Appian Administration Console

The pages in this browser provide guidance on how to configure your system, authentication, and integration settings and monitor system activity in the Appian Administration Console (the Admin Console).

What is the Admin Console?

The Admin Console is where system administrators can update certain properties of the Appian environment using a web interface.

Users must be system administrators to make changes in the Admin Console.

Access the Admin Console

To access the Admin Console in your Appian environment, open the navigation menu , then select Admin Console.

Only system administrators can access the Admin Console and make changes to the configurations. The Administrator user is specifically prohibited from accessing the Admin Console in order to ensure that all changes can be traced to a specific named user rather than a shared account.

All changes made through the Admin Console are logged to an audit log. The log captures the username of the user that made the change, along with the previous and new values of the changed property.

See also: Appian Admin Console Logging

Import and export your settings

Most Admin Console settings can be imported and exported, except for settings on the following pages:

• API Keys
• LDAP Authentication
• SAML Authentication
• Single Sign-On Authentication
• Infrastructure
• Certificates
• Legacy Web Services

In addition, you can export the Encryption Service setting associated with plug-ins, but you cannot import or export plug-ins in the Admin Console. Instead, deploy plug-ins using a direct deployment.

Export

To export Admin Console settings:

1. Click EXPORT in the header bar. The Export Settings dialog appears. This dialog lists all settings available for export.
2. (Optional) Filter the settings list:
   • Click Show Filters.
   • Select one or more Category values or specify a Last Modified date range.
3. In the settings list, select the settings you want to export.

4. Click EXPORT SELECTED.

   

5. Download the appropriate files:

   File	Extension	Action
   Admin Console settings files	.zip	Click DOWNLOAD PACKAGE.
   Export log	.txt	Click Download Export Log.
   Import customization file	.properties	Click Download Import Customization File.

The files download according to your browser settings.

Import

In the Admin Console, you can import the following individually or in combination:

• Admin Console settings
• Applications and packages
• Import customization files

To import in the Admin Console:

1. Open the navigation menu
2. Select Admin Console.
3. In the header bar, click the IMPORT button. The Import Settings dialog opens.
4. Upload an Admin Console settings file:
   • Under Admin Console Package (ZIP), click UPLOAD.
   • Select the .zip file containing the Admin Console settings you want to import.
5. (Optional) Upload an import customization file:
   • Check Include related import customization file.
   • Under Import Customization File (PROPERTIES), click UPLOAD.
   • Select the .properties file containing your import customizations.
6. (Optional) Upload an application or a package:
   • Check Import related application or package.

   • Continue as appropriate:

     Type	Action
     Application	Select Application. Click UPLOAD. Select the .zip file for the application you want to import.
     Package	Select Package. Click UPLOAD. Select the .zip file for the package you want to import. Select the application where you want to import the package.

7. (Optional) Click INSPECT to validate the files you are importing, and resolve any errors before importing. Learn more about inspection.
8. Click IMPORT. Appian queues an asynchronous import.

Import considerations

Admin Console settings and application objects can be tightly coupled. Because of this, Appian allows you to import an application package and an Admin Console package together, both in the Admin Console and through external deployments.

These packages will be included in a single import, so any dependencies between them are identified and properly resolved.

Dependencies include:

• User start pages secured to groups.
• Data stores pointing to a data source by its JDNI name.
• Embedded interface themes referencing design objects in the Page Background Color or Accent Color fields.
• Third-party credentials referencing design objects in the Test Connection field.

Setting-specific behavior

Data Sources

During import, Appian tests the connection of the data source. If a connection cannot be established successfully, the data source will fail to import. This connection test also happens during inspection.

Health check

Health Check must be set up and enabled on an environment before any imported Health Check configurations can take effect.

You can import and export all Health Check Setting properties except the following:

• The members of the Health Check Viewers group.
• Whether autoapproval is enabled for data reviews. By default, data reviews are required in each environment. To enable autoapprove for data reviews, you will need to do so manually on each environment.

When Health Check Settings are exported, the Service Account credential fields are left blank. These fields can be edited in the Health Check properties file and imported into a target environment. Note that on import:

• When the automatic upload field is set to true, a Service Account username and password must be provided.
• When the automatic upload field is set to false, any Service Account credentials provided in the properties file, or existing credentials on the target environment, will be removed.

Permissions

To export and import Quick App Creator permissions, export the Quick App Creators group.

Plug-ins

The list of Encryption Service public API permissions for all plug-ins shown on the Plug-ins page can be exported as one item. For example, if you have plug-in X that has permission to use the Encryption Service and plug-in Y that doesn't, both permissions would be set during import if the setting was included in your import package. On import into the target environment, only the plug-ins that are listed in the package are updated. You may have more plug-ins in the target environment, and their Encryption Service configurations are not updated.

Appian recommends that if you are sharing an Admin Console package with environments where you have no knowledge of the deployed plug-ins, you should not include this setting as it might overwrite a plug-in's permissions.

Third-party credentials

When importing a set of third-party credentials onto a target environment for the first time, the credentials field values can be configured in one of two ways:

• Set the values in the import customization file.
• Manually set the values after import.

Updating the set of third-party credentials via import will not reset any per-user credentials that a user has stored. These will only be removed if that specific credential field has been deleted from the third-party credentials.

Third-party credentials may reference plug-ins. The referenced plug-ins may be deployed before or after the third-party credentials, and the reference to the plug-in name will be preserved. Appian recommends that plug-ins are deployed before importing your applications and Admin Console settings.

User start pages

If one of your start pages points to a specific record or action, this URL will not be the same across environments. Be sure to confirm the URL is correct for these pages after import.

MCP Server

The MCP Server page in the Admin Console lets system administrators enable Appian MCP Server, manage tool collections, and distribute connection details to users. Model Context Protocol (MCP) allows external AI applications to discover and use Appian capabilities through natural language.

From the MCP Server page, you can:

• Enable or disable Appian MCP Server. When enabled, the MCP server endpoint URL is displayed for distribution to users.
• Manage tool collections. Enable or disable individual tool collections (Call Process Models, Call Expression Rules, Call AI Agents, Query Data Fabric) to control which capabilities are available through MCP.

Appian MCP Server enforces the same object security, record-level security, and group membership as the Appian platform. External AI applications can only discover and use tools the authenticated user has permission to access.

For the full setup guide, see Enable and Configure Appian MCP Server.

Browsing these pages

The pages in this browser are organized into the same categories you'll see in the Admin Console itself:

• System: General system administration settings.
• Authentication: Settings that control authentication in your Appian environment.
• DevOps: Settings that control system behavior related to application deployment.
• Integration: Settings that control how external systems integrate with your Appian environment.
• Monitoring: Statistics about system and user activity in your Appian environment.

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