Published Release Notes

Use Page-Change-Class method to change a Page class

With the release of Pega Platform™ 8.3, using the Property-Set method to change the Page class shows a guardrail warning. Use the Page-Change-Class method to change the Page class instead.

For more information about the Page-Change-Class method, see Changing the class of a page and Page-Change-Class method.

Changes to URL format for Pega Web Mashup

The format of Pega Web Mashup URLs now supports multiple mashups on a single web page. The new URL format prevents a mashup from sharing cookies with another mashup.

If you want to include multiple mashups on a single web page and one of the mashups was created before 8.3, you must regenerate the mashup to reflect the new URL format.

For more information, see <link to help topic>.

Change tracking tab removed from declare expressions

To simplify the configuration of a declare expression, the Change tracking tab has been removed from the declare expression rule form. To use the Change tracking tab, on the declare expression rule form, click Actions > Use legacy expression.

For more information, see Supported and unsupported configurations in simplified declare expressions.

Upgrade impact

The declare expression rules have been moved from the pr4_rule table to the new pr4_rule_declare_expression table.

The upgrade can fail if you customize the pr4_rule table, such as increasing the length of an existing column.

After a successful upgrade, the declare expression rule form is simplified and lightweight pages support declare expressions.

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

Read-only data pages by default are lightweight. You could also enable lightweight pages for:

• Editable data pages by selecting the Enable option in the editable data page rule form.
• For all pages in a REST service by using the Lightweight clipboard mode in the Service REST form in the Rest API service.

Only simplified declare expressions are supported in lightweight pages. In simplified declare expressions, context-bound rules are not supported. However, a page context could be specified on the New or Save As form of declare expressions. For more information, see Declare Expression rules - Completing the New or Save As form.

Redirectguests mashup configuration has been removed

The authentication/redirectguests server configuration and data-pega-redirectguests attribute have been removed and are no longer required when you configure a mashup. This prevents you from needing to maintain multiple nodes to support some use cases that require the configuration value to be true and other uses cases that require the configuration value to be false.

For more information, see Configuring the Mashup channel.

Additional upgrade scripts for new columns

In Version 6.2, additional columns (Major, Minor, and Patch) containing ruleset Version information were added to 15 tables in the PRPC database. When upgrading from a pre-Pega 7 release, scripts must be manually run after the upgrade to populate these columns.

These scripts are located in the Resource Kit, under Additional Upgrade Scripts.

• If upgrading to a single schema, run both scripts.
• If upgrading to a split schema, run the _data script against the data schema and run the _rules script against the rules schema.

Choose the scripts for your database type:

• db2zos_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• db2zos_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

• mssql_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• mssql_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

• oracle_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• oracle_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

• postgres_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• postgres_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

• udb_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• udb_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

Split schema upgrade instructions missing properties

If you upgraded from 5.x, 6.x, or 7.x using the instructions in previous versions of the upgrade guide, you may have neglected to set the properties below in your migrateSystem.properties file when you migrated your upgraded schema to the source system:

pega.rules.objects.generate=true

pega.rules.objects.apply=true

If these properties were not set during an upgrade that splits the schema, your environment does not have the indexes, triggers, and primary keys on the rules tables.

To check for this issue, see if the pr4_base and pr4_rule rules tables in your existing rules schema are missing primary keys. If they are, use the SQL scripts in the ResourceKit\MigrationRecoveryScripts directory of the release to cleanup duplicate rules that were created due to this issue. Follow the steps below to run the scripts.

To run the scripts on Microsoft SQL, Oracle, or PostgreSLQ

1. Take down any app servers using the affected schema.
2. Backup your database.
3. Replace all instances of @RULES_SCHEMA in <database>_cleanDups.sql with the name of the schema that contains the pr4_base table.
4. Run the <database>_cleanDups.sql script on the database with vendor tools (sqlPlus, SQL Server Management Studio, etc).
5. Replace all instances of @RULES_SCHEMA in <database>_fix_vw_table.sql with the name of the schema that contains the pr4_base table.
6. Run the <database>_fix_vw_table.sql script on the database with vendor tools (sqlPlus, SQL Server Management Studio, etc).
7. Generate and apply the ddl using the command line generateDDL command. Check the installation guide for your database or the upgrade guide for details about how to use the generateDDL command line script.
8. Rebuild the indexes for the tables in your rules schema using vendor tools. This is necessary so that your system runs at an optimum speed.
9. Optionally upgrade to the latest release, at this point your database is ready to be upgraded or used depending on your needs.

To run the scripts on DB2 for LUW or z/OS

1. Take down any app servers using the affected schema.
2. Backup your database.
3. Run the <database>_cleanDups.sql script on the database with vendor tools (UDB CLP, Data Studio, etc) to create the CLEANSE_RULES_DUPS stored procedure.
4. Run the query Call CLEANSE_RULES_DUPS(‘<rulesSchema>’); where <rulesSchema> is the name of schema that contains the pr4_base table.
5. After the previous step is complete drop the CLEANSE_RULES_DUPS procedure.
6. Replace all instances of @RULES_SCHEMA in <database>_fix_vw_table.sql with the name of the schema that contains the pr4_base table.
7. Run the <database>_fix_vw_table.sql script on the database with vendor tools (UDB CLP, Data Studio, etc).
8. Generate and apply the ddl using the command line generateDDL command. Check the installation guide for your database or the upgrade guide for details about how to use the generateDDL command line script.
9. Rebuild the indexes for the tables in your rules schema using vendor tools. This is necessary so that your system runs at an optimum speed.
10. Optionally upgrade to the latest release. At this point your database is ready to be upgraded or used depending on your needs.

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.

When rule might not resolve against @baseclass

In the rare case in which a step page context is null, or the pxObjClass associated with the step page is empty, the system no longer attempts to resolve the when rule against @baseclass. As a result, you might see more rule not found errors. Check the step page context and class and ensure that they are not null or empty. In all other cases, if a when rule is not found in any other part of the class hierarchy, the system attempts to resolve it against @baseclass.

DCO Compatibility tool is deprecated

The DCO Compatibility tool has been deprecated. Use the Application Guardrails landing page to see the compliance score and any warnings for your application.

For more information, see Application Guardrails landing page.

Apache Ignite is no longer supported

Apache Ignite is no longer supported and has been replaced by Hazelcast Enterprise Edition 3.10 in embedded mode. If you used encryption with Apache Ignite, you can configure encryption on Hazelcast Enterprise Edition in the same way that you configured it for Apache Ignite.

For more information about encrypting nodes, see Enabling encrypted communication between nodes.