Support Article
Offer Flow rule instance opening
SA-42704
Summary
User is unable to open up some Offer Flow rules in Designer Studio with Pega Marketing 7.22.
This issue affects Offer Flows which were recently updated.
Error Messages
Error on screen when attempting to open the Offer Rule in Designer Studio:
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Unable to open instance PEGAMKT-WORK-OFFER-xx-xx-xx!XXXXXX.
Possible causes may be
(1) Rule may no longer exist.
(2) Availability of the rule may be set to No/Draft, Blocked or Withdrawn.
(3) Circumstance of the rule may be preventing access.
(4) Current date is not within the date range specified in the rule.
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And in the logs (this error may very well appear before the error on screen : since it relates to a failure to create a backing Data Page that is subsequently used by the Rule Form).
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2017-06-11 11:12:28,350 [tp-bio-9080-exec-169] [TABTHREAD0] [ ] [ XXXX:01-01-01] (ategy.proposition.CacheFactory) INFO xx.xx.xx.xx|xx.xx.xx.xx [email protected] - Refresh proposition cache for top level class Data-pxStrategyResult-XXXX-SR
2017-06-11 11:12:28,501 [tp-bio-9080-exec-169] [TABTHREAD0] [ ] [ XXXX:01-01-01] ( internal.mgmt.Executable) ERROR xx.xx.xx.xx|xx.xx.xx.xx [email protected] - Exception
com.pega.pegarules.pub.clipboard.InvalidReferenceException: The reference .pxPageGroupResults(CBU).Statistics(Contracts).Statistics() is not valid. Reason: unexpected character ')' at position 58, expected subscript (wildcards not allowed)
at com.pega.pegarules.data.internal.clipboard.PropertyReferenceImpl.initialize(PropertyReferenceImpl.java:3077)
at com.pega.pegarules.data.internal.clipboard.PropertyReferencePoolImpl.get(PropertyReferencePoolImpl.java:131)
at com.pega.pegarules.data.internal.clipboard.PropertyReferencePoolImpl.get(PropertyReferencePoolImpl.java:109)
at com.pega.pegarules.data.internal.clipboard.ClipboardPageImpl.getProperty(ClipboardPageImpl.java:1061)
at com.pega.pegarules.data.internal.clipboard.ClipboardPageImpl.getProperty(ClipboardPageImpl.java:1033)
at com.pega.pegarules.data.internal.clipboard.ClipboardPageImpl.getProperty(ClipboardPageImpl.java:1019)
at com.pega.pegarules.data.internal.clipboard.ClipboardPageImpl.getPage(ClipboardPageImpl.java:1943)
at com.pegarules.generated.activity.ra_action_loadofferinteractionstatistics_98b3cb8b40bd91e07bcd01290c2734a2.step1_circum0(ra_action_loadofferinteractionstatistics_98b3cb8b40bd91e07bcd01290c2734a2.java:199)
at com.pegarules.generated.activity.ra_action_loadofferinteractionstatistics_98b3cb8b40bd91e07bcd01290c2734a2.perform(ra_action_loadofferinteractionstatistics_98b3cb8b40bd91e07bcd01290c2734a2.java:70)
at com.pega.pegarules.session.internal.mgmt.Executable.doActivity(Executable.java:3553)
[…]
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Steps to Reproduce
1. Create an offer flow.
2. Update it and check out.
3. Try to open it again.
Root Cause
The error in the logs was investigated and found to have been caused by the fact that the 'pyName' property/column in the corresponding 'Interaction History' (IH) table contained a String like this: "12345"; the 'loadofferinteractionstatistics' contains logic which rejects this name (Pega Marketing does allow the 'Offer Name' (pyName) to being with a numeric character).
The error is triggered at the point when a PRPC 'Data Page' is _initially_ loaded. (That is the 'Data Page' is not yet initiated; this is the first access to that Data Page, which should result in the Data Page being created).
The Data Page 'D_MKTOfferInteractionStatistics' is accessed during the opening up of an 'Offer Flow' rule.
This Data Page is used to provide extra details in the 'Rule Form Header' when a 'Offer Flow' Rule is opened.
In Designer Studio: any error that occurs when the Data Page is created will result in the situation above.
The error can be avoided when using the 'Pega Marketing' Portal - as the creation of the same Data Page occurs at a different point during user navigation.
The error *still* occurs and the Data Page is *not* created correctly (it is created in memory - with no data): contrasting that with using the Pega Marketing Portal: the 'Offer Rule' will open - but will be missing some additional data (which ought to have been fetched from the Data page).
Resolution
Identification and removal of any "IH" entries which start with a Numeric character.
Note 1: This issue does not present itself if the Pega Marketing Portal is used throughout; the issue only presents when Designer Studio is used AND there is a numeric entry in the 'IH' table.
Note 2: An Enhancement has been logged FDBK-20798: "Help Users Avoid Rule Form Error (opening offers)."
This is to allow Pega SMEs to look into whether it would be feasible and worthwhile for a future version of PRPC (by some means) help the user avoid this situation.
Published December 5, 2017 - Updated December 2, 2021
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