PEGAPCSSA87V1 Sample Questions & Answers
Focuses on the Enterprise Class Structure, rule resolution and advanced features, the single biggest weight, plus performance analysis, case design with SLAs, access and data security, database operations, integration architecture, reporting, and mobile delivery.
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- Question 1Intermediate
Reporting · Design reports with multiple sources; associations and joins
An insurance company's claim processing application needs to display a list of approved repair shops. This list is large and varies by the claimant's geographical region. The report definition for this list uses a class join to the Operator data class to show the name of the claims adjuster. A business analyst, who does not have development skills, needs to create a new report that also includes the adjuster's name. What Pega feature should be implemented to facilitate this reuse without requiring a developer to configure a new class join?
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Correct answer: B
Association rules are designed to create reusable joins between classes. Once an association is defined by a developer (e.g., linking a case to an operator via an adjuster ID), it becomes available in the Report Editor. Business users can then simply add properties from the associated class to their reports without understanding or configuring the underlying class join, promoting reusability and empowering business users.
- Question 2Intermediate
User Experience · Configure Pega Web Mashup authentication
A Pega application is being embedded into a high-traffic external web portal using Pega Web Mashup. The portal uses its own authentication mechanism. The requirements state that users authenticated with the portal should NOT have to log in again to interact with the Pega application. Which configuration is essential to meet this requirement securely?
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Correct answer: B
To achieve seamless and secure single sign-on (SSO) for a mashup, a standard-based authentication service like SAML 2.0 or OpenID Connect is required. This allows Pega to trust the authentication performed by the external portal's Identity Provider (IdP), creating a Pega session for the user without requiring a separate login.
- Question 3Advanced
Case Management · Configure parallel processing for cases
A case type for processing event permits requires two parallel reviews: one by the police department and one by the fire department. Final approval can only be granted after both departments have completed their reviews. The current implementation uses a Split-Join shape. During user acceptance testing, it's discovered that if the police department rejects a permit, the fire department review task remains open and active. What is the most effective way to configure the case to ensure that a rejection from one department automatically resolves the entire parallel process?
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Correct answer: C
The Join condition in a Split-Join shape is designed for this exact scenario. By setting the join to 'Any' and providing a when condition that evaluates to true when any of the parallel flows sets a rejection status (e.g., '.ReviewStatus == "Rejected"'), the Split-Join will complete immediately, canceling any other in-flight assignments in the other parallel flows.
- Question 4Intermediate
Performance · Measure System Performance; use of performance-related tools
A system administrator analyzing logs with the Pega Diagnostic Center (PDC) notices a high number of PEGA0005 alerts originating from a single user interaction. This alert indicates that a query to the database exceeded the time threshold. Which tool should a senior system architect use first to get a detailed breakdown of the specific SQL query being executed and its execution plan?
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Correct answer: D
While other tools provide performance metrics, Database Trace is specifically designed to capture the exact SQL queries sent to the database. It allows an architect to view the generated SQL, see parameter values, and most importantly, obtain the database execution plan to identify missing indexes or inefficient query structures, which are the most common causes of PEGA0005 alerts.
- Question 5Beginner
Application Development · Branch rulesets for parallel development
A development team is building a new application on a shared Pega platform. To facilitate parallel development, the lead architect has created a development branch named 'FeatureX'. A developer working in this branch needs to update a data transform that exists in the base application ruleset. What is the expected behavior when the developer checks out and modifies this data transform within the 'FeatureX' branch?
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Correct answer: A
This is the core principle of branching in Pega. When a rule is checked out from a locked base ruleset while working in a branch, Pega creates a copy of that rule in the branch's specific ruleset. The rule resolution algorithm prioritizes rules in branch rulesets for operators who have that branch enabled, effectively overriding the base version during development.
- Question 6Intermediate
Data and Integration · Identify use cases for Keyed Data Pages
An application is being migrated from a legacy system to Pega. The legacy system contains a large table of 'Product Codes' that will be used for data validation in dropdowns throughout the Pega application. The product codes are frequently updated by a separate master data management system. The codes need to be accessed using a single, unique key. Which type of data page is the most appropriate design choice for managing this data?
