Low-Code Application Development with Appian E-Book

Stefan Helzle

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 318

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

This book is an exhaustive overview of how the Appian Low-Code BPM Suite enables tech-savvy professionals to rapidly automate business processes across their organization, integrating people, software bots, and data. This is crucial as 80% of all software development is expected to be carried out in low code by 2024.
This practical guide helps you master business application development with Appian as a beginner low-code developer. You'll learn to automate business processes using Appian low-code, records, processes, and expressions quickly and on an enterprise scale. In a fictional development project, guided by step-by-step explanations of the concepts and practical examples, this book will empower you to transform complex business processes into software.
At first, you’ll learn the power of no-code with Appian Quick Apps to solve some of your most crucial business challenges. You’ll then get to grips with the building blocks of an Appian, starting with no-code and advancing to low-code, eventually transforming complex business requirements into a working enterprise-ready application.
By the end of this book, you'll be able to deploy Appian Quick Apps in minutes and successfully transform a complex business process into low-code process models, data, and UIs to deploy full-featured, enterprise-ready, process-driven, mobile-enabled apps.

Leseprobe

Low-Code Application Development with Appian

The practitioner's guide to high-speed business automation at enterprise scale using Appian

Stefan Helzle

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Low-Code Application Development with Appian

Copyright © 2022 Packt Publishing

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To all the colleagues and customers from whom I have learned so much over the years on the winding path I now call my career.

– Stefan Helzle

Contributors

About the author

Stefan Helzle is a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers WPG GmbH, Germany. He has dedicated his career to low-code enterprise software development and is an Appian Certified Solution Architect and Appian Certified Lead Developer with expertise in finance, insurance, healthcare, IT services, and pharmaceuticals. He has been working since 2009 as a business analyst, Appian Senior Developer, and Consultant Appian Solution Architect. Since 2015, Stefan has built a team of over 30 Appian designers, conducted foundation training for almost 100 colleagues and clients, mentored and coached all colleagues, and supported them in more than 30 projects. He has worked on Appian projects as diverse as re-insurance claims management and underwriting, a management suite for podiatry therapists, ITIL-based IT service management, procurement (requests, approvals, tendering, supplier management), end-to-end car financing and leasing processes, and a document intake OCR and data extraction platform.

I want to thank the people who have been close to me and supported me, especially my wife, Andreja, my son, Samuel, and my daughters, Lisa and Dana.

About the reviewer

Marcel Paradies is an Appian practioner with more than five years of experience in IT. He has worked in both the pharmaceutical and the insurance industries and is currently overseeing the Appian platform at a multinational corporation, where he is responsible for architecture and governance.

Andres Felipe Cortes Novoa is a husband and a systems analyst at Bison transport in Canada. He is a former business analyst and Appian developer at Citibank. He was a risk technology analyst at Scotiabank as well as a technology consultant at Tata Consultancy Services in Colombia. He has worked for more than 10 years in the IT field providing stakeholders with accurate solutions to their business. In 2017 he completed a post-graduate certificate in information security, which has enabled him to explore different areas in the IT field, and his education has provided many opportunities for him to give back to different companies.

