Webinar
90 Mins
CLSA Community: Integrating Constellation with your existing apps in Infinity '23
Replay
Overview
As of Infinity '23, a Pega application can run case types authored with a mix of Constellation UI and Traditional UI.
In this webinar:
- Shipra Gupta (Pegasystems Senior Manager, Software Engineering - UI) and Ajay Korthalwar (Pegasystems Senior Product Manager, Client Runtime Engine) refresh your memory on what Pega means by Traditional UI and the evolution towards Constellation UI; and introduce this new capability that allows both UI technologies to operate within the same Pega application.
- Pradeep Boorla (Pegasystems Senior Software Architect: UI Orchestration) shows you how to add Constellation case types to an existing Traditional UI application, as well as surfacing Traditional UI case types in a new Constellation application. Pradeep also helps you understand Pega's recommendations on when to use this new capability and the current limitations of this first release.
- Richard Marsot (Pegasystems Senior Director: Front-end Engineering) then talks through the considerations for migrating Traditional UI case types to Constellation, including an update on the roadmap for migration tooling.
Downloadable slides from the webinar
- Integrating Constellation with your existing apps using Infinity '23
- Migration of Traditional UI apps to Constellation UI
Rendering Traditional UI in Constellation apps
Rendering Constellation UI in Traditional apps
Migration of Traditional UI to Constellation UI
- User Experience landing page, including how to make your UI architecture choice
- UX docs dedicated to Migration
Academy Missions on Constellation design and implementation
Questions & Answers
Below are the different groups of Q&A from the webinar; use the links to jump to the section of your interest.
General Feature Questions
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is the 'Constellation app on top of UI Kit app' only supported in Pega '23 or also in Pega 8.8? | This is a feature for Pega Infinity ’23 |
| When will the Traditional UI be discontinued? | There is no plan to discontinue Traditional UI . This architecture is still used for a lot of Pega applications and in the different studios. |
| Do we need to refactor anything in Traditional UI cases? | No. There is no refactoring required to the Traditional case if you are running it in this Blended UI mode as it runs in its own island. |
| Can we re-generate assets e.g. if we need to update Case Types and Landing pages? | Yes. We can re-generate the assets, if there are more changes needed. |
| Do we need to run the wizard each and every environment? | Not a requirement. Running the wizard in the Dev environment is sufficient. |
| Is the idea or recommendation to use Constellation as base app (landing portal) and render Traditional UI apps as necessary? | The recommendation for new case types/applications is to use Constellation. This feature enables you to have blended architecture. |
| So, in essence, there is no need for our clients to migrate the case types/applications built on Traditional UI to Constellation? Or, is it still recommended by Pega to move to Constellation? If so, what are the main benefits? | This feature is providing an incremental approach towards Constellation adoption so that you can keep your application continuity by using Traditional case types while you continue rebuild your UI with constellation. |
| Can you provide a typical use case for each architecture? | Any case management use case that Pega is good at is an example for both the app architectures. For all new applications on Pega Infinity 23, Constellation architecture is recommended. Traditional UI is a powerful and mature technology that continues to provide value for existing applications. |
| How do we keep the UI changes in sync for both designs? |
We highly recommend using the OOTB Constellation design system. If you are required to roll out a different design system, you can choose to role it out in both traditional UI as well as in Constellation to keep them in sync. This will be a significant undertaking so should not be started lightly. In Constellation, you are building application logic in the center out approach and would not be mixing your business logic in the UI layer. So UI changes should be mostly visual UX only. |
| To link the Constellation app with the Traditional app, if we are manually adding the built on app rather doing it through wizard. Is there any issue with that? Will the view and mashup snippet wibe created in that case as well? | No. The built on app does not generate a view and mashup snippet. Running the wizard is required. |
Architecture
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| In terms of Technology(Cosmos React, Pega Engine), what are the main differences between Traditional UI and Constellation? |
Both the app technology options use the same Infinity 23 process engine, but differ in terms of how client and server communicate and how UI is generated. Instead of Server generated UI, you have a client generated UI. The architecture also provides app developers flexibility to utilize different design systems or front end libraries if needed in their specific apps if needed (these choices come with their own cost and benefits). The stateless DX API is also a big difference. Since there is no state tied to clipboard, you do not have intermittent state available between requests. However, you get a more cloud-friendly setup this way. |
| Can both Traditional UI and Constellation apps exist on same Pega instance? | With this feature, we would want both the application to be on the same instance. |
| How does the load balancer behave when we have Constellation and Traditional UI. Traditional UI requires sticky session while Constellation may not need the same. Any impact on passivation? | Constellation makes passivation easier since there is no stateful requestor that needs to be moved to another node. From a Load Balancing standpoint, using Constellation or Traditional UI should work together. |
