What are the latest capabilities that you should know about as a Pega Business Architect

Thank you for attending our recent webinar for business architects on Thursday, March 24th  at 10:00 AM ET 

About this event: 

Pega is constantly innovating and 8.7 was released in February of this year which builds on existing capabilities launched in prior releases. It is sometimes hard to keep up with what those changes mean for you as a Business Architect. In this webinar we'll pick out the important new features that every BA should know.

So, what's next? 

We hope you understand we couldn't get to every question during our Q&A session, but we'd like to answer as many as we can.

Check them out below: 

Q&A

In the future, will section-based architecture phase out?

Our traditional section-based architecture will be supported for years. No end date has been set.

My client has 3 UI Kit applications. Should our 4th be built in Cosmos React?

There is no one size fits all answer for this. The details of your current project and previous application have important decision points. So maybe we can best help with some guidance on your decision points.

• Firstly, you should decide if Cosmos React is the right UI architecture for you - factors such as 'is it employee facing?' and 'do you want custom UI's' influence this heavily.
• Then you need to consider the landscape and consistency of User Experience with the other 3 applications. As you are using UI Kit, a Cosmos React app would be different - it ustilises the Cosmos Design System. As they are different User Experiences you'd need to think about if you have users utilising both systems and how important consistency is, in the short term. Check out more information on the Cosmos Design System https://design.pega.com/design/

This is one to work closely with your project team on, formulating an informed decision and roadmap for Cosmos React adoption.

My client has delegated many rules, will this work with Configuration Sets?

Rule delegation and Configuration Sets are two different features. This should be made clear up front, over time we'd expect to see more capabilities added to Configuration Sets to cover the same use cases as delegation (and more)

Depending on what has been delegated, it can be easily transferred into Configuration Sets if you are looking to adopt Configuration Sets in the future. However, this would mean refactoring your existing application to point to the new Configuration Sets you create and you should also take the time to think about what Configurations are grouped into what Configuration Sets (features) so that single features can be configured in one place. It is best to plan this out with your project.

If you have many delegated rules, you may also want to consider leveraging both features, you are not being forced to migrate them. However, we believe once you see the power of Configuration Sets you'll want to see how you can leverage this more and more to empower your business users and speed up your project delivery.

What is the difference between Explore Data and Insights? Are these two different things?

These two names are both related to the new report and chart authoring experience in Cosmos React.

The feature or Portal page on which you can do this, is called Explore Data. The objects that you create and store on the Explore Data page, are called Insights.

Where / how are Insights stored in the system? And can I find them back in Dev studio to change them?

Insights are stored in the Rule-UI-Insight class, but they can not be editable through Dev studio, they are only accessible through App Studio and the run-time end user portal

I have reports in an older version of Pega & we are just about to upgrade, what does that mean for my reports? can I use them as is, what is the recommended approach?

Currently, existing Reports are not automatically available as Insights. We are investigating how we can offer support in future version to make this transition easier. For now, you would need to configure new Insights if you want them to be available in the Explore Data page. This is one of the reasons why we are encouraging you to investigate the impact on your application when you consider migrating an existing application to Cosmos React.

Are there any plans to update Pega Customer Service with the Cosmos Design System?

Pega Customer Service is targeting to use Cosmos React, we are targeting 8.8 release of Pega. This would be for new implementations only.

Do we have some option to convert traditional section to cosmos react while maintaining the previous look? as it will help in an upgrade to version 8.7 or later..

We plan to offer migration guidance in the Pega 8.8. We want to provide tooling to help you located the migration issues, and how to address them.

You should also be aware that in 8.5 and 8.6 versions Theme-Cosmos, the platform was creating both the Section rule and the View. The latter, being needed in Cosmos React to render the UI. This doesn't mean you can migrate with a flick of a switch but some of the foundations are there.

The bigger pain points, where you'll need guidance, is where application authors have been overiding sections with customisation and business logic that should live in the case and data model. You may have also introduced new design templates, customised sections so they don't use them and even used custom CSS to style the screen, this makes a 1-1 UI conversion difficult. It is also part of the reason why Cosmos React will speed up delivery of projects, avoiding the need to undertake such time consuming customisations.

About the insights, will this be available within manager tools as well? Or only through Cosmos React?

Explore Data is a navigation page available for use in Cosmos React apps (or on Theme Cosmos using Hybrid mode, see https://docs-previous.pega.com/user-experience/87/enabling-hybrid-mode).

Like all navigation pages, it can be added to your channels and made available to individual personas through User Management - Pages & Portals configuration. This would mean you can make it available to a manager persona. As we saw in our walkthrough, individual insights could then also be restricted/enabled for different persona's to give you more granular access.

If you have persona's who need to see insights but are not allowed to have Explore Data access, then an application author can also embed insights into its own navigation page or even inside your case (e.g. Case Tabs). It will be very easy to share the right insights to the right personas and in the right context within Cosmos React.