PEGAPCSSA87V1 Certified Pega Senior System Architect (pcssa) 87v1 Practice Questions
Prepare for PEGAPCSSA87V1 with more than an answer.
- Exam fee
- $200 USD
- Level
- Professional
- Valid for
- Lifetime (no expiration)
Domains covered on the exam 9
- Application Development28%
- Data and Integration19%
- Security16%
- Case Management12%
- Performance7%
- User Experience5%
- Reporting5%
- Mobility5%
- DevOps and Deployment8%
- 1
True or False: A ruleset version created by the 'Skim' process contains only the highest version of each rule instance from the source rulesets.
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Correct answer: A
This is the definition of a major skim. The process iterates through rules in the source ruleset versions and copies only the highest version of each rule into the new, higher ruleset version. This is a common practice to consolidate rules and prepare for a new major release, effectively removing older, superseded rule versions.
- 2
A Pega application needs to expose case creation functionality to an external system via a REST service. The service must be secured, and only registered client applications should be able to call it. The external system will authenticate using a client ID and client secret. Which Pega rules and configurations are necessary to implement this? (Select TWO)
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Correct answer: A, C
The Service-REST rule is fundamental for exposing application functionality as a RESTful service. It defines the resource path, methods (POST, GET), and maps incoming data to Pega properties and activities.
To secure the service using client credentials, an OAuth 2.0 Client Registration must be created. This rule holds the client ID, client secret, and defines the access token lifetime and associated access group for the client application.
- 3
Which statement accurately describes a key difference between the available delivery options for Pega mobile applications?
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Correct answer: C
This is the fundamental difference. Pega Mobile Client is a pre-built, standalone container app that you can brand and configure. The Pega Mobile SDK, however, is a library that you incorporate into your own custom-built native mobile application, allowing you to seamlessly integrate Pega views and processes within your existing app's structure.
- 4
A business process requires that a new customer's credit score be checked before their application is routed for approval. A flow action is used to capture the customer's details. What is the best practice for implementing the credit score check?
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Correct answer: B
Post-processing is the correct place for this action. Pre-processing runs before the user sees the screen, so the necessary customer details would not yet be available. Post-processing runs after the user submits the form, ensuring all required data has been captured. A data transform in the post-processing step can then invoke a data page to call the credit score service before the case moves to the next step.
- 5
Case Study: InsureCo Claims Processing Optimization
Company Background: InsureCo is a property insurance company that uses a Pega application for processing claims. The application handles thousands of claims per day and has been in production for three years. It is built on a framework that is shared with other lines of business.
Current Situation: The operations team has reported a significant slowdown in the application, particularly when supervisors access their work queues and when reports on claim history are run. The database administrators have noted high CPU usage on the database server during business hours. A preliminary investigation using Pega Diagnostic Center (PDC) reveals a large number of PEGA0001 (HTTP Interaction Time) and PEGA0005 (Database Query Time) alerts.
Technical Details: The main claims work table (
pc_InsureCo_Work_Claim) contains over 10 million rows. Most reports join this table with the operator table (pr_operators) and a custom history table (history_InsureCo_Work_Claim). The supervisor's work queue logic uses a complex GetNextWork algorithm that checks multiple properties on the case.Requirement: As the senior system architect, you must propose a multi-faceted solution to address the performance issues immediately and establish a long-term strategy for application health. Which of the following proposals is the most comprehensive and effective?
graph TD subgraph Pega Application A[User Interaction] --> B{Process Claim} B --> C[GetNextWork] B --> D[Run Report] end subgraph Database C --> E(pc_InsureCo_Work_Claim) D --> E D --> F(pr_operators) D --> G(history_InsureCo_Work_Claim) end E -- High Volume --> H((DB CPU)) H -- High Usage --> I([Performance Degradation])Show answer details
Correct answer: C
This is a comprehensive solution. Archiving old cases directly reduces the size of the primary work table, speeding up queries and GetNextWork. Using a dedicated reporting database offloads the intensive reporting queries from the transactional database, resolving resource contention. Finally, optimizing the specific properties used in work queue logic by exposing and indexing them directly addresses the supervisor's performance issue.
- 6
A global logistics firm is implementing a Pega application to manage international shipments. The application must apply different tax calculation logic based on the destination country and the shipment's value category ('Low', 'Medium', 'High'). A senior system architect has decided to use circumstancing. Which approach provides the most maintainable and scalable solution?
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Correct answer: B
Using a circumstance template for the country allows for easy addition of new countries without creating new rule definitions. The value category, being a fixed set, is well-suited for a standard circumstance definition. This combination is highly maintainable and scalable, especially as the number of countries grows.
- 7
A healthcare provider's Pega application processes patient admission cases. During peak hours, the application experiences performance degradation when updating a central 'HospitalBedAvailability' data page, which is sourced from an external REST service. The data page is configured with a 'Reload once per interaction' refresh strategy. What is the most likely cause of the performance issue?
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Correct answer: C
The 'Reload once per interaction' strategy forces the data page to refetch data from the source for every server interaction (e.g., screen refresh, submit). During peak hours with many users, this leads to a high volume of redundant API calls, overwhelming the service and causing performance degradation. A time-based refresh strategy (e.g., every 5 minutes) at the Node scope would be more appropriate for this kind of shared, non-transactional data.
- 8
A financial institution uses Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) to restrict access to loan cases. A policy is defined to allow access only if the loan amount is less than the manager's approval limit. A manager with a limit of $500,000 reports being unable to access a loan case for $450,000. The Tracer shows the ABAC policy condition is evaluating to false. Which of the following are potential root causes for this issue? (Select TWO)
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Correct answer: B, D
Type mismatch is a common issue in policy conditions. If one value is stored as text and the other as a number, a direct comparison will likely fail or produce unexpected results.
ABAC policies often run in different contexts. If the policy condition relies on properties from the work object (like loan amount), it needs access to the correct page, typically 'pyWorkPage'. If this page is not available or populated, the condition will fail.
- 9
During a peer review, a senior architect observes a process for generating nightly reports that uses a Job Scheduler to call an activity. This activity iterates through 500,000 case records, performs complex calculations, and writes to a CSV file. The architect flags this design as suboptimal for performance and scalability. What should be recommended as a more robust alternative?
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Correct answer: B
This design pattern leverages the strengths of both rules. The Job Scheduler is ideal for initiating a process at a specific time. It can then query for the cases and queue them for a Queue Processor. The Queue Processor provides better scalability, error handling, and traceability for processing large volumes of individual items across multiple nodes, avoiding a single long-running, monolithic process.
- 10
True or False: When designing a Pega Mobile application for field technicians who frequently work in areas with no internet connectivity, the primary data synchronization strategy should rely on push notifications to update the device.
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Correct answer: B
Push notifications require an active internet connection to be received by the device. For an application designed for offline use, the primary synchronization strategy must be based on a 'pull' mechanism, where the application actively syncs data when it regains connectivity. An offline-enabled data synchronization approach configured in the case type is the correct method.
