Published Release Notes

Unit testing support for more rule types

You can now create unit tests for the following additional rule types. You can also create assertions to validate activity status. The expanded rule types for unit testing enable developers to more thoroughly perform regression testing of their application, thereby improving application quality.

• Collection
• Declare expression
• Map value
• Report definition

For more information about unit testing rules, see Pega unit test cases.

Upgrade impact

With the four new rule types, unit test execution and unit test compliance metrics will change. Reports on automated unit testing of the customer application decrease due to the increased pool of supported rules.

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

After a successful upgrade, create Pega unit test cases for the newly supported rules to see updated and accurate unit test metrics.

Cassandra 3.11.3 support for Pega Platform

Increase your system's reliability and reduce its memory footprint by upgrading the internal Cassandra database to version 3.11.3.

For on-premises Pega Platform™ users, after you upgrade to Pega 8.3, it is recommended that you manually upgrade to Cassandra 3.11.3. You can upgrade to Cassandra 3.11.3 on all operating systems except IBM AIX. If you do not want to upgrade to Cassandra 3.11.3, you can continue to use Cassandra 2.1.20, which is still supported.

For Pega Cloud Services 2.13 and later versions, Cassandra automatically upgrades to version 3.11.3 after your environment is upgraded to Pega Platform 8.3.

For information on how to manually upgrade to Cassandra 3.11.3, see the Pega Platform 8.3 Upgrade Guide for your server and database at Deploy Pega Platform.

Upgrade impact

After an on-premises Pega Platform upgrade, you still have the older version of Cassandra and must manually upgrade.

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

To upgrade Cassandra, you must create a prconfig setting or a dynamic system setting with the new Cassandra version and then do a rolling restart of all the Decision Data Store nodes to upgrade them to the latest version of Cassandra.

Text analytics models editing and versioning

Pega Platform™ now supports editing and updating training data for text analytics models.

Pega Platform also supports the versioning of text analytics models. When you update the model, Prediction Studio creates an updated model version. You can then switch between the model versions.

Upgrade impact

In versions of Pega Platform earlier than 8.3, the training data for text models was stored in the database. In Pega Platform version 8.3 and later, the training data for text models is stored in Pega Repository. You cannot build new models without setting the repository. After the repository is set, all text models are automatically upgraded and will work normally.

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

After a successful upgrade, set the repository in Prediction Studio before building or updating any Natural Language Processing (NLP) models.  In Prediction Studio, click Settings > Text Model Data Repository.

For more information, see:

• Increase the accuracy of text analytics models by adding feedback data (8.3)
• Updating training data for text analytics models

Text analytics models migration

Pega Platform™ now supports the exporting and importing of text analytics models. For example, you can export a model to a production system so that it can gather feedback data. You can then update the model with the collected feedback data to increase the model's accuracy.

Upgrade impact

In versions of Pega Platform earlier than 8.3, the training data for text models was stored in the database. In Pega Platform version 8.3 and later, the training data for text models is stored in Pega Repository. You cannot build new models without setting the repository. After the repository is set, all text models are automatically upgraded and will work normally.

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

After a successful upgrade, set the repository in Prediction Studio before building or updating any Natural Language Processing (NLP) models.  In Prediction Studio, click Settings > Text Model Data Repository.

For more information, see:

• Increase the accuracy of text analytics models by adding feedback data (8.3)
• Exporting text analytics models
• Importing text analytics models

Test coverage support for more rule types

Test coverage has been expanded to include the following rule types. Test coverage support for these rule types enables developers to more accurately measure the effectiveness of their tests.

• Collection
• Declare trigger
• Map value
• Navigation 
• Report definition
• Scorecard

For more information about test coverage, see Test coverage.

Upgrade impact

The new rule types may impact the test coverage metrics for your applications. Due to the increased number of supported rules, the reported test coverage percentage will decrease.

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

Run your coverage reports after upgrading to see the latest metrics.