Overview

This page covers all the features in the Monitoring View of Appian Designer.

• To learn more about how to interact with specific processes, see the Monitoring, Debugging, and Editing Processes page.
• For guidance on identifying and fixing common process issues, see Troubleshooting Process Models.
• For more details on the types of process errors that you could encounter, see the Process Errors reference page.

The Monitoring view contains two tabs, Process Activity and Process Model Metrics, and appears at the top of Appian Designer. It is also available within an application. Here, it will only show process models and process instances found within that application.

For more information about application operations, see Applications page.

Process Activity

The Process Activity tab shows a list of all process instances currently on the system.

By default, the processes list displays processes that have started in the last 7 days. Each process has the following information:

• Status Icon A quick reference visual indication for each process. Processes will show one of six statuses:
  • Active
  • Active with Error(s)
  • Completed
  • Paused
  • Paused by Exception
  • Canceled
• Name The name of the process. Hyperlinked to open the process in the process modeler.
• Model The version of the process model executed by the process instance. Hyperlinked to open the process model in the process modeler.
• Started By The initiator of the process. Hyperlinked to open a user profile dialog.
• Errors Unresolved errors associated with a process. Hyperlinked to open a Process Errors dialog that displays the error message and details.
• Active Tasks The number of active tasks within a process. Will only have a non-zero value for processes in an active, pause, or paused by exception status.
• Start Time The date and time when the process was started.
• End Time The date and time when the process was completed or canceled.
• Selection Box Checkbox selection of an instance allows the Designer to perform various process options.

Selecting Show process details in the upper right above the processes list will display additional columns:

• Process ID The ID of the Process
• Engine The execution engine the process is currently running on.
• Memory (AMU) The amount of memory the process is consuming. Process memory is expressed in AMUs. This process memory calculation runs in the background and is not real-time. Any process instance marked as “N/A” represents a calculation that has not yet occurred.

See the Process Model Metrics section to learn more about monitoring the memory usage and performance of your processes.

Process Error Warnings

A banner above the processes list notifies designers of unresolved errors that have occurred in the last 24 hours. Clicking on View all errors will open a dialog listing detailed information about all process errors, with the ability to filter on them.

By default, the list will only display the unresolved errors that require attention. Resolved errors can be viewed by clicking Show resolved errors in the upper right.

Search & Filters

The left-hand pane of the Process Activity tab contains the search and filter options. By default, a search term will be run against process names. Once searched, the default search option can be changed to Search ID, which will run the search term against the process ID.

Filters

Designers can also filter process results in the following ways:

• Processes with Errors Only processes with at least one unresolved error will show up in the process list.
• Process Status One or multiple process statuses can be selected. The process list will only show the selected statuses.
• Started By One or more users can be selected. The process list will only show processes started by selected users.
• Process Model One or more process models can be selected. The process list will only show processes from selected process models.
• Time Range Time range can be filtered to show processes started within the last 24 hours, last 7 days, or any other date and time range. When Custom is selected, designer can chose to filter either by started or ended time. By default, processes that have been started in the last 7 days are shown.

Options

When a process is marked for selection, options will appear above the processes list. Multiple processes can be selected at one time, which will allow for bulk operations. However, not all options support bulk operation.

The following options available in the Objects view:

• Security (Single-Choice) Allows a process administrator to adjust the security of an individual process. For more information, see process security.
• Resume (Multiple) Allows process administrators to resume paused processes.
• Pause (Multiple) Allows process administrators to pause active processes.
• Cancel (Multiple) Allows process administrators to cancel active processes.
• Delete (Multiple) Allows process administrators to delete selected processes.
  • This will also delete any synchronous sub-processes and pending tasks in the selected processes.

Bulk Operations

In addition to acting on multiple processes on a single page, designers can act on multiple pages of processes. This option appears when all processes on the current page have been selected.

The gray banner below the toolbar displays the option to select all processes that match the current filter criteria, up to 10,000 processes.

Process Security

In addition to configuring the security settings associated with a process model, Appian allows users with sufficient rights to configure the security associated with a process. By default, all processes inherit security from their process models. The inherited security can be overridden through the Modify Process Security Smart Service or by selecting the Security option in the Process Activity tab. Selecting the Security option will open a process security dialog.

Process Role Permissions

The different roles that can be assigned to actors in a process are described in the following tables. Only Process Administrators of a process model and System Administrators have the necessary security rights to provide other users and groups access to a running process.

