Critical Error Handling in Pega: A Junior Developer’s Crisis

Raj (Project Manager): (Entering the room, stressed) "Team, we’ve got a major problem. The application keeps crashing, and we’re losing critical transactions. Amit, I need answers—now!"

Amit (Junior Developer): (Frustrated, sweating) "I—I’ve been trying to trace the problem, Raj. Every time a user hits a certain step in the activity, the error is thrown, but the error isn’t being handled properly. The system crashes, and some of the data is getting corrupted. I thought I had it under control, but I just can’t pinpoint the exact cause!"

Priya (Senior Developer): (Entering calmly) "Amit, show me what you’ve been working on. Crashes like this are usually caused by an unhandled exception. Let's get to the root of it."

Amit (Junior Developer): (Brings up the Pega Tracer) "I’ve traced the flow. It’s happening when the system calls an external service. But I added error handling in the flow—why is this still happening?"

Priya (Senior Developer): (Looking at the Tracer output) "I see where the issue is. Your error handling in the flow is good, but the problem is inside the activity that’s calling the service. You’ve used a standard Connect-REST call without proper exception handling for the service failure. When the service fails, the error propagates and crashes the entire flow."

Amit (Junior Developer): (Looking panicked) "I thought the error handling in the flow would catch it!"

Priya (Senior Developer): (Nods) "It should, but there’s a gap. If the activity doesn’t handle the exception thrown by the connector, the flow error handling won’t get a chance to manage it. We need to handle the exception in the activity first and then pass any meaningful errors to the flow. Let's fix it."

Amit (Junior Developer): (Leaning in) "Okay, so how do I handle the exception in the activity?"

Priya (Senior Developer): (Opens the activity rule) "Here’s what you do. Add a Step Status check after your Connect-REST method. If the StepStatusFail condition is true, it means the service call failed. Instead of letting the error pass through, catch it here. Then, use the Property-Set method to log a custom error message. Finally, set the appropriate error properties, so that the flow can detect this and handle it gracefully."

Amit (Junior Developer): (Nods, following along) "So, I need to catch the error and give the flow enough information to act on it, rather than letting it crash."

Priya (Senior Developer): (Confidently) "Exactly. You can also use Transition Conditions to manage different types of errors. Maybe the external service is down, or maybe there’s a data issue. Customize your error handling based on what’s going wrong. Don’t just have one blanket error response."

Raj (Project Manager): (Anxiously) "How soon can we get this fix in place? The client’s losing transactions, and they’re already breathing down our necks."

Priya (Senior Developer): (With resolve) "Raj, we’re on it. Amit and I will fix the error handling at both levels—the activity and the flow. Once we have this, the system will handle errors gracefully, and no more data will be corrupted."

Amit (Junior Developer): (Determined) "I’ll implement the fix right away. Priya, I’ll handle the activity’s error checking. You guide me if I get stuck."

Priya (Senior Developer): (Smiling) "You’ve got this, Amit. Just focus on proper handling. Make sure you test different failure scenarios once you’re done."

Solution:

Amit quickly implements the fix by doing the following:

• Step 1: In the activity, after calling Connect-REST, he adds a StepStatusFail condition.
• Step 2: He logs custom error messages using the Property-Set method, which helps track the issue in logs and notify the flow.
• Step 3: He uses Transition Conditions to route different types of failures—network issues, service failures, or data problems—so that the flow can handle each case differently.

With Priya's help, Amit tests the changes. This time, instead of the system crashing, the error is caught in the activity, and the flow gracefully handles it by showing a custom error message to the user and rolling back the transaction.

Raj (Project Manager): (Sighing in relief) "Good work, team. The client will be happy, and we avoided a disaster. Amit, you handled this well."

Amit (Junior Developer): (Smiling) "Thanks, Raj. And thanks, Priya. I learned a lot from this."

Priya (Senior Developer): (Encouraging) "Keep this lesson in mind, Amit. Proper error handling is key to making systems robust. You’re on the right track."

The crisis is averted, and the system is stabilized. Amit has grown from the experience, ready for the next challenge.

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