As a Pegasystems client, you have a key role to play to ensure the best possible results for your technical support cases. Members of your team should be familiar with this handbook before the need for assistance arises. This handbook will help you and your team understand the following aspects of your experience with Pega's global support team:
- Technical support services that Pega provides
- Ways to contact Pega for technical support
- Information that you need to provide initially and throughout the lifecycle of your case
- The Support Case process
- Support Case severity levels and response times
- Your responsibilities as a Pega client
Pega provides maintenance services as described in this Client Support Handbook and according to the terms of your Agreement and an applicable Schedule. The Pega team of global support experts is dedicated to keeping your Pega products up and running effectively. While Pega products are designed to provide stability and serviceability, it is reassuring to know that a dedicated team of support engineers and product specialists is ready to respond to your needs.
We strive to ensure your success by delivering industry-leading, world-class support. Our goal is to ensure your satisfaction each time you contact us.
For additional Pega Support information that is not part of the Support@Pega contract documentation, see the Pega Support Center.
For more in-depth information about Pega's support processes, best practices, and tools not included as part of the Support@Pega contract documentation, see How to get support.
Scope of Client Support at Pega
- Scope for AI-Assisted Development
Severity Levels and Response Times
Software Update and Extended Support Program
Support Administrators (soon to be Account Administrators)
If you have been designated as a Support Administrator for your Pega Support account, you can manage authorized users. Authorized users are the contacts for your company’s support account and the people who can create, update, and view Support Cases.
Only your company’s designated, authorized account contacts may submit Support Cases. These individuals can request that our support team investigate problems or suggest modifications to your system. Authorized account contacts should be a focal point in your company for Pega knowledge and skills.
Select your authorized account contacts carefully. They should be individuals who are knowledgeable about both your technical environment and Pega products. As Pega product experts, authorized account contacts must be readily accessible to answer questions from other personnel and product users in your company.
The names and contact details of authorized account contacts may be transferred internationally to process your Support Cases or other submitted case work.
For additional Support Administration information that is not part of the Support@Pega contract information, check out: Managing users & permissions at Pega
Scope of Client Support at Pega
The global team of support experts at Pegasystems can provide assistance investigating potential product defects. This includes problems that arise in the following example scenarios:
- Problems encountered during application development
- Issues encountered during standard use or testing
- Environmental issues, including performance and configuration problems with the product
- Installation, update, or migration problems
- Other software use or operation errors
Pega support team members help isolate problems with non-Pegasystems products as specified in the Pega Platform Support Guide.
For clients who have licensed Pega Cloud® Services or Pega Cloud for Government or both, in addition to the assistance described above, Pega provides the following:
- 24 x 7 x 365 monitoring and management of production services, including monitoring and management for database, environment, and network
- Security monitoring and management
- Service maintenance and updates, including patches and other updates for security, infrastructure, operating system, and Pega applications
- Disaster Recovery service
- Database backup and restore
- Threat and vulnerability testing
- Root cause analysis for Severity 1 events
There are situations where the support team is not the appropriate group to provide assistance. Problems of this nature that fall outside the bounds of your Pegasystems Maintenance Agreement include the following types of requests:
- Requests for application design or development advice
- Detailed performance tuning and system optimization
- Requests for general information about the products and services offered by Pega
- Client runtime application performance issues
You can post these types of requests to the Pega Support Center, or, for in-depth assistance, you can engage Pega Consulting to assess your needs.
Support Scope for Pega AI Features
Purpose and relationship to other documents
This section describes the scope of Support@Pega services for Pega AI Features. It supplements, and does not replace, Scope of Client Support at Pega.
Your rights and obligations in respect of AI Features and the content they produce are set out in the Pega Products and Services Acceptable Use Policy and in your Agreement. This section does not restate them and does not modify them. Where this section conflicts with your Agreement or an applicable Schedule, the Agreement and the Schedule prevail.
Where a Support Case discloses use of an AI Feature in a manner inconsistent with the Acceptable Use Policy, Pega may refer the matter for review under that policy.
Definitions
|
Term |
Meaning |
|
AI Feature |
Any Pega-provided generative or agentic capability made available within a Pega product, including Pega GenAI features such as GenAI Connect, Coach, Knowledge Agents, Agents, and Agent Steps. AI Features form part of the “Services” as defined in the Acceptable Use Policy. |
|
AI Output |
As defined in the Acceptable Use Policy. |
|
AI-Assisted Development |
The use of an AI Feature to create or modify application artifacts in a Pega development environment from natural-language instruction. The term “vibe coding” is sometimes used informally to describe this practice; it has no separate meaning in this Handbook. |
|
Interaction Identifier |
The identifier generated by an AI Feature for a single prompt-and-response exchange, used by Pega to retrieve the corresponding telemetry. |
Responsibility for AI Output
Responsibility for AI Output is governed by the Acceptable Use Policy, which provides that you and your end users are responsible for all decisions made, advice given, actions taken, and failures to take action based on your use of AI Features, and that AI Output is probabilistic and should be evaluated for accuracy and appropriateness before use.