Table of Contents

Preface

Section 1: No-Code with Appian Quick Apps

Chapter 1: Creating an Appian Quick App

Login and first contact with Appian

Naming your Quick App

Defining case data

Setting permissions and generating an app

Testing your app

Summary

Further reading

Chapter 2: Features and Limitations of Appian Quick Apps

Managing record items in Quick Apps

Managing tasks in Quick Apps

Managing documents in Quick Apps

Reporting in Quick Apps

Modifying a Quick App

Summary

Chapter 3: Building Blocks of Appian Quick Apps

The basic workings of the Appian Designer environment

Introduction to Appian Records

Source & Default Filters

Tempo

List

User filters

Views

Related Actions

Performance

Checking the Appian process models

Learning about Appian interfaces

Understanding Appian expression rules

Object dependencies in Appian

Summary

Chapter 4: The Use Cases for Appian Quick Apps

Managing conference attendees

Advanced task management

The simple software development process

Requirements management

Product backlog

Summary

Section 2: A Software Project with Appian

The meaning of software development

Software development using Appian

Starting a software project using Appian

Chapter 5: Understanding the Business Context

The people at Tarence Limited

Christine – Business Owner

Paul – Product Owner

Melanie – Key Stakeholder

Igor – IT Architect

Beth – Key User

You

Discovering the IT landscape

Business architecture

Information architecture

Technology architecture

Motivation for the project

Cost reduction

Scaling up

Team upskill

Implementing low-code Business Process Management (BPM)

