This lesson from the Introduction to Applications course walks you through the basic steps of creating a new application.
This page explains what Appian applications are and the two ways that you can create them:
Applications are a collection of objects that make up a business solution. Appian recommends creating a dedicated application for every business solution. For example, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Employee Onboarding, and Sales Opportunities would be three different applications.
To update an existing application, Appian recommends creating a package and deploying it to your environments.
For more information about working with applications, see the applications view page.
For a more in-depth walkthrough about creating applications, see the Application Building Tutorial.
To create an application from scratch:
Configure the following properties:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Enter a name that follows the recommended naming standard. The maximum length of the name is 255 characters. |
| Description | (Optional) Enter a brief description of the application's business purpose. The maximum length of the description is 2,000 characters. |
| Application Prefix | (Optional) Following the recommended naming standard, specify the short, unique prefix to use in all object names related to the application. For example: CRM for a customer relationship management application. The prefix must start with a letter and can only use letters, numbers, and underscores. The maximum length of the prefix is 10 characters. Appian constructs a default prefix using the initial characters of the first 10 words you entered in the Name property. You can retain, modify, or delete this default prefix. If you configure the Application Prefix property, Appian pre-populates this prefix in the Name fields for any new constants, interfaces, and rules you create. If your prefix duplicates an existing prefix, Appian displays a warning message. This message does not block the duplicate prefix, however, because there may be business cases where applications appropriately use the same prefix. You can update the Application Prefix in the application properties. If you change the Application Prefix after creating objects in an application, you cannot bulk update the names of existing objects with the new prefix. You must manually edit the name of each existing object. |
Setting application security is important as it determines who has permission to view and edit the application's contents. Appian recommends adding at least one Administrator group and one Viewer group to your application's security role map. See the Object Security page to learn more about object security in Appian, security best practices, and how to configure, edit, and review security at any time.
Once you've set security on your application, Appian will display the application view.
Note that new applications created from scratch are always unpublished by default and contain no objects. See the Create or Add Objects page to start building your business solution.
After creating your new application and adding objects to it, you may decide that you want to add application actions. Application actions are visible under the Actions tab of Tempo and allow users to start process models related to your application. For example, in a Vehicle Management application, you may have an application action called Loan Vehicle which kicks off a process model with a start form that allows users to start the loaning process.
Application actions can be created three ways: from the application view properties menu (image below), saved as an application action in an interface, and through the application builder. This section will focus on the first method, creating application actions via the application view properties menu.
To create an application action, you must first create a process model that allows a user to interact with the process and that contains either a start form, user input task, or some other attended node. Make sure to set appropriate security on your process model so that users will be able to start it. Appian recommends adding an Administrator group and at least one Initiator, Viewer, Manager or Editor group to the process model's security dialog.
Once you have created your process model, click on Application Actions in the application view properties dropdown. You can name and describe your action as it should appear in Tempo, and link your process model. Note that application actions will always appear in alphabetical order in Tempo.
Applications can be either published or unpublished. When created, applications are unpublished by default. This feature allows developers to show or hide application features, including application actions, in Tempo.
An application must be published in order for its application actions to appear in Tempo. Publishing an application has no effect on actions used in Sites or Embedded Interfaces.
To publish or unpublish your application, click the Settings menu in the application view and select Publish/Unpublish Application.
In Appian Designer, an application's icon will appear red when it is published, and grey when it is unpublished.
A published application will appear as a filter under Applications on the Actions tab of Tempo.
The Application Builder is a feature of Appian Designer that creates an application with pre-defined set of objects. There are two different types: basic and full. Both sets of templates use the same paradigm to create applications, just with a different level of functionality.
A basic template from the application builder creates only the objects necessary to create, view, update, and delete the records in your app.
This template is especially useful if you want to jump start a brand new application. Instead of creating the base objects from scratch, this template will give you a basic application in a few minutes.
A full template has all of the record functionality of a basic application, and also includes functionality for: audit history, collaboration, document management, task assignment, and reporting.
This template is useful if you had planned to implement this functionality in your application anyway. Otherwise, a basic application will likely be simpler to enhance and build out.
After you select the template type and datasource from the Create New Application dialog, the Application Builder will launch. The Application Builder is a four-step wizard that will guide designers through the application creation process. Depending on whether a basic or full application was selected, the defaults within the Application Builder will change.
On the first page, users name and describe their application.
Each app stores data in the form of Records in Tempo. We collect the singular and plural name not just because the record type requires them, but also so that we can name and describe other parts of the application in sensible ways. For example, an empty grid in Tempo would say that there are "No (plural entry name) available."
We use the first letter of each word in the application name to generate a prefix for the design objects in the application. For example, a rule in the Support Ticket Management application might be called "STM_GetSupportTicketById". This prefix is guaranteed to be unique among all Quick Apps and generated apps on the system.
On this page, users specify the fields of information they want to capture for each record. This serves as both data and interface design for the app, and provides the core of its unique design.
Users can create fields of the following types:
Users can add the following configurations to fields.
Configurations display on forms, but not on the record dashboard.
When using the full template, three fields are pre-populated: Title, Status, and Priority. Of these, only Title is required (however, the name can be changed). When using the basic template, only the Title field is pre-populated.
A Preview Form option is available on this page. It shows how the currently configured values will manifest in the Action and Records of the completed application. Specifically, it offers a preview of the start form of the Action, and the Summary view of the record type. Users can use this to help design their application to look exactly as they want it to, without having to create it first and then update it to make changes.
Each field added on this page results in a new field on the main CDT of the application, with the following details:
On this page, users specify the people who should use the application. Additionally, for full template applications, designers can choose whether to make this a site-based application (default) or exposed through Tempo.
Collaborators have access to all application functionality.
The people selected at this step are added as members of a group, which is created to secure application activity to.
The application builder, will default for the full template to a sites-based application.
When you click Create Application on this page, your application will be created! Please allow up to a minute for generation of the application.
Once your application has been generated, the final page of the form will load. Links to your new functionality will appear.
Each application is published immediately, and provides record-centric functionality to its users. Creating, viewing, modifying, and collaborating around the data in your records makes up the bulk of work enabled by the application's design. Details on each section of functionality are below.
Each application adds a single Action to the Actions tab, which allows users in the Collaborators group to create new records. This start form will match the preview available while creating the application.
Each application has a record type that is the central hub for work done in the app.
Records for basic and full template applications will include:
For full templates only, each record will also contain:
For targeted alerts and requests, tasks can be sent from the record to any user on the system through a related action on the Summary view.
A report is generated for each application, containing four charts and a records grid.
The News tab is used to post messages to users of an application.
A site can be created using a full template.
For pages will be added to the site:
For more information about application security, see this page.
