Using the Application Preflight tool

The scope and results of this tool depend on your application RuleSets and the currently selected work pool name.

1. Click the link containing your name at the top of the navigation panel to see the profile display. Review the area titled Application RuleSets to confirm which RuleSets are to be checked by this tool.
2. Select Application > Preflight to start the Application Preflight tool.

Performance and DataIntegrity warning types are considered to be high priority. They can degrade system reliability by slowing performance (for instance, a list view that retrieves embedded properties) or by violating data integrity (for example, an activity that uses the Commit method incorrectly). Eliminating high priority warning conditions before putting the rules into production is strongly recommended.

The Download High Priority Warnings option enables you to:

• Create and download Excel spreadsheets containing all high priority warnings in the RuleSets comprising your current access group. Links within the spreadsheet enable you to open a PDN article relevant to each warning, and to open the rule form containing the warning.
• Display summary and list reports of warnings (high priority only or all) within the RuleSets comprising a selected access group. You can download these reports as Excel spreadsheets.

Creating and downloading a High Priority warning spreadsheet

1. Click Download High Priority Warnings. The Download warnings for <your application> dialog appears.
2. Click Download to obtain a list report of high priority warnings for the RuleSets in your current access group and download it as an Excel spreadsheet. The File Download dialog appears.
3. Click Open to download the file and open it in Excel.
4. Click Yes when the format warning appears. The spreadsheet opens.
5. Click on a link in the Warning Name column to open a PDN article that describes the warning, why it occurred, and how to remove it.
6. Click a Click to Open link in the InzKey column to open the rule form in a browser.
7. After you have corrected the warning condition, save the rule.

You can't open flow action, harness, or section rules from the spreadsheet.

Displaying high-priority rule warning reports

1. Click Browse Warnings in the Download warnings dialog. A summary report of high priority warnings for the RuleSets in your access group displays.
2. Click on a RuleSet to open a list report of the rules.
3. Click a row in the report to display the rule instance panel at the bottom of the report.
4. Click Open to display the rule form, which contains the error message.
5. After you have made your corrections, save the rule.

Do the following:

• To display a summary report of all warnings in your access group, select List all and click Show Warning Summary. Open the list reports as described previously.
• To display a summary report (high priority only or all) in another access group, use SmartPrompt in the Select Accessgroup field. Click Show Warning Summary. Open the list reports as described previously.

This bar chart appears when you choose Application > Preflight. It displays the number of rule instances with warnings for each rule type for all available RuleSets in your application. You can change the rule type range in the display using the slider widget at the top of the chart.

Displays a bar chart and summary report which contain the following information:

• The chart displays the number of rule instances for each rule type that contains a warning. You can change the rule type range in the display using the slider widget at the top of the chart.
• The summary report specifies, for each rule type, the number of rule instances that do and do not have warnings (only rule types with warnings are included). Click a Rule Type name in the summary for a list of the rules with warnings. Click a list item to open the rule form.

1. Click the open icon () next to the RuleSet Name field.
2. Select one or more RuleSets from the list (only RuleSets that contain warnings are included).
3. Click Apply.
4. Click the Run button ( ) to generate the report.

Displays a bar chart and summary report of rule instances that have performance-type warnings. The summary report and Criteria functionality are the same as described above for the All Warnings by Rule Type report.

Displays a bar chart and summary report of rule instances that have warnings. The chart shows the number of rules within each rule set as a percentage of all the rules in the RuleSet. The summary and Criteria functionality are the same as described above for the All Warnings by Rule Type report.

Displays a pie chart and summary report of total warnings by severity level (four levels). Level one signifies a warning that is most likely to compromise expected processing behavior. Hover your cursor over each section of the chart to display number of warnings at each level and the percentage each level represents of the total. The summary and Criteria functionality are the same as described above for the All Warnings by Rule Type report.

High priority warnings are not correlated to severity. Remediate high priority warnings first.

Work object forms and reports that are part of a Pega Composite application can be designed to operate with Firefox 2.0+ browsers as well as Internet Explorer.