The potential of Appian

The expectations of companies

Goals versus potential versus change

Summary

Chapter 6: Understanding Business Data in Appian Projects

Learning objectives

Main business data entities

Adding relations

One-to-one

One-to-many

Many-to-many

Adding details

UID

External IDs

Name

Description

Created

Modified

Status

Adding application data

Process data

Audit trail

Monitoring

Reporting

Finding the right level

Summary

Chapter 7: Understanding Business Processes in Appian Projects

Learning objectives

Useful methodologies

Business-Process-Modeling-Notation

Five-Whys

Ishikawa diagram

SIPOC

As-is process

Software-driven processes

Task-driven processes

Case management

Basic principles

Theses

To-be process

Summary

Chapter 8: Understanding UX Discovery and the UI in Appian Projects

Understanding UX discovery

User experience

User interface

Supporting people doing their tasks

Scope

Information

Input

Orientation

Understanding management needs

A wireframing introduction and tools

Understanding wireframes

The benefits of wireframes

Designing screens in an Appian context

Record

Task

Report

Summary

Section 3: Implementing Software

Chapter 9: Modeling Business Data with Appian Records

Creating the application object

Custom data types

Creating the CDT

Creating more fields

Creating more CDTs

Data stores

Creating the data store

Managing the database

Records

Creating records

Relationships

Adding many-to-many relations

Best practices

Summary

Chapter 10: Modeling Business Processes in Appian

A first simple process

Creating the model

Adding a process variable

Adding the start form

Testing the model

Persisting data

Adding the process to the record

Assigning the process

Cancel behavior

Adding related actions and record actions

Updating a record

Deleting a record

Completing the process

Modifying the Create Invoice interface

Setting up the case

Assigning the first task

Best practices

Process modeling habits

Process data flow

Summary

Chapter 11: Creating User Interfaces in Appian

Technical requirements

Creating interfaces from scratch

Record views

Process start forms

User Input Task

Sites

Adding validation logic

Date validation

Range check

Creating dynamic interfaces

Creating reusable interface components

This happens next

Formatted amount field

Best practices

User experience

Expression mode versus design mode

Performance view

Variable flow

Local variables

Rule inputs

Reusable components

Debugging

Summary

Chapter 12: Task Management with Appian

Technical requirements

Assigning tasks

Reassignment behavior

Re-assignment privileges

Process model security and reassignment

Dynamic task assignment

Assigning tasks using process variables

Assigning tasks using decision tables

Escalations and exceptions

Escalations

Exceptions

Process reports

Creating a process report

Display a process report

Completing the process

An interface for Clarify Invalid Invoice

Modify initial verification

The task and interface for Assign Invoice

Logic to finalize the invoice and the case

Best practices

Using groups

Task due date

Task exceptions

Summary

Chapter 13: Reporting and Monitoring with Appian

Data sources and preparation

Monitoring process activity

Reporting

Periodic data measurement

Storing measurements

Preparing the case record

Measuring data

Completing the measuring process model

Aggregating data

Cases over time

Current case status

Visualizing data

Status over timeline chart

Case status donut chart

Case grid

Billboard cards

Adding interaction

Best practices

Stakeholder groups

Historic reports

Make reports interactive

Composing reports

Summary

Section 4: The Code in Appian Low-Code

Chapter 14: Expressing Logic with Appian

Decisions – simple logic in a visual designer

Input configuration

Output configuration

Decisions summary

Constants – managing literals and application configuration

String literals

Groups

Data store entities

Documents

Process models

Constants summary

Expressions – constant logic expressed in text

Programming paradigms

Inputs, locals, and outputs

Data types

Dictionaries and maps

Working with lists

Best practices

Summary

Chapter 15: Using Web Services with Appian Integrations

Technical requirements

HTTPS, authentication, and JSON

HTTPS

HTTP request

HTTP response

Security

JSON

OpenAPI basics

servers

paths

components

OpenAPI summary

Connected systems and integrations

Creating a web service

Integrating the web service

Using integrations

Best practices

Validate incoming data

Wrapping integrations

Security

Summary

Chapter 16: Useful Implementation Patterns in Appian

Technical requirements

Solution patterns

Process versus case management

Recording audit trails

Record security

CDT first versus database first

Waiting for external triggers

Process patterns

Creating process chains

Using subprocesses

Multiple Node Instances

Building loops in processes

Interface patterns

Building wizards

Tabbed interfaces

Designing for reusability

Expression rule patterns

Managing collections of constants

Universal null check

Nested indexing

Validating IBANs

Flexible looping predicate

Additional Appian modules

IDP

RPA

Process mining

Appian Portals

Summary

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

The analysts at Venture Beat, Gartner, and others expect that by 2024, 80% of enterprise software development will be low-code. There are many flavors of low-code available on the market. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tries to automate manual interaction with software and systems missing technical interfaces. Other systems allow the creation of workflows on documents.

Appian enables us to go a huge step further. Using Appian, we implement a whole end-to-end business process, not just a small step in it. We use technologies such as process automation, RPA, and Artificial Intelligence to transfer the business process into software. We relieve people from tedious and repetitive manual work and empower them to concentrate on their business challenges and decision-making.

This book enables you to be part of this movement.

This book is an exhaustive overview of how the Appian Low-Code BPM Suite enables tech-savvy professionals to rapidly automate business processes across their organization, integrating people, software bots, and data. This practical guide helps you master business application development with Appian as a beginner low-code developer. At first, you’ll learn the power of no-code with Appian Quick Apps to solve some of your most crucial business challenges. You’ll then get to grips with the building blocks of an Appian, starting with no-code and advancing to low-code, eventually transforming complex business requirements into a working enterprise-ready application.

By the end of this book, you'll be able to deploy Appian Quick Apps in minutes and successfully transform a complex business process into low-code process models, data, and UIs to deploy full-featured, enterprise-ready, process-driven, mobile-enabled apps.

Who this book is for

This book is for software developers and tech-savvy business users. Low-Code Application Development with Appian gives software developers a new tool with which to increase efficiency by a huge margin, and it speeds up the delivery of new features to the ever-demanding business departments. Business users with a maker's attitude finally have the chance to get closer to developing their own business applications, as low-code drastically reduces the complexity of traditional software development.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Create an Appian Quick App, covers building a simple application using no code.

Chapter 2, Features and Limitations of Appian Quick Apps, contains a detailed view of Quick Apps features.

Chapter 3, Building Blocks of Appian Quick Apps, explains how Quick Apps work.

Chapter 4, The Use Cases for Appian Quick Apps, discusses how to make the most out of Quick Apps.

Chapter 5, Understanding the Business Context, explains the business background for the book's project.

Chapter 6, Understanding Business Data in Appian Projects, contains methodologies and patterns in data modeling.

Chapter 7, Understanding Business Processes in Appian Projects, explains how to analyze a business process and prepare it for automation.

Chapter 8, Understanding UX Discovery and UI in Appian Projects, shows you how to create an application experience users deserve.

Chapter 9, Modeling Business Data with Appian Records, covers converting the abstract data model into a real model.

Chapter 10, Modeling Business Processes in Appian, discusses creating automated workflows from process diagrams.

