Site Object

This article provides detailed design information about the site design object, its configuration options, and how to design one. To learn more about what a site object is and how it is used, refer to the Sites article.

Properties

The Properties section allows designers to modify the primary site configurations that determine how users experience the site.

Field Description
Name The name is displayed to users in the browser title bar.
Description An optional description that is displayed to designers only.
Web Address Identifier The section of the site's URL that identifies it.
  • It appears in the URL and in log files.
Show site name on navigation bar Option to show the site name on the navigation bar.
Show Tempo link in navigation menu Option to show or hide the Tempo link in the navigation menu.
  • Designers can select to always show it, never show it, or for one or more selected groups.
Show Record News Option to show or hide the news view on records.
  • When enabled, all records displayed in the site will include the news view. In addition, the latest news will be displayed on the summary view when viewing user records.

Pages

The pages section allows designers to add, remove, modify, or re-order the pages that are displayed in a site. Designers can configure up to 5 pages per site.

Each page within a site can be configured with an action, a report (task report or Tempo report), or a record type.

Field Description
Title The page title is displayed to users in the navigation bar.
  • The title is a required parameter.
  • Designers can configure the value as a static string or as an expression.
Web Address Identifier The section of the URL that identifies the page.
  • The web address identifier appears in the URL and in log files for network devices and servers.
  • The value must be unique across pages within the same site.
Width Determines the width of the content area for the page. Default is standard.
Icon The icon displayed to users in the navigation bar.
Page Type Indicates whether the page will contain an action, report (Tempo or task report), or record type.
Page Content The name of the design object for the page content.
  • The list of available objects based on the page type selected.
  • Actions must have a start form to be used in a site page.
  • Related actions based on quick tasks are not supported in site records.

Branding

The branding section allows designers to customize the look and feel of a site. These configurations can be set as static values or dynamic values using expressions for greater flexibility.

Field Description
Logo The logo appears on the top right corner of the site and is automatically resized for use in the site.
  • The logo file should be a JPG, PNG, BMP, JPEG or GIF file with a transparent background and must be less than 100KB.
  • The default logo is the Appian logo.
  • Use the document option to use an image within an Appian Document folder or Knowledge Center
  • Use the web address option to point to a static image hosted on a separate web server.
    • Use this option when your company web assets, such as logos, are hosted on a content delivery network.
  • Use the expression option to dynamically display different logos based on a expression rule.
    • Expressions that resolve to a document will use that document.
    • Expressions that resolve to a integer will use the document that has the integer as the id.
    • Expressions that resolve to a text value will use the text value as the web address.
    • The default logo will be shown if the expression does not resolve to a valid document, integer with corresponding document, or web address.
Favicon The favicon (short for "favorite icon") is the small icon that appears in the browser tab or URL bar.
  • Provide an ICO file with sizes 16x16 and 32x32 that is less than 100KB.
  • The default favicon is the Appian "A" icon.
  • Use the document option to use an icon image within an Appian Document folder or Knowledge Center
  • Use the web address option to point to a static image hosted on a separate web server.
    • Use this option when your company web assets, such as logos, are hosted on a content delivery network.
  • Use the expression option to dynamically display different icon images based on a expression rule.
    • Expressions that resolve to a document will use that document.
    • Expressions that resolve to a integer will use the document that has the integer as the id.
    • Expressions that resolve to a text value will use the text value as the web address.
    • The default favicon will be shown if the expression does not resolve to a valid document, integer with corresponding document, or web address.
Navigation Bar Background Color The background color of the navigation bar of the site in web. The color of the app header, tab bar and status bar in iOS. The app header bar and navigation bar in Android.
  • The default value is #46708c.
  • Use the hex code option to provide a valid 3 or 6 digit hex code or use the color picker by clicking on the color preview bar.
  • Use the expression option to dynamically display different colors based on the expression rule.
    • The default accent color will be displayed if the expression does not resolve to a valid hex code.
Selected Tab Background Color The background color of the selected tab in web and iOS.
  • The default value is #083d5c.
  • Use the hex code option to provide a valid 3 or 6 digit hex code or use the color picker by clicking on the color preview bar.
  • Use the expression option to dynamically display different colors based on the expression rule.
    • The default accent color will be displayed if the expression does not resolve to a valid hex code.
Accent Color Affects the color of many elements in all interfaces, including buttons, links, active field border colors, milestone bars, section titles, etc.
  • Avoid grayscale colors (black, white, and gray) that are similar to colors used for interface elements and avoid green/red colors that are used to indicate positive/negative values.
  • The default value is #1d659c.
  • Use the hex code option to provide a valid 3 or 6 digit hex code or use the color picker by clicking on the color preview bar.
  • Use the expression option to dynamically display different colors based on the expression rule.
    • The default accent color will be displayed if the expression does not resolve to a valid hex code.