For the purposes of this Handbook only, and without limiting the Acceptable Use Policy:
- Generative AI is non-deterministic. Identical or similar prompts may produce different AI Output on different occasions. Variation in AI Output is an expected characteristic of the technology and is not, by itself, evidence of a product defect.
- A request that Pega improve, correct, redesign, or explain AI Output is not a Support Case. See What Pega Support does not cover, below.
What Pega Support covers
Pega Support investigates failures in the operation of an AI Feature on the same basis as any other product feature: where the AI Feature does not operate in accordance with its documentation. The in-scope categories and diagnostic requirements in Scope of Client Support at Pega apply and are not restated here.
Two matters are specific to AI Features and are within scope:
- Guardrail and control defects: The AI Feature does not honor a documented guardrail, model selection, scope restriction, or data-boundary control, or a protection put in place by Pegasystems as referenced in the Acceptable Use Policy.
- Documented AI integrations: A documented integration between the AI Feature and a Pega product does not function as documented.
What Pega Support does not cover
Consistent with Scope of Client Support at Pega, the following fall outside Support@Pega. A Support Case whose underlying concern is one of the following will be closed with a referral to the Pega Support Center, Pega Community, or Pega Consulting:
- The quality, accuracy, completeness, relevance, tone, or suitability of AI Output. This includes AI Output that does not match your intent or expectation (for example, where the prompt was ambiguous, incomplete, or under-specified), and requests to explain why an AI Feature produced particular AI Output.
- Prompt design, prompt engineering, or prompt tuning advice.
- Differences in AI Output between model versions, model providers, or product releases, and requests to reinstate a prior model, model version, or prior AI Feature behavior. Model and feature lifecycle is addressed under Change cadence, model versions, and the Software Update policy, below.
- Operation of an AI Feature with a model, model version, or model provider not identified as supported in the Subscription Documentation, including where you have supplied your own API key. Responsibility for such use is allocated to you by the Acceptable Use Policy.
- Custom functionality built with Pega GenAI Connect, other than a failure of Pega GenAI Connect itself.
Categories that are already outside Support@Pega under Scope of Client Support at Pega remain out of scope when they arise in connection with an AI Feature and are not restated here. These include general application design and development advice (including the review, redesign, or refactoring of AI Output), the runtime performance of a client application, use of a product through an interface or tool not documented by Pega, and business outcomes arising from artifacts deployed without the review, testing, and approval required by the Acceptable Use Policy.
Severity, response times, and availability
Severity for a Support Case concerning an AI Feature is calculated as described in Severity Levels and Response Times.
Information you must provide
A generative interaction cannot be reproduced from a description alone. A Support Case concerning an AI Feature must include:
- The Pega product and version, and the AI Feature name and client version.
- The environment and deployment type (development, test, staging, or production; Pega Cloud, Pega Cloud for Government, on-premises, or client cloud).
- The date and time of the interaction, including time zone.
- The Interaction Identifier for the affected exchange.
- The prompt or instruction submitted, redacted as necessary for confidential or personal data.
- The AI Output received, verbatim.
- The model and provider selected, and whether the key used was supplied by you.
- Whether the behavior reproduces, and on what proportion of attempts.
Pega may be unable to progress a Support Case where an Interaction Identifier is not supplied.
Change cadence, model versions, and the Software Update policy
- AI Features are updated continuously and independently of Pega product release cycles.
- The Standard Support and Extended Support periods described in Software Update and Extended Support Policy apply to Pega software releases. They do not create any obligation for Pega to maintain, restore, or support a particular model, model version, model provider, or AI Feature behavior.
- Pega may add, change, deprecate, or withdraw an AI Feature, a model, or a model provider. The models and providers supported for each release are identified in the Subscription Documentation.
- Availability of AI Features may differ by product, deployment, region, and offering. AI Features may be unavailable, restricted, or differently configured in Pega Cloud for Government and in other restricted or accredited environments.
Support Scope for AI-Assisted Development
What AI-Assisted Development is
AI-Assisted Development is the use of a Pega AI Feature to generate or modify application artifacts, including rules, case types, data models, flows, user interfaces, and associated code, from natural-language instruction within a Pega development environment.
