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Deleting a rule

Updated on April 5, 2022

Save disk space by deleting rules that are no longer relevant in your application. For example, during application development, you create a field property to capture a phone number, but later you realize that you want to capture multiple phone numbers. Instead, you create a list property, and then delete the field property. As a result, you improve the extensibility and user understanding of your application by providing only the rules that your application requires.

Note: After you ship a ruleset, withdraw or block a rule instead of deleting it. You cannot search for deleted rules.

When you develop a process in App Studio, your application might create additional rules, such as views, that the final process does not require to function correctly. To ensure that you deliver only the minimum number of rules that your application requires, remove such unnecessary rules.

The following conditions can prevent you from deleting a rule:
  • You cannot delete a rule that belongs to a locked ruleset version. However, in most situations, you can create a blocked or withdrawn rule in your application that masks (makes invisible to rule resolution) a rule that you no longer need in your application.
  • You cannot delete standard rules, because they are part of the Pega Platform product. However, you can override many standard rules.
  • You can delete a rule or data instance only in the following circumstances:

    – If an Access of Role to Object rule associated with your access role allows you to delete rules or data instances.

    – If no Access Deny rules associated with your access role disallow you to delete rules or data instances.

  • You cannot delete a rule where the Circumstance or Start Time fields are blank if your system contains other rules with identical keys that are circumstance-qualified or time-qualified. Delete the qualified rules first, and then delete the unqualified rule.
  • You cannot delete an Operator ID if the operator has checked out rules. Before you delete an Operator ID, the operator needs to sign in, and delete or check in all rules in the personal ruleset.
  • You cannot delete a concrete class that contains instances.
  • You cannot delete a class, either concrete or abstract, if the system contains rules with that class name as the Applies To class. You receive a notification with a list of the rules that you need to delete before you delete the class rule.
  • You cannot delete a ruleset version rule that identifies a non-empty collection of rules. First, you need to delete each of the rules in the version.
  • You cannot delete a ruleset for which a ruleset version exists. Delete each version first.
  1. In the navigation pane of Dev Studio, click Records.
  2. In the Records explorer, expand the category of the rule that you want to delete, and then click its rule type.
    For example: If you want to delete an activity, expand the Technical category, and then click Activity.
  3. In the list of rule instances, click the rule that you want to delete.
  4. Click Delete.
  5. In the Delete dialog box, describe the reason for deleting the rule, and then click Delete.
  6. Optional: To undo your changes while you still have the rule open, click Restore.
What to do next: Recover a specific version of a deleted rule. For more information, see Recovering a deleted rule.
  • Restrictions on deleting rules

    The following conditions can prevent you from deleting a rule:

  • Recovering a deleted rule

    Facilitate application development by recovering one of the most recent versions of a deleted rule. For example, if you accidentally delete a property, or delete a process rule that seems irrelevant, but you later realize that you need the process to complete the case life cycle.

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