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Correct answer: B
A list-structure data page with keyed page access is ideal for this scenario. It loads the entire list of product codes into memory on a node-wide scope (or requestor), and the 'keyed access' option allows for extremely fast lookups of individual product codes by their unique key without re-querying the database for each lookup. This provides both efficient loading and high-performance access.
- Question 7Advanced
Security · Distinguish between role-based, attribute-based, and client-based access control
A banking application requires different views of a customer's data for a 'Teller', a 'Loan Officer', and a 'Branch Manager'.
Company Background: GlobalBank is a large financial institution aiming to unify its customer service applications onto the Pega platform. They want to ensure strict data segregation and security compliance.
Current Situation: The current implementation uses three different portals and harnesses to control the user interface for each role. However, they have discovered that a tech-savvy Loan Officer can still access Teller-specific data by manipulating clipboard data in the browser's developer tools, even though the UI elements are not visible.
Requirements: The application must prevent any possibility of a user accessing data fields on the server or clipboard for which they are not authorized, regardless of the UI presented. For example, a Loan Officer must never be able to see the 'TellerCashDrawerID' property, even if it is part of the same case data model.
Which Pega security feature should be implemented to meet this strict data-level security requirement?
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Correct answer: C
Access Control Policies (part of ABAC) are the correct mechanism for this requirement. By defining a policy with a 'PropertyRead' action, you control access to the property at the data level. This policy is enforced on the server whenever data is read, regardless of the UI. This prevents unauthorized users from seeing the property's value on the clipboard or in any server response, completely mitigating the identified security risk.
- Question 8AdvancedSelect 3
Data and Integration · Address integration errors in connectors
A Pega application consumes a REST service that returns customer data. The connector is configured with a 5-second timeout. During integration testing, the service sometimes takes 7-8 seconds to respond, causing timeout errors. The service provider cannot improve the response time. The business requirement is to wait up to 10 seconds and, if an error occurs, route the case to a 'Manual Review' work queue. Which of the following configurations are required to implement this? (Select THREE)
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Correct answers: A, C, E
This is the first step to prevent the timeout error from occurring prematurely.
This is the standard way to handle integration exceptions within a case flow. The error path provides a clean way to direct the process when the connector fails.
The connector rule's Error Handling section allows you to specify a flow to be invoked upon failure. This flow can then manage the error gracefully, such as by changing the case status and transitioning to a different stage or assignment.
- Question 9Intermediate
Case Management · Extend service-level agreement configurations
A case type for employee onboarding has a service level agreement (SLA) that requires the 'IT Setup' stage to be completed within 2 business days. The current SLA is configured with a 'Goal' of 24 hours and a 'Deadline' of 48 hours. The business wants to introduce an intermediate milestone: if the stage is not completed within 36 hours, the urgency of the case should increase by 20, but no notification should be sent. How should this be configured?
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Correct answer: D
Pega SLAs support multiple timed events (Goal, Deadline, Passed Deadline), and each can have multiple levels of escalation actions. The correct approach is to configure the 'Deadline' event to have two levels: the first at 36 hours that only increases urgency, and the second at 48 hours that performs the final deadline action (e.g., notification). This allows for intermediate milestones without altering the primary Goal and Deadline definitions.
- Question 10Beginner
Application Development · Define the Enterprise Class Structure
A Pega application is being built using a framework/implementation layer approach. The framework layer, named 'ClaimsFW', contains a case type 'AutoClaim'. The implementation layer, 'USAutoClaims', is built on the framework and specializes the 'AutoClaim' case type. A developer needs to add a new utility shape to the 'ApproveClaim' flow in the 'AutoClaim' case type. The new utility should only run for the 'USAutoClaims' implementation. According to Pega best practices, where should the developer save the modified 'ApproveClaim' flow rule?
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Correct answer: B
To specialize behavior for an implementation layer, the rule should be saved into the corresponding class within that implementation layer ('USAutoClaims-Work-AutoClaim'). Due to Pega's rule resolution algorithm, at runtime, this specialized version in the implementation class will be found and executed instead of the base version in the framework class ('ClaimsFW-Work-AutoClaim'), correctly applying the change only for the US implementation.
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