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Completing the New or Save As form

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Create a new property by selecting Property from the Data Model category.

Tip Note these tips:

A property has two key parts:

Field

Description

Applies To

SmartPromptSelect the name of the class in which you are creating the property.

For a property of mode Java Property, enter Embed-Java- or a class derived from Embed-Java-.

The classes you can enter here may depend on the RuleSet you select. On the Restrictions tab of the Class form, a class rule may limit rules applying to that class to belong to one of an explicit list of RuleSets.

Property Name

Enter a name that starts with a letter and includes only alphanumeric and dash characters, forming a Java identifier. See How to enter a Java identifier.

Avoiding duplicate names

TipAs a best practice for good runtime performance, choose property names that are distinct and unique throughout your application. For technical reasons, having several properties named Amount in one inheritance path, even if these have different RuleSets, can slow the initial assembly of rules that reference Amount. Choosing more explicit names — such as PrincipalAmount, AmountAtRisk, TotalOrderAmount — will both prevent this performance impact and also help ensure that developers use the appropriate property. See About the Duplicate Property wizard.
When you click Create or Save As, and a property of the same name already exists in the inheritance path, a warning message appears asking if you want to create the property anyway. Properties that are duplicates of other property instances have an effect on caching, which can have a negative effect on system performance.

Notes on names

CautionProperty names may contain up to 64 characters. However, if this property is of mode Single Value and may prove useful for searching and selection in your application, choose a name not longer than the maximum column name length allowed by the database software supporting the PegaRULES database. This avoids issues that may arise later if the property is to become exposed as a database column. See exposed property.

Except when overriding a standard rule in an upwards-compatible way, choose a name that does not start with px or py. Property names that start with these letters are reserved. In your application, however, use of standard properties with names starting with px and py is encouraged. Your application can set and test values in these properties.

The pz prefix identifies standard properties that support PRPC internal operations. Do not directly alter these in your application.

Don't choose a name that matches a reserved page name or keyword, such as Top, Parent, Local, Param, or Primary. See Understanding page names and reserved pages.

For general information about the New form, see Completing the new rule dialog box. For general information on the Save As form, see How to enter rule keys using Save As.

Quick Create option

To create a Single Value property and accept default values for all fields except Type, select a Property Type and click  Quick Create  . You can later update the property to provide a Full Description, Edit Input conditions, and other features. (The Quick Create option is not available when the Project Management interface is enabled for the application.)

Field

Description

Property Type

SmartPromptSelect a Type.

 Access When  

SmartPrompt Select a when rule if you are creating a TextEncrypted property type. The access when rule test and automatic encryption (or decryption) occur only as users interact with a form. In all other cases, your application must explicitly call the functions.

Reporting

If you are creating a top-level Single Value property in a concrete class, you can choose to expose the property as a database column now, before the system contains any values for the property.

If you are uncertain, leave these blank; you can expose the property as a column, and populate the column with values later. (This feature is available only on systems with a production level of 1 or 2, requires specific database account capabilities, requires that you hold the SchemaPropertyOptimization privilege, and that the value of the Dynamic System Setting named database/AutoDBSchemaChanges be set to true. See Working with the PegaRULES database — Schema changes.)

Field

Description

Optimize this Property for
reporting on (class)

Select the top checkbox to expose the property for the Applies To class only.

Optimize this Property for reporting on (class) and its descendent classes

Select the second checkbox to expose the property for the Applies To class and all classes derived from this class.

Rule resolution for properties

When searching for properties, the system:

Time-qualified and circumstance-qualified rule resolution features are not available for properties.

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