This option displays a chart that assesses the user interface rules in your application for compatibility across these browser types. This report checks the value set in the Browser Support field (on the HTML tab) of all the harness, flow action, section, HTML, HTML property, and HTML fragment rules in your application. The percentage value is the total number of items called by the top-level item (harness or flow action) divided by the number of those items that are marked as cross-browser. See Pega Developer Network article PRKB-25240 How to run the Browser Compatibility report.

• If the option is set to IE6+ only, the HTML and JSP generated from the rule is not considered cross-browser compatible.
• If the option is set to IE6+ and Firefox2+, the HTML and JSP generated from the rule is considered cross- browser compatible.

For purposes of this chart, a rule is counted as cross-browser compatible if any of the following are true:

• The Auto-generated HTML? option on the HTML tab is selected (so the HTML and JSP code is generated rather than hand-crafted).
• You use a standard rule that is marked as cross-browser compatible (the the Browser Support field is set to IE6+ and Firefox2+.
• The Auto-generated HTML? option is cleared but the Browser Support field is set to IE6+ and Firefox2+.

If you or other developers clear the Auto-generated HTML? option and enter HTML code manually, it is your responsibility test your code in all browsers. The report does not validate your code.

The report specifies the Rule Type name, the Count of visual elements, a bar chart indicating the compatibility, and the actual percentage value of compatibility for each rule type. Click the orange triangle () next to any Rule Type name, RuleSet name, or Visual Element to drill down in the table for more detailed information.

Displays a chart detailing the level of accessibility compliance in an application by Rule Type and % of accessibility. Drill down capabilities display additional levels of detail about individual accessible elements within the rules.

For more information, see Pega Developer Network article PRKB-25259 Use the Preflight tool to report an application's level of accessibility

Warning messages appear only for rules that or revalidated in a 4.2SP6 (or later) system. If your application includes rules created and last saved in a Version 4.2SP5 or earlier system, the Preflight display may be incomplete. To see the complete list, click the 4.2 Preflight link. Processing may take several minutes. Alternatively you can speed Preflight operations for this application by revalidating rules in the application RuleSets first, using the Revalidate and Save facility.

A warning condition does not indicate that a rule is invalid (cannot be saved) or that it does not operate correctly. A warning indicates a variance from design guardrails or best practices. Ideally, you can revise the rule or other rules to remove the variance, which may improve performance, maintainability, user productivity, or usability. Here is a partial list:

• Activities that contain a Java step or contain an Obj-Save method with the WriteNow parameter enabled.
• Activities that employ the 2002-era compiler API (known as Version 02) rather than the current API (Version 03-02).
• Activities with steps that have disabled preconditions or transitions.
• Flow rules that contain more than 15 shapes, or have more than five connector flow actions for one assignment.
• Flow action rules with the Auto-generated HTML? check box cleared.
• Section rules with the Auto-generated HTML? check box cleared.
• Decision table, decision tree, or map value rules that contain conflicts.
• Class rules for concrete class that, based on current database table instances) are mapped to the pr_other table.
• List view or summary view rules that display properties that (based on current database table instances) are not exposed columns.
• HTML rules, XML Stream rules, fragments or correspondence rules that have Generate for on the HTML tab set to HTML (to support directives) rather than JSP (to support JavaServer Page tags).
• Activities with a Commit method and that have an Applies To key part derived from the Work- base class.
• Java code entered directly that uses the == identity operator on String objects.

If none of the rules have warnings, a message appears:

There are no rules with warnings in this application.

Researching rules with warning

1. Click the orange triangle () next to any row to list the non-compliant rules of that rule type.
2. Click any row to open the corresponding rule.

Which rules the Application Preflight tool evaluates depends only on the your application RuleSets, determined by the application rule identified in your access group.

Don't confuse the application RuleSets — an unordered collection of RuleSets supporting this tool and other developer tools — with the RuleSet list, an ordered list of RuleSet Versions used at runtime for rule resolution.

PDN Resources

The Pega Developer Network has explanations and guidance for addressing specific warnings. See PRKB-25499 Understanding rule warning messages and PRKB-25497 How to download a list of high-priority rule warnings.