Designing Sites

Sites can be created in Appian Designer and further configured in the site designer.

Create a New Site

  1. In Appian Designer, open the application that you want the site to be in.
  2. From the New menu, click Site. This will display the Create Site form.
  3. Enter in a name.
  4. Optionally enter a description and web address identifier.
  5. Select Create to create the site and open the site designer to continue configuring it.

Configure New Site

The site designer allows you to edit a site's properties, configure the contents of the site, and add custom branding for the site.

SiteEndUserBranding.png

Edit Properties

The properties defined during the creation of the site can be updated when configuring the site. In addition, there are some additional properties that should be reviewed and updated as necessary. For further details on what each setting is, refer to the Properties section of this document.

Add Pages

Pages allow the designer to add content to the site. Each site can contain up to 5 pages that can be configured to show an action, a report (task report or Tempo report), or a record type. For further details on configuring a page, refer to the Pages section of this document.

  1. Click Add Page below the Pages grid.
  2. Complete the Add Page dialog and select OK images/SiteAddPageModal.png

Configure Site Branding

Use the Branding section of the site designer to modify the site logo, favicon, and colors. For further details on configuring site branding, refer to the Branding section of this document.

Save and Review

Select Save in the header bar to save any changes that you have made to the site configuration. To test the site, you can navigate directly to it by clicking on the Web Address field URL in the site properties section.

Design Considerations

While creating a site is easy, there are some design considerations to keep in mind.

  • Designers should identify some guiding principals to how they will build sites. Will they be based on functional areas of the business? Will they be based on employee roles? Will they use a custom navigation experience?

  • Reports can be used to create pages that combine various content types (e.g. actions and reports) as well as create custom navigation experiences. This can be very effective for giving the users a good experience, but two considerations need to be take into account when using this approach. First, adding these reports will add to the list of reports in Tempo which may confuse Tempo users. Second, building the custom navigation experience does require additional planning and effort to be effective.

  • When configuring a site page for web users, consider updating the page width to match the content. For example, actions may have only a few fields and can benefit from a narrow page width to avoid having the form look stretched. Another example is a dense report that can benefit from a wide page width.

  • Configuring sites to show record news can help improve the collaboration around records. Users can collaborate on existing record news entries in sites, but not create new entries. However, records can be designed to include related actions that can generate new record entries via process.

  • Actions in sites can be designed to be available to iOS users while they are offline. Learn more about designing for offline mobile.

  • Safe links and news entry links will take the user out of the site, so consider this when designing sites that include them.

Security

Each site has a rolemap that specifies its viewers, auditors, editors, and administrators. Users must also have at least viewer rights to the task report configured for the site in order to use the site. By default, only the site creator and system administrators have access to the site.

To access the site's configuration and rolemap, users must also be in the designer role.

Users in each role are allowed to perform the following actions on the site:

Actions / Roles Administrator Editor Auditor Viewer
View site Yes Yes Yes Yes
View the configuration Yes Yes Yes Yes
View the security Yes Yes Yes No
Update the configuration Yes Yes No No
Update the security Yes No No No
Delete Yes No No No

Notes

The default security for a site is that users and groups that are not system administrators or explicitly in the rolemap do not have access to the site. However, you can change the default security for a site such that users have Viewer privileges by default.

Logging

The usage of sites is logged in <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/audit/sites_usage.csv. See Sites Usage Audit for details.

Sites metrics are logged in <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/data-metrics/sites.csv. See Sites Metrics Log for details.

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