Chapter 11, Creating User Interfaces in Appian, explains how to turn wireframes into actionable forms.

Chapter 12, Task Management with Appian, covers task assignment and automated management.

Chapter 13, Reporting and Monitoring with Appian, explains designing visual dashboards using real-time data.

Chapter 14, Expressing Logic with Appian, dives deep into Appian business logic.

Chapter 15, Using Web Services with Appian Integrations, shows you how to integrate systems easily using low-code.

Chapter 16, Useful Implementation Patterns in Appian, explains how to speed up development and solve common challenges.

To get the most out of this book

You will need access to an Appian environment version 21.3 or higher. This can be your corporate development sandbox or the Appian Community Edition you can request from your Appian Community account.

While Appian is constantly evolving the platform in a quarterly release cycle, the code and concepts in this book will keep working in future versions.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book's GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Low-Code-Application-Development-with-Appian. If there's an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781800205628_ColorImages.pdf

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Remove some columns, but keep at least the following:IDCreated AtOwnerStatusDue AtPriority

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: "In Case Record, click NEW CUSTOM RECORD FIELD.

Select Extract Partial Dates and click NEXT.

Select createdAt as the field and Date for Unit of Time, and click NEXT."

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

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Section 1: No-Code with Appian Quick Apps

The classic program in software development is "Hello World". Its purpose is to get in touch with the tools required to write and run a program. You will need to download and install software packages, restart your computer, and go through a complex process. In the end, you will have written a program that prints "Hello World" in a console window.

Creating an Appian Quick App is a great way of getting in touch with the Appian environment. No download or installation is required. Open your browser, log in, and get familiar with the different parts of the environment. You'll get your first application up and running in no time.

You will learn how to build an application without any coding, in less than 30 minutes, and it will add real business value and not just print "Hello World" to the screen.

This section contains the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Create an Appian Quick AppChapter 2, Features and Limitations of Appian Quick AppsChapter 3, Building Blocks of Appian Quick AppsChapter 4, The Use Cases for Appian Quick Apps

Chapter 1: Creating an Appian Quick App

In this chapter, you will have your first contact with the Appian platform and create your first app. Creating an app will give you an impression of how the Appian user interface (UI) looks. You will define the data fields of a case as the foundation of that app. Appian will then automatically generate a framework of ready-made functionality around case management, task assignment, document management, and reporting.

The use case for this Quick App is the management of improvement requests by the quality assurance (QA) department. Typically, you will receive improvement requests by email, a phone call, or in a nice chat at the coffee machine. You enter and manage them in the Quick App to improve collaboration and transparency in your team.

We'll be covering the following topics in this chapter:

Login and first contact with AppianNaming your Quick AppDefining case dataSetting permissions and generating an appTesting your app

Getting your own Appian Community Edition is simple. Create an account at community.appian.com, go to your profile page, and request and manage your own Appian environment.

Figure 1.1 – Appian Community profile

Login and first contact with Appian

To get started, you will need to log in to your Appian environment (the Community Edition or a corporate one). If your company enabled single sign-on (SSO), you do not need to enter a username and password and you can skip step 3. The following steps will guide you to the Quick Apps Designer:

Enter the web address of your Appian environment. If you use the Community Edition, you will need to accept the license agreement.Once you are done with that, you will get the login screen. There, you will need to enter your credentials and click Sign In.Appian Community Edition greets you with a nice screen with information on how to learn more about the Appian platform, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.2 – Appian Community Edition after login

From the waffle menu at the top right of the screen, select Quick Apps Designer, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.3 – The Appian waffle menu and its items

In case you do not see the Quick Apps Designer item in the waffle menu, please follow the next five simple steps:

Tip

This will only work if you are an administrator user in your environment. So, contact your system administrator if you are working in a corporate environment and do not see that menu item.

