Today, businesses are challenged to build applications focused on specific business requirements and user experiences using data that is spread across the enterprise.
As a result of siloed systems and data architectures, enterprises can have difficulty integrating disparate data sources while maintaining data security. Even once connected to the data sources, queries to the source data may be slow and require database expertise for costly, on-going maintenance. This can lead to even seemingly small app changes taking longer to complete since you need to consider performance impacts in addition to the logistics of re-architecting your app.
Appian Records provide a solution to this siloed and costly data management experience. Using Appian Records, you can converge your system data into a single point of management within your application. With your data in a central location, you can easily adjust your data model, define how users view your data, and integrate enterprise processes so users can take informed action when viewing the data. Not only does this speed up development, it makes maintaining your objects easier since you can use record data seamlessly throughout your application.
To leverage Appian Record functionality, it all starts with a record type object.
The record type is the design object you'll use to answer questions like:
To configure the record type object, you'll define the record data, configure record views and related actions, and a create a record list. Each of these elements builds on the other.
The first step when configuring a record type is to connect to a data source. This is how the record type will access your source data and display it as a set of records. Using a guided experience, you can choose to use data from a database, process model, Salesforce object, or other web service in your record type.
Depending on your selected data source, you can choose to enable data sync to cache a copy of your data in Appian. With a copy of your data, the record type only has to query the synced data instead of an external source, allowing you to make changes in your application faster. Learn how to configure a data source for your record type.
Once you’ve configured the source of your record type, each row of your source data will be displayed as a record.
To provide a more comprehensive view of your data, you can configure record views to surface different insights about each record depending on a user’s interests and needs. For example, in a support case record, you could create one record view for a support engineer that details the case issue and type, and another record view for a case manager that contains the customer’s satisfaction score and case history.
From the context of these views, you can add related actions so users start enterprise processes to update, add, or remove information about the record. Using record views and related actions, you can unite people, process, and data in one place.
Now that you’ve configured record views and related actions to display information about each record, you want to consider how users will view and navigate a set of records. For example, in a Support Case record type, users may want to see all support cases that are currently open and overdue so they can help close those cases.
To easily display multiple records, you can create a record list. The record list is a single, drillable list that users can search and filter to find records. You can configure the record list to choose which record fields you want the user to see, provide filters so users can control how they view the records, and add record actions so they can add new information or update information in the record type.
Not only is the record list a navigational tool, you can also reuse the record list as a display element throughout your application by referencing it as a site page, or in a read-only grid or a chart within an interface.
To get started using Appian Records, create a record type. Once you create the design object, learn how to configure the record type by:
For a guided experience creating a record type, see the Record Tutorial.
