Activities in Pega Platform automate processing. Activities are scripted in Dev Studio and consist of a series of stages that must be completed in the order specified. When more appropriate rule types are unavailable, usually due to more sophisticated computations or procedures, or when a rule requires an activity to run, activity rules automate the system. Declare On change, for example, necessitates the USAGE of an activity to start a process or PAUSE WORK when the value of a particular property changes. Control returns to the rule that called the action after the activity is completed.

For example, an insurance firm is obligated to upload insurance claims to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. To minimize the impact on users, automated uploads take place during off-peak hours. An activity can be configured in Pega Platform to allow the system to automate claim uploads without the need for user participation.

Following are some of the best practices that one should keep in mind while using activities in Pega :

• Keep activities to a minimum. Limit your actions to no more than 25 STEPS, and make sure that each one is FOCUSED on achieving a single goal.
• Use alternate rule types whenever possible, such as a data transform to set a property value.
• Hand-coded Java should be kept to a minimum. When standard or custom rule types, library functions, or activity methods are available, skip the Java stages in activities.