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Generate Workflow

Process Mining is deprecated with Appian 24.2 and will no longer be available in an upcoming release.

Instead, we encourage customers to use Process HQ to explore and analyze business processes and data.

This page describes how to generate a process model in a new Appian application from Process Mining.

Overview

With Process Mining, you can generate a process model inside a new Appian application based on a discovered process. For example, let's say you have a legacy process that you want to modernize in Appian.

Instead of manually re-building your process from scratch, you can automatically generate it. To do this, load an event log into Process Mining that describes your legacy process and click GENERATE WORKFLOW from the discovered model.

Generate Workflow button

Requirements

  • Appian version 22.3 or later.
  • One-time initial setup to create the connection between Process Mining and Appian Designer.

Generate workflow

Generate workflow to create a new Appian application and process model based on your discovered process. As long as you can view a discovered model, you can generate workflow from it. Appian will generate:

Tip:  The newly generated application is named after the event log that represents your process. The process model is also named after the event log with controller appended to it. If you want to name these something else, consider renaming your event log prior to generating a workflow.

To generate a workflow:

  1. Sign in to Process Mining.
  2. Click Management Hub in the sidebar.
  3. Go to LOGS.
  4. Select the event log that corresponds with the workflow you want to generate.
  5. Click Model to view the discovered model that represents the event log you selected.
  6. Adjust your filters and variant groups until the discovered model matches how you want the generated workflow to look.
  7. Click GENERATE WORKFLOW.
  8. Click OPEN APPLICATION.
  9. Go to the new tab that opened.
  10. Sign in to Appian Designer.
  11. Open the process model named after your event log.

Now, you can begin configuring the process nodes.

Note:  Each time you click GENERATE WORKFLOW, Process Mining will generate a new process model and a new application.

Configure workflow

Once you've generated your workflow, your next steps should be configuring the process nodes in your new process model.

Depending on the activity, you can use Subprocess Activity nodes to run other process models you've created, or you can replace these nodes with smart services.

Configure conditions for the XOR gateways to determine the execution path your process will follow. In some instances, the generated XOR gateways may have multiple incoming paths, otherwise known as converging gateways. You should delete these converging gateways before configuring the rest of your process. We also recommend renaming each gateway so you'll know at a glance the conditions you've configured.

See Process Modeling with Appian for more information.

Initial setup

To set up the GENERATE WORKFLOW action for the first time, follow these steps:

  1. Create a service account and copy its API key.
  2. Add the service account to the required system group.
  3. Configure the Appian Designer connection for your organization.

Note:  A system admin should perform these steps. To access the Administration Console in Appian Designer, you need to have the System Administrator role. To access the User Management page in Process Mining, you need to have either the User Admin or Super Admin roles.

Once this initial setup is complete, any user in your organization can generate workflows without any further configuration.

Create a service account

You need to create a service account in Appian Designer to make the connection to Process Mining. A System Administrator should perform this task.

To add a Process Mining service account and generate an API key, see Create a service account. Return with your service account's API key for the next step.

Add service account to system groups

Next, you need to add the service account you created to the Process Mining Workflow Converters system group so it has permission to create the necessary objects. Any additional users that you add to this group can access the objects that this capability generates.

To add the service account to the necessary system groups:

  1. Sign in to Appian Designer.
  2. Click Objects in the navigation pane at the environment level.
  3. Search for Process Mining Workflow Converters in the filter pane.
  4. Click Process Mining Workflow Converters.
  5. Click ADD MEMBERS.
  6. Select the Process Mining service account you created in the Users to Add field.
  7. Click ADD.

You can also control individual user's access to the generated objects with the Process Mining Workflow Converters system group. See Permissions for more information.

Connect your organization to Appian Designer

Once you have an API key from the previous step, you are ready to connect your organization to Appian Designer. A User Admin or Super Admin should perform this task.

Before you begin these steps, make sure you have a service account API key.

To connect your organization to Appian Designer:

  1. Sign in to Process Mining as a User Admin or Super Admin.
  2. Click User Management in the sidebar.
  3. Click APPIAN DESIGNER CONNECTIVITY.
  4. Complete the following fields.
    • Appian Designer URL: The URL of your Appian Designer environment. For example, https://mysite.appiancloud.com.
    • Service Account API Key: The service account API key.
  5. Click SAVE.

You're done! Now, any user in your organization can generate workflow from Process Mining into Appian Designer.

Permissions

To control users' access to the generated workflow objects and application, you can add users and groups to the Process Mining Workflow Converters system group. Any user or group you add to this system group are granted Administrator and Viewer permissions.

Search for the system group

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