Managing Tasks

Operation	Process Administrator	Editor	Manager	Viewer	Initiator
Reassign tasks assigned to me, when reassignment is enabled	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
View tasks assigned to other users	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Reassign tasks assigned to other users, regardless of whether reassignment is enabled	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
View and complete tasks assigned to other users	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

Making Process Edits

Operation	Process Administrator	Editor	Manager	Viewer	Initiator
Add attachments/notes to a process	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Update process variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Remove attachments/notes from a process	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
Change process security roles for other users and groups	Yes	No	No	No	No
Perform in-flight modifications to the process	Yes	No	No	No	No
Stop or pause a process	Yes	No	No	No	No
Delete a process	Yes	No	No	No	No

Viewing Process Data

Operation	Process Administrator	Editor	Manager	Viewer	Initiator
View a process report and process variable values	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
View a task report containing tasks from this process	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
View a node report	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Deny Role

If a user or group is assigned the Deny role they cannot perform any action associated with the selected process. The right to view assigned tasks cannot be removed.

Customizable Report

In addition to the search and filter options on the left-hand pane of the Process Activity tab, there is a link for designers to switch to the customizable report. Clicking this link opens the All Processes process report in a new tab. Changes to the All Processes report do not affect the Process Activity tab in Appian Designer and vice versa. This report does not allow you to view process errors.

Process Model Metrics

The Process Model Metrics tab shows metrics related to the memory usage of process models on the system. By default, process models are sorted by total memory usage from largest to smallest. Only process models with process instances on the system are shown in the report. Designers will only be able to view metrics for the process models that they already have at least Viewer permissions to.

Process memory is expressed in AMUs. This process memory calculation runs in the background and is not real-time.

The annotated screenshot and descriptions below define the features and metrics displayed in the process model metrics tab.

1. Refresh button: Refreshes the status of process model metrics

2. Select Another Environment button: Allows you to view how your process models are performing on another environment. Click the button to open a dialog that displays a list of environments that have been configured in your DevOps Infrastructure. Selecting a different environment will allow you to view the process model metrics of that environment directly in your current Proces Model Metrics tab. For more details on how to set up your DevOps Infrastructure, see Admin Console.

   Designers must have at least Viewer rights to process models in the current environment to view process model metrics.

3. Process Model: The name of the process model. Click the linked name to open the process model in the process modeler. Note that for instances on the system whose process models have been deleted, these instances will be aggregated into one row, with a name of [deleted].

4. A quick reference visual indication for each process model based on the current total calculated AMU of all active instances of that model. Each icon represents a different size status:

   Visual Icon	Size Status
   	Displayed for models whose current total calculated size is less than 100,000 AMU. The memory usage of this model's instances is generally considered low.
   	Displayed for models whose current total calculated size is between 100,000 and 1,000,000 AMU. The memory usage of this model’s instances could potentially affect the system.
   	Displayed for process models who current total calculated size is greater than 1,000,000 AMU. The memory usage of this model’s instances is high.

   The qualifications of Low, Medium, and High are based on average resource allocation and usage. Your systems and expected usage may not reflect these boundaries. If you have concerns, contact your system administrator.

5. Total Memory (AMU) The total size of the process model, derived from the aggregated memory of the individual process instances. This size is based on what instance memory has currently been calculated.
6. Avg. Process Instance Memory (AMU) The average amount of memory each instance of the process model is consuming, based on what instance memory has currently been calculated.
7. Instances The total number of instances that exist on the system for the given process model. Clicking the linked instance count will open the Process Activity view, filtered on the selected process model with the Time Range filter defaulted to "All".
8. Completed The percent of instances that have completed for the given process model.
9. Clean-up Days The number of days set in the clean-up policy for the process model. This can be a number between 0 and 999, otherwise it will be "Never" if the process model is set to not automatically clean-up processes.
10. Clean-up Type The clean-up policy for the process model. This can be set to Archive, Delete, or N/A if the process model is configured to not automatically clean-up processes.

It is important to look at all of the dimensions available in the Process Model Metrics tab, when determining how to optimize the performance of your process models and instances on the system. While the total size is a good initial indicator for potential memory intensive process models, it is often necessary to look beyond just this value in isolation.

Monitoring Process Model AMU

For process models using a significant amount of memory:

• Is the average instance memory high? View the memory of the individual instances in the Process Activity tab to verify that there are no outliers that may be causing the average memory to spike. If all of the instances are consistently using a large amount of memory, then this might indicate that the model's design needs to be improved to reduce its overall memory footprint.
• Are there a lot of instances? Consider updating the clean-up policy to archive or delete completed processes more frequently, especially if the completion percentage is consistently high.
• Are the model's instances completing as expected? A low completion percentage could mean that the model is often encountering errors or generating uncommonly long-lived processes, due to incorrect or inefficient model designs. As a result, this might indicate the model's design needs to be improved to reduce its overall memory footprint.

If you're updating the design of a process model, consider the following factors which impact the memory footprint of your process models and instances:

• The definition of the process model itself
• The definition of each process node
• The number of process variables
• The values of each process variable
• The length of the process history
• The values being stored in the process history
• Any notes and attachments that the process may carry