform/deserialization/useDSMPage
• dataset/class_name/data_set_name/JSONDataTransform/serialization/useDSMPage

where:

• class_name is a data set’s pyClassName property value.
• data_set_name is a data set's pyPurpose property value.

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

When you set the respective setting to false, the JSON data transform generates regular clipboard pages, and then converts them to DSM clipboard pages. This prevents errors when the JSON data transform calls methods from the Clipboard API that are not implemented by DSM pages.

When the value of the respective setting is set to true, the process follows the previous behavior of generating DSM clipboard pages when deserializing or serializing Kafka records using the JSON data transform.

You need to set these settings individually for each Kafka data set instance. The values are cached for one minute, therefore any changes in these settings take effect in up to one minute.

Log4j 1.2.x removal

In version 8.7.3, Pega Platform has removed the Log4j-1.2.14.jar and Log4j-1.2.17.jar files because of security vulnerabilities in these Log4j versions.

Update impact

If you are using Genesys Engage Platform SDK or Avaya AES (JTAPI) computer telephony integration (CTI) links and are updating to Pega Call version 8.7.3 or above, SDK tracing will stop working for these links until you reimport the Log4j 1.2.x Java archives. Reimporting these Java archives is necessary for SDK tracing to work for these CTI links.

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

Download the Log4j 1.2.x Java archives from the Apache Log4j repository and reimport them manually to Pega Platform. For more information, see Importing Log4j 1.2.x.

Updated OAuth2 registration handling for modified application definitions

Pega Platform fixed an issue where attempting to re-save an application definition after any modification resulted in the following error: Application OAuth2 client registration is failed. Error Message: PegaApp_XXBase:Client already exists. This error occurred due to Pega Platform calling pxCreateRecord to create the authentication profile which was already present; therefore, Pega Platform failed to create a new instance. To fix this issue, pxCreateRecord now uses the Obj-Save process when modifying an authentication profile.

Update Impact

After patching or updating to Pega Platform version 8.6.5 or 8.7.3, newly created applications using the Data-Application-OAuth2ClientRegistration instance include the updated OAuth2 registration handling and require no further action.

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

For existing applications, after patching or updating to Pega Platform version 8.6.5 or 8.7.3, you must delete the corresponding OAuth2 client (PegaApp_<application id>) and re-save the applications to create a new client along with the newly required metadata. For more information, see Security tab of the Application Definition.

Embedded Cassandra version 3.11.12 removes vulnerability

Pega Platform versions 8.7.5 and 8.6.6 supports embedded Cassandra version 3.11.12 for existing VM-based deployments. In Cassandra version 3.11.12, the CVE-2020-13946 vulnerability is fixed.

This change impacts systems that use embedded Cassandra to store decisioning data in Pega Customer Decision Hub, Pega Process AI, or other applications.

Update impact

After you update your system to Pega Platform version 8.7.5 or 8.6.6, the embedded Cassandra is updated to version 3.11.12. Your Decision Data Store (DDS) nodes continue to use lower Cassandra versions that are affected by the vulnerability.

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

Update the DDS nodes to use the latest Cassandra version. For more information, see "Updating Cassandra on Decision Data Store nodes" in the Pega Platform Update Guide that is appropriate for your deployment type.