Open the Appian Administration Console by clicking the Admin Console item in the waffle menu, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.4 – Opening Admin Console

Navigate to the Permissions tab, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.5 – The Appian Administration Console

Click the Add Users to the Quick App Creators role link, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.6 – Administration Console permissions

Click ADD MEMBERS in the membership list of the Quick App Creators group, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.7 – Membership list

Enter Designers and click ADD, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.8 – The group to be added

Appian will reload the screen to reflect that change. Now, all users who have access to the Appian design environments also have access to the Quick Apps Designer, as reflected in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.9 – Group added

You have now modified the permissions in the Appian environment and made the Designers group a member of Quick App Creators. As you are a member of Designers, you now have permission to access the Quick Apps Designer as well. If you want to allow everybody to create Quick Apps, add the All Users group instead. You might need to reload the browser window or log out and log in for the permission changes to take effect.

Click the NEW QUICK APP button in the top left of the screen, as illustrated in the following screenshot, to initiate a simple four-step wizard:

Figure 1.10 – The Quick Apps Designer

Naming your Quick App

To get started, think about a proper name and description for your new Quick App. Then, give the entries a name that implies what to enter. This helps your team to understand what the new app is about. Next, proceed as follows:

Appian asks for some basic information, as shown in the following screenshot, which you enter according to the use case idea of improvement management:

Figure 1.11 – Quick App and entry naming

Click the CONTINUE button shown in the following screenshot to get to the next step:

Figure 1.12 – Filled-out form for improvement management use case

Defining case data

The default fields are a good starting point. Leave them as they are. I will explain how to add the following fields to enable proper data management:

Description: A paragraph to describe the improvementDepartment Manager: The manager responsible for the implementationDepartment: The name of the department in which the improvement would need to be implemented

The default fields are shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.13 – Predefined default fields

For each field, you define the name, a data type, and whether it is required or not. Some fields have additional options, which we will have a look at later.

Let's follow the next series of screenshots to add these three fields, as follows:

Click the New Field button, as indicated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.14 – Adding a new field

Enter and select Paragraph for the data type, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.15 – Paragraph type

Add another field and enter Department Manager for the label and select User as the type, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.16 – User type

Name the last field Department and give it the type of Text.After adding the three fields, let's look at how the form and the dashboard will look. Click the PREVIEW FORM button to do so, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.17 – All fields added

Appian will display a preview of the form, and you can already enter data to see whether it fits your requirements, as indicated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.18 – Form preview

Click the DASHBOARD button highlighted in Figure 1.17 to switch to a preview of how the screen for each improvement will look. This is the result:

Figure 1.19 – The dashboard preview

Click the CLOSE button to close the review screen, followed by CONTINUE to get to the next step.

Setting permissions and generating an app

In the Access step, add users to the Owners field to define who is allowed to modify the app—for example, to add another field. By adding users to the Collaborators field, you enable them to participate in using the app.

Select an icon you'd like to represent the app's use case, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.20 – Defining permissions and icon

Click the CREATE QUICK APP button to make Appian generate the final app. This takes a bit of time, so let's use that to recap what you did to create a Quick App, as follows:

Define an app and record name.Define a name and type for the record's fields.Define who can work with the app and who can modify it later on.Wait a bit…Click the following link to open the Quick App:

Figure 1.21 – Quick App is created

The generated Quick App contains the following three tabs:

IMPROVEMENTSTRENDSMY TASKS

Check all the tabs. Since you have not entered any data yet, there is not much to see, as the following screenshot shows:

Figure 1.22 – The record list screen

Testing your app

Testing is an important step in any software development, even in low-code with Appian and in a no-code approach when creating a Quick App. Later in this book, we will have a closer look at how testing and QA in Appian works. For now, let's create some new improvements to make sure the app works as designed. Proceed as follows:

Click the + NEW IMPROVEMENT button, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.23 – Empty list, ready for adding items

You now see a screen to add a new improvement. This screen looks very similar to the one you saw just minutes ago in the preview function of the Quick Apps Designer, as we can see here:

Figure 1.24 – Add New Improvement screen

Enter some data to create a new improvement record item. An example of what to add is provided in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.25 – New improvement with some data entered

After clicking the SUBMIT IMPROVEMENT button, you should see a list showing your just created item, as depicted in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.26 – The record list showing one item

Click the new item to open it. You will see the data you entered a moment ago in the format as defined in the Quick Apps Designer, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.27 – The improvement record dashboard

This app is instantly available on your mobile device. Download the Appian app from your mobile app store, start it and follow these four simple steps:

Set up a new account.Add a new account.Enter the server name of your Appian environment.Enter your credentials.

The preceding steps are illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.28 – Account setup steps

Voilà—your first mobile app! Take a look:

Figure 1.29 – List of improvements on mobile

Tap that list item to open the improvement. The following information is shown in the next figure:

Figure 1.30 – Improvement dashboard on mobile

Hence, with this we are done with testing our very first application.

Summary

There you go—congratulations! This is your first app in Appian: your personal Hello World. You learned how to open the Quick Apps Designer, assign a name, define the data and collaborators, and finally have Appian generate a Quick App. Play with your new app and collaborate with the colleagues you added. If you find out that there is a field missing, go back to the Quick Apps Designer and add it. And by adding more users as collaborators, you have your whole team on board in no time.

This is just the first chapter in this book, and there is so much more to discover in Appian. In the next chapter, you will learn more about how to get the most out of your new Quick App.

Further reading

Here are some further sources of information for you to take a look at:

https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Getting_Started_with_Quick_Apps.htmlhttps://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Quick_Apps_Designer.html

Chapter 2: Features and Limitations of Appian Quick Apps

The new Quick App has a fair number of built-in functionalities that you already know about. From managing record items to tasks and document upload, to reporting, Quick Apps are small and simple applications that can be an enormous aid in daily work. But they have their limitations. You will now learn what a Quick App can do.

There are also a few tweaks to improve functionality and increase the scope of viable use cases, which we will learn about in this chapter.

We'll be covering the following topics in this chapter:

Managing record items in Quick AppsManaging tasks in Quick AppsManaging documents in Quick AppsReporting in Quick AppsModifying a Quick App

Managing record items in Quick Apps

Create, read, update, and delete are the basic methods of managing record items in a Quick App. Each record represents an improvement that you can look up. When you start working on an improvement, you set the status to In Progress by clicking the UPDATE RECORD button. After selecting the new status, make sure to click the Update this Improvement button to save your changes.

Let's go! Proceed as follows:

Click the UPDATE RECORD button to modify the selected item, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.1 – Record item summary and UPDATE RECORD button

Select the In Progress value as the new status and click the UPDATE IMPROVEMENT button to save your changes, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.2 – Modifying the status

After your team has implemented that improvement, set the status to Complete to indicate the successful implementation.

But there's more! The Priority field can be used to aid in planning resources for future improvement activities, and the Department field helps to distribute your resources evenly to everybody.

When checking the History tab, you will see that the Quick App tracks all changes made to the record, including details such as who did the modification, when, and which fields have changed. This is a massive benefit compared to the Excel tables you might be used to.

A downside is that all users who have access to the application can create new items and update existing ones. There is no way to restrict access to individual items.

Managing tasks in Quick Apps

Collaborating with colleagues often means delegating a specific task. Task management is part of each Quick App.

Let's give it a try, as follows:

Click the SEND TASK button, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.3 – Record item summary and SEND TASK button

Fill out the form and click SEND TASK. Enter a deadline to indicate when you expect the task to be completed, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.4 – The Send Task screen

This step only applies if you selected a user you did not add to the collaborators group before. The selected user is not a member of the Quick Apps collaborators group and does not have access to the application. A warning message makes you aware of what it means to add that user to the application. Click YES to add that user to the application, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.5 – New user warning dialog

Done. The task is assigned, as indicated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.6 – List of tasks on the item summary

The user now gets an email notification including a link to the task, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.7 – Task assignment email notification

They can also log in to Appian, open the improvement management application in the waffle menu and find their task in the MY TASKS tab. Besides managing your tasks, you can also send new tasks.