Supported use
Pega supports AI-Assisted Development only where all of the following are true:
- It is performed through a Pega-provided interface documented for the applicable release;
- On a Pega product version, model, and provider configuration identified as supported in the Subscription Documentation; and
- In a development or sandbox environment.
Support Cases concerning use of AI-Assisted Development through third-party integrated development environments, command-line agents, third-party coding agents, Model Context Protocol clients, or direct orchestration of Pega APIs will be closed as out of scope. Nothing in this paragraph determines whether such use is permitted under the Acceptable Use Policy.
Your obligations before promotion
The Acceptable Use Policy sets out your obligations in respect of AI Output, including AI Output that takes the form of application artifacts. Without limiting those obligations, Pega will treat artifacts generated through AI-Assisted Development as follows:
- Once generated, artifacts form part of your application. For support purposes they are treated identically to artifacts authored by your developers. Their origin does not extend Pega’s support obligations, and it does not narrow them.
- Where a Support Case concerns an artifact generated through AI-Assisted Development, Pega may ask you to confirm that the artifact was reviewed, tested, and approved before promotion.
What Pega Support covers in AI-Assisted Development
- The assistant fails to start, fails to authenticate, or cannot connect to its configured model.
- The assistant generates artifacts that cannot be saved, or that corrupt a ruleset, branch, or repository.
- The assistant reproducibly generates artifacts that Pega Platform cannot compile or validate, independently of the content of the prompt.
- The assistant does not honor a documented guardrail, scope restriction, or environment restriction.
- A documented undo, discard, or rollback function fails.
- Pega GenAI Connect itself fails to invoke, authenticate, or return a response.
What Pega Support does not cover in AI-Assisted Development
- The design, architecture, structure, naming, reusability, or maintainability of generated artifacts, including requests to modify generated artifacts so that they achieve a desired functional outcome.
- Defects in your application arising from generated artifacts that were promoted without review, testing, or approval, or that were subsequently modified by hand and then failed.
- Merge conflicts, branch divergence, or concurrency conflicts arising from multiple developers generating artifacts against the same branch or ruleset.
- Restoration of artifacts overwritten by an AI Feature where you did not maintain a branch, backup, or version.
- Security vulnerabilities present in generated artifacts, other than a vulnerability in the AI Feature itself. Security review of AI Output is your responsibility under the Acceptable Use Policy.
- The behavior of custom functionality built using Pega GenAI Connect.
Production environments
AI-Assisted Development is not supported in production environments.
Where a Support Case reports an incident in a production environment that is attributable to artifacts generated through AI-Assisted Development, Pega will handle the incident under the standard Severity Levels and Response Times. Pega’s objective in that case is restoration of service. Investigation, correction, and remediation of the underlying artifact remain your responsibility.
Self-Service Offerings
If you encounter problems with your Pega products, you might be able to solve the problem yourself. Pega provides a variety of self-service options for problem solving and continuing education for Pega products. This information is always available to you and your colleagues for achieving business goals as quickly and efficiently as possible. See How to Get Support, Support self-service offerings.
Support Case Handling
This section explains various aspects of Support Case handling.
Submitting Support Cases
Support Case Types
Hot Fixes and Local Changes
Escalation Request Process
Reopening Support Cases
Submitting Support Cases
If, after using the many different self-service resources offered by Pega, you are unable to resolve a problem, you should submit a Support Case. Only authorized account contacts should submit a Support Case and follow up on in-progress cases.
Support Case Types
Pega Support tailors your support experience to provide you the appropriate support assistance based on your need and context.
Pega classifies support cases as Issues and Incidents. Issues are for situations when a Pega feature or function is not working as expected. Incidents are reported when an unintended event has caused a system outage or major impact on your business operations.
You can also request assistance for other support services, namely:
-
Cloud change
-
Existing hotfix
-
Cloud assistance
For additional information on Support Case types that is not part of the Support@Pega contract documentation, see How to Get Support, Creating a support ticket.
Hot Fixes and Local Changes
Support Cases are closed upon delivery of a solution through a local change, hotfix, patch, or plan for resolution in the next update release.
For additional information about hotfixes and patch releases for Pega Infinity™, including Pega Platform™, that is not part of the Support@Pega contract documentation, refer to the articles in Keeping Current with Pega.
To find information on the latest Pega Platform patch releases (Pega Platform version 8 and later releases), watch for announcements in the Pega Support Center.
Escalation Request Process
If you have submitted a Support Case, but you are not satisfied with the support or advice provided, you may request escalation. For additional information that is not part of the Support@Pega contract documentation, see How to Get Support, Escalating Support Tickets.
