Since Infinity '23 an application can run case types authored in a mix of Constellation and traditional UI, and the Constellation adoption strategies playbook covers the ground thoroughly: the overall strategy options, using Constellation in existing applications, and running Constellation inside a traditional UI application. There’s per-direction guidance too, for adding a traditional case type to a Constellation application and reusing a Constellation case type from an existing application.
What the documentation doesn’t really address is component-level reuse and for anyone running a governed enterprise layer with modular reusable components, that’s the question that actually slows the adoption process.
The distinction that matters
Coexistence affirmatively answers the question, "Can these two case types live in one application? "
Reuse asks a different question; Can I build a component once, in a shared layer, and have it serve both a Traditional (UI-Kit) and a Constellation user?
For enterprises that leverage reuse layers and modular components, the later is the more important question. Interestingly it also doesn’t come up in the Constellation FAQ, which tells you something about how often it gets asked versus how often it gets answered.
What carries over, and what doesn’t
Using a reusable flow action sitting in a shared framework or enterprise layer:
Reuses as-is
- The flow action rule itself
- Pre-processing and post-processing activities and data transforms
- Validation
- Data pages backing the fields
- Underlying case and data model
Does not reuse
- The Section
Constellation renders Views rather than Sections, and the move away from sections takes a set of traditional constructs with it, such as action sets, dynamic layouts, and the button patterns most of us have leaned on for years. So the shared component doesn’t need rebuilding. It needs a second presentation rule. Most of the value in the component, the logic, the data plumbing, and the validation survives intact.
Where does the second presentation rule goes??
This is where I am looking to hear feedback from the collective Pega experts on how you have approached this. What worked and what did not.
Option A — both flavors in the shared layer. Add Constellation alongside UI Kit as a built-on for the enterprise or framework application, and let a single flow action carry both a Section and a View. Users inherit whichever they need. Nothing changes for existing applications, and there’s one place to maintain.
Option B — a parallel Constellation framework layer. Stand up a second framework application built on the traditional one, and put Constellation views there. Constellation users build on the new layer; traditional users stay where they are.
Option C — how have you gotten this to work?
