Add Explore Data/Insights to a Theme Cosmos Application

User Experience
1

Hello,
If a client that is self-hosted (not on Pega Cloud) wants to leverage Explore Data/Insights in a Theme Cosmos application, I’m trying to better understand all the steps required to set this up.

I know they can Enable Constellation components in traditional UI via the instructions here: Pegasystems Documentation
Do they also need to update the DSS for Pega to use the Constellation Static CDN? Pegasystems Documentation
Further, do they also need to deploy the Constellation Message Service - is this a requirement? Pegasystems Documentation

Thank you.

2

Hi @morak ,
Static CDN / DSS

  • Yes — configuring the DSS (e.g. ConstellationPegaStaticURL) is required to point to either:

    • Pega CDN (recommended), or

    • your internal static service (for restricted environments)

  • This is a mandatory prerequisite for any Constellation-based capability, as it delivers the UI runtime.

Constellation Messaging Service

  • Not strictly required for basic functionality, but:

    • Enables real-time UI updates (push model)

    • Must be manually deployed in self-managed environments if you want that capability (Pega Cloud provisions it automatically)

3

Beyond what @aniki has said, there is also a step for ensuring the data model is at Constellation standard.

I’ve enabled Explore Data on Traditional UI Apps twice now, there is always a period where you need to test the Explore Data capabilities and ensure you are getting the expected outcomes.

Unfortunately, Traditional UI allowed a lot of logic to be hidden in the UI and/or bad data modelling practices. This does mean some configuration to address - in my experience its at most 3 weeks (depending on teams Constellation knowledge).

Things that our modern tools do for you but older apps would not have done:

  1. Relevant records (to see the fields)
  2. Optimize embedded fields (to see embedded data fields in Insights)
  3. Association rules (to see data from associated data object, aka data references)
  4. Refactor fields from text to dates, integers, picklists etc. so Constellation UI knows how best to render these
  5. Production ruleset and access groups with access to them (to create insight rules)
  6. Correct privileges for access groups (if they were created in say 8.7 then the user may not have access to the right privileges or classes to create insights)

So please ensure this is accounted for in any steps to get this live. It’s well worth the effort but just want to be clear turning it on is not the only need.

Some insights into Insights (and Explore Data) may help.