Use this topic to Complete General tab fields that appear when you create a property of mode Single Value
, Value List
or Value Group
. For information on choosing a property mode, see Completing the General tab — Choosing a mode.
The Property Type determines the kind of data that values of the property represent, and can affect the format and allowable characters in the value.
Choose the Property Type carefully. After you save a property, you cannot later change its type except in a few special cases, even if no instances or pages have a value for the property. See Changing Property Types and Revalidation is necessary after certain property updates in More about Properties.
Type |
Description |
Select When you use an activity or an HTML form to set the value of the property, the value can contain any graphic characters in addition to tabs, carriage returns, and line feeds. Use the |
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Select Do not confuse the |
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Select The values of properties with this Property Type are always encrypted when stored in the database. When on the clipboard, the values may appear as clear text (not encrypted), until the page containing the property is validated. The value can contain only legal graphic characters. Tabs, carriage returns, and line feed characters are not allowed. Do not confuse the You can prevent any text field from echoing when typed into an HTML form using the <INPUT TYPE="PASSWORD" NAME=...> This HTML does not cause any encryption. This native HTML feature is not related to the |
Select When you specify the value in your later configuration, use any sequence of digits for the value. You can precede the digits with a plus sign (+12) or a minus sign (-12). |
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Select |
Select Your property can reference the standard property qualifier named pyDecimalPrecision to fix the number of digits the system keeps after the decimal position in values of this property. |
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Select Internally, a Users need not enter |
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Select Application users are not required to enter As a best practice, use |
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Select Internally, a For example, 000000 represents midnight and 120000 identifies noon. The value 235959 identifies the second before midnight. Application users are not required to enter As a best practice, use |
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Select
A |
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Select this type to implement encryption for the value. See Implementing and using the TextEncrypted type. The |
For a Single Value mode property of type Text
, you can link the property to a single instance of a different, concrete class. The information on this tab describes how the Pega Platform forms a key to that instance from the value of this property and possibly the value of other properties. The other concrete class is known as the target.
In many rules, use of linked properties can improve runtime performance by eliminating multiple requests to the PegaRULES database to retrieve the target instance. Use of a linked property can also eliminate the need for an activity to open the target instance. For a configuration example, see PDN article How to use linked properties to display data from related objects.
The relationship defined by the property and the target fields is similar to an SQL JOIN or foreign-key relationship among database tables. The relationship allows the Pega Platform to retrieve (for display only, without a lock) the target object at run time.
In property references on sections, harnesses, and flow actions, you can include values of properties from the linked object, using property references of the form:
.LinkPropertyName.TargetPropertyRef
where .LinkPropertyName is the Property Name field of the linked property, and PropertyRef is any property reference in the Linked Class class. These values must be read-only.
Do not reference properties of the target in reports, activities, or data transforms.
Field |
Description |
Linked Property |
Select to indicate that this property is a linked property, with values that correspond to all or part of the internal key of a unique instance of a concrete class. |
Linked Class |
For a linked property, identify a concrete class, one instance of which is to be accessed through the value of this linked property. Do not link to a rule (any instance of a concrete class derived from the Rule- base class.) |
Linked Mapping |
Identify one or more properties (in the Source Property column) that at run time contain values that together define all parts of a key to a single, unique instance of the objects in the Linked Class class. To assist in defining this mapping, the form identifies the properties that form the key to the linked class in the Linked Class Key column. If each value of the linked property forms the entire key to the instances of the linked class, enter the property name (the value you entered in the New dialog) in the Source Property column. If the values of the linked properties form only part of they key to instances of the linked class, complete the Source Property column by identifying the properties that supply the other key parts. |
Organization Divisions (instances of the Data-Admin-OrgDivision class) have two key parts, defined by properties pyOrganization and pyOrgDivision.
Property Work-.pyOrigDivision is a linked property that identifies, as source properties, two other (not linked) properties available on every work object:
As a result, any section derived from a Work- class can display (read-only) the Division Cost Center using the notation:
.pyOrigDivision.pyDivisionCostCenter
Using linked properties can reduce or eliminate the need to create activities in your application.
At run time, the system retrieves the target object to evaluate any property reference within it. The retrieved pages become part of the requestor's clipboard and appear in the Clipboard display within a grouping named Linked Property Pages.
If a second request for the same page occurs soon after a first request, the page may be still on the clipboard, eliminating a database access. All linked property pages are removed from the clipboard when your requestor session performs a Commit operation (which need not be related to the form containing information from the linked page).
If debugging is necessary, you can enable the Tracer options Linked Page Hit and Linked Page Miss. These options cause Tracer output to include a row for each hit and miss, identifying the referring page (containing the linked property) and the page containing the target object.
These fields determine the presentation of the property when it appears on an HTML form. (By definition, the read-write mode is never used for special properties; only the read-only mode is relevant.)
For developers: If a property's Control field specifies an auto-generated control, in FormBuilder-based forms, the system displays the property using the Default control when displaying that property in the FormBuilder-based form. Examples of this behavior are when such properties are displayed in the Decision Table rule form, Decision Tree rule form, and the Run Rule form. In harness-based forms, the system displays the property using the specified auto-generated control.
Field |
Description |
Control |
Optional. For
This field is not meaningful for |
Configure |
If the control requires parameters and you want to specify them in this Property form, click the button and enter values as prompted. When completing a Field panel (for a cell in a harness, section, or flow action), you can override the parameter values entered here with values that apply to that cell only. This button does not work with auto-generated controls. You can customize an auto-generated control only in a section or harness that contains the control. To customize the control, specify the rule in the Control field on the Cell Properties panel and use the Gear icon next to the field to open the control's Parameters dialog. |
A property of mode Single Value
, Value List
or Value Group
can use "table validation" to constrain the property's input value to one of a set of specified acceptable values, or to a pattern of values. At run time, the system verifies that the value matches one on the list, and validates the value is appropriate input for the property.
To use table validation:
Single Value
, Value List
, or Value Group
for the Property Mode field. (You cannot use table validation for properties of any other modes.) None
value). The appropriate fields for that type appear in the form.See Property form General tab — Completing the Table fields — Basics for details about how the system compares the set of acceptable values to the input values.
After you have specified the table validation you want and completed the appropriate fields:
Field Value
table type If you update an existing property and revise the table details, additional steps may be necessary. See Revalidation is necessary after certain property updates in More about Properties.
Field |
Description |
Table Type |
Select
|
For Single Value
properties, you can preview the presentation and other aspects of the property.
Click the Preview toolbar button to see an approximate presentation of the property as it will appear in both input and display at run time. For properties not marked as Special, you can preview the representation of a specific value:
The preview presentation does not reflect the pyMinimumLength property qualifier (when referenced on the Qualifiers tab) unless the Edit Input field contains pyMinimumLength-Enforce.
You cannot preview a TextEncrypted property if your system does not include a cipher algorithm.