| Does this approach affect application performance as we are pulling two design systems functions (Example: UI Kit and Constellation design system)? | Constellation UI provides a much more performant client side rendering. So when mixing the two architectures in the same portal, there will be some overhead but it is not significant UI delay for the end user experience. |
| Is this unified worklist is equivalent to Pega Process Fabric? |
Pega Process Fabric is intended for weaving together apps / work from different applications (not necessarily Pega apps themselves) and requires a different configuration. When mixing Pega architectures, we are addressing a somewhat of a different problem where we can bring together your existing apps and the involved business IP, and allow enhancements in the newer technology, so that you can leverage both the old and new in a seamless portal. |
| Is there any upgrade impact when using the Blended UI approach? | Bringing together both architectures in the same portal acts as a bridging step towards eventually moving towards a full Constellation world. Traditional UI will continue to be supported into the future. |
Pega Applications
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| When will the Pega applications (Customer Service, Sales Automation, Smart Dispute, etc.) be converted to Constellation? | There is no timeline publicly available yet on the conversion of other Pega Apps to Constellation but in 2024, more apps will support Constellation. In 2023, CS and SA are now supporting Constellation. More apps will follow. |
| If my application is on Pega Customer Service, is it possible to have one service case type in UI Kit and another service case type in Constellation? | Yes. Pega Customer Service supports the concept of remote case types that can use different UI technology. For more details, see https://docs.pega.com/bundle/customer-service-88/page/customer-service/uikit-implementation/case/constellation-case-types.html |
| Will the applications like Pega Customer Service be available in both architectures or will they only be available in Constellation moving forward? | Yes. Pega Customer Service provides 2 different applications: One for Constellation UI and one for Traditional UI in Infinity '23. For more details, see https://docs.pega.com/bundle/customer-service/page/customer-service/hub/customer-service-getting-started.html |
Traditional UI
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can we integrate DX components into Theme cosmos applications by enabling hybrid mode? | No. Hybrid mode means using explore data and landing pages built on Constellation. These pages uses list views and do not support Custom DX Components. |
| Since incorporating features of Traditional UI in Constellation app is possible, will there be a possibility to use report browser in Constellation? | You can expose the report browser but pointing to the url of a Traditional UI app or you can make a portal specific for reporting usage based on theme-cosmos - we are working on reducing the feature gap between report browser and explore data and we understand that some features are still missing. |
| What if the portals are not created through landing page for Traditional UI app? | A Constellation case is shown inside a Pega Harness, so you will be able to open the case directly from your custom navigation rule. Having said that, it is a best practice for the past 3+ years to use auto-generated portal. It will ease the migration to Constellation and it is easier to author. |
| As action sets will not work in Constellation, when we run this wizard, will there be an impact to existing functionality where action sets are used within a case type? | As traditional cases run in their island within the Constellation portal and uses the same technology still withing that island, those features will continue to work. |
| Will Web Embed work for Traditional UI cases on Constellation? | Mashup would be the way to embed inside other portals. Web Embed only supports Constellation cases. |
Security
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can you talk about security? How are the applications sharing authentication across Constellation and traditional UI? | You should be able to use SSO and share authentication between any Pega apps independently of the UI rendering used (Traditional or Constellation). |
Migration
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can we migrate assets to Constellation from an app where case types are not used? | To migrate to Constellation, you will first need to upgrade your application to use some of the best practices that have been published over the past years like using the case designer with stages and steps as well as using the data designer. Making your app more App Studio compliant will ease the migration. |
| How do we migrate the Constellation setting to higher environments? By the Deployment Manager within a product rule, or is there any manual step? | A Constellation application is a Pega application just like any application that uses Traditional UI. Therefore, it uses the same release process. |
| What resources can you recommend to help us assess and plan for the migration work? | Use https://docs.pega.com/bundle/platform/page/platform/user-experience/migrating-constellation-ui.html. This doc lists procedures and patterns that will need to be addressed and the manual steps to perform. |
Insights
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is it possible to include Insights inside traditional case type, for example, to display a chart? | The scope of this solution is limited to a complete landing page or case page. |
| How about reporting? Is it possible using Insights to query both Constellation and UI Kit case types together? | Yes. Both case types created from top level app are visible to the whole application and can be reported on together. |