Reopening Support Cases
The Support Case Reopen feature allows you to reopen a Support Case that was resolved within the past 4 business days. If the Support Case was resolved more than 4 business days ago, but within the last 3 months, you can clone the ticket.
If the Support Case was resolved more than 3 months ago, you should submit a new Support Case. For additional information that is not part of the Support@Pega contract documentation, see How to Get Support, Requesting support services > What are the criteria for reopening a support ticket?
Severity Levels and Response Times
When you submit Support Cases, you must specify the circumstances and context necessitating the request. The Severity level is then automatically calculated and drives the expected response times, both for Pega and for you, the client who submitted the case.
Severity Levels
Support Case Response Times
Support Team Response Times
Client Response Times
Severity Levels
When submitting a Support Case, provide information about your problem and specify the following details that will be used to evaluate the severity of the case:
- Support Case type
- Business impact or project exposure
- Currently an active Support Case
- Environment affected (development, test, staging, production)
- Deployment affected (Pega Cloud, On-Premises, or Client Cloud)
Below are some example scenarios and their calculated severity:
|
Calculated Severity Level |
Scenario |
|---|---|
|
Severity 1 |
The production system is down or inaccessible. |
|
Severity 2 |
The reported incident causes disruption of a major feature or function of the system that has significant impact on production users and functionality. A Severity 2 incident can also severely impair development efforts. A Severity 2 incident prevents users from performing work or significant portions of their work, and it affects a large number of users. |
|
Severity 3 |
The reported incident involves a feature or functional failure that results in the Pega product not working as described in the documentation. A Severity 3 incident prevents or delays users from performing some tasks. |
Support Case Response Times
Support Cases are handled according to the response times required by Pega and you, the client.
Support Team Response Times
The support team response times are specified in the following table.
|
Calculated Severity Level |
Support |
Initial Response |
Support Case Updates |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Severity 1 |
Premium Support 24 hours, 7 days a week |
Premium Support Direct communication with the client within 15 minutes of the Support Case being submitted by the client |
Premium Support Incident: At a minimum, every eight hours Issue: Not applicable |
|
Severity 2 |
5 days a week (Standard Business Hours) |
Direct communication with the client within one business hour of the Support Case being submitted by the client |
Incident: At a minimum, every one business day updates or mutually agreed upon frequency Issue: Not applicable |
|
Severity 3 |
5 days a week (Standard Business Hours) |
Direct communication with the client within two business hours of the Support Case being submitted by the client |
Incident: At a minimum, updates every five business days or mutually agreed upon frequency Issue: Not applicable |
Client Response Times
The following table specifies the required client response times based on the Support Case severity:
|
Calculated Severity Level |
Client Response Required |
Otherwise, This Action Is Taken |
|
Severity 1 |
Within 1 to 4 business hours |
Severity 1 Support Case is downgraded to Severity 2. |
|
Severity 2 |
Within 5 to 8 business hours |
Support Case downgraded to Severity 3. |
|
Severity 3 |
In 5 business days |
Support Case is closed. |
Where:
"Standard Business Hours" are defined as 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on a Business Day, in the time zone of the client contact who submits the Support Case.
"Business Day" is defined as a day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or public holiday in the city of the client contact who submits the Support Case.
A Support Case will be closed if Pega does not receive any response from you after contacting you three (3) times over the course of five (5) business days.
Your Support Case will be closed when it has been referred to Pega Consulting or another party outside of Pega.
Your Support Case will be downgraded or closed if you do not respond in a timely manner to the Pega support team member working your case.
Software Update and Extended Support Program
This section explains the Pegasystems policies for software updates and extended support.
Software Updates
Software updates support the evolution of Pega products and provide new functionality and enhancements to these applications within the functional domain of the licensed components.
Pega performs software updates on Pega Cloud® services and Pega Cloud for Government.
For on-premises or client-managed installations, you may request new versions of Pega software and update your environments. Installation of software updates can also be provided by Pega through a professional services engagement.
For further patch information and details on Pega Infinity™ Update scenarios not included as part of the Support@Pega contract documentation, see the Pega Software maintenance program.
Standard Support and the Extended Support Program
Pega releases new software versions every nine to twelve months as well as software patches on a more frequent basis. This release cadence is designed to allow clients to plan and regularly deploy the latest software patch to their application.
All clients must keep their Pega applications up-to-date in accordance with Pega's Extended Support Program. Pega strongly advises clients to remain within the Standard Support period for optimal results and to avoid exceeding the Extended Support period.
If clients allow their software version to move beyond the Extended Support period, they risk non-compliance with Pega's product requirements and may face potential vulnerabilities and unsupported issues.
For additional details of the support provided under our Standard Support period and during the Extended Support period, see Pega Extended Support Program.