Let's see how this works, as follows:

On the MY TASKS tab, click the task description to open it, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.8 – The MY TASKS tab

Enter some text in the Comments field and click TASK COMPLETED to complete the task, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.9 – Screen showing the opened task

When completing the task, the person who assigned the task will get a notification. There is no need to email or call others to find out whether they completed a task or not, and entered data is written to the activity history, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.10 – Task details in Activity History view

Note

Remember that a user who gets assigned to a task is then a full member of the application's user group and is permitted to create or update any record. Keep that in mind when managing sensitive data.

Another drawback is that there is no task escalation configured. If the assigned colleague does not complete the task in time, no notifications will be sent. You need to check the list of open tasks on the item summary to see the status.

Managing documents in Quick Apps

While working on our improvement example, Plants in offices, you might get some brochures or offers from suppliers. Add them to the record, and you never need to search for documents anymore. That also includes colleagues who take over while you are on sick leave.

Click UPDATE RECORD, then click Attach New File to upload another document, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.11 – Update Improvement screen when adding a document

A small downside is that you cannot modify documents directly and there are no document versions, so you need to download each file you want to modify and open it in the appropriate application. Before uploading it back to Appian, you might want to change the name to reflect the new version.

Reporting in Quick Apps

Each Quick App includes a basic reporting dashboard to support important decision-making, called TRENDS. It provides basic indications on team performance, demand estimation, and planning. You can see an overview of the TRENDS dashboard here:

Figure 2.12 – TRENDS reporting dashboard

The two pie charts—Improvements by Status and Improvements by Priority—as well as the Top Improvement Creators chart are interactive. Click them to apply filters to the data displayed in the grid below. A combination of High priority and Requested status gives you a good overview of which improvement to start next.

The Recent Improvements By Month line chart shows an overview of what has been going on recently and helps to plan the team size for the expected upcoming workload.

Do you want to reward colleagues by pointing out improvements? The Top Improvement Creators chart should help you to do this.

When searching for a specific record, TRENDS can be a better option than the records list in the IMPROVEMENTS tab as it shows all fields you added. Combine searching and filtering to get a better overview.

That's pretty much what you can do with TRENDS. It is not highly sophisticated but gives some neat details and is a real benefit in your daily work.

Modifying a Quick App

An important feature of a Quick App is that you can modify it at any time. You may rename the application, add or remove team members, and even modify the fields captured for each record. To achieve this, proceed as follows:

Navigate to the Quick Apps Designer and open your application by clicking its name, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.13 – Quick Apps Designer

For now, please leave the name as it is and proceed to the Form step. You already know how to add fields, but I want you to focus on the details you can configure for each field. Click the pencil icon for the Title item, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.14 – Form step with pencil icon and list selections

Add one or more of these configurations to support your users in entering the right values, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.15 – Input field options

Let's see what these configuration texts are about, as follows:Instructions Text: This is displayed below the input field and used when that text is so important that it needs to be displayed all the time.Placeholder Text: This is shown inside the field as long as the user did not enter any value. Use for hints in formatting—for example, phone number.Help Tooltip Text: This adds a question mark icon to the field name. The user can click that icon to see the text. Used to explain details or give examples.Click UPDATE FIELD to close that dialog.Now, click the list of selections for the Status field. With this field, the user selects one or more items from a list and has the option to modify selectable values, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.16 – Selecting field options

Click Continue, then Update Quick App to store the modifications.

Please don't hesitate to modify these values at any time. The Instructions Text and Help Tooltip Text fields have the same behavior as previously described.

Note

There is one thing I must point out. If you delete a field in the Form field and regenerate the Quick App, the data already entered is lost. Later, adding a field of the same name will not bring it back.

Summary