Developers need to be able to quickly find objects within Appian Designer. There are a variety of options to enable fast and flexible searching. This page explains how to use the search options across the various views.
Go to the Applications view.
Quick search lets you search your environment for any design object except documents and groups. This search is available anywhere in Appian Designer, except for the process modeler, where the header bar is visible.
To quickly search for an object in your environment:
Tip: If the keyboard shortcut is not working, check your OS to see if there is a keyboard shortcut already configured for CTRL + Space.
To search for documents and groups in your environment, or to search on properties other than object name, search the objects grid in the Objects view instead.
In an objects grid, you can search for objects within specific scopes, as follows:
Scope | Grid Location |
---|---|
Objects in the environment | Go to the ALL OBJECTS tab in the Objects view. |
Objects in an individual application | Go to the ALL OBJECTS or UNREFERENCED OBJECTS tab in the Build view. |
Objects in a folder | Go to the folder object. |
Objects in a group | Go to the group object. |
To search an objects grid:
The system searches the Name and Description properties of the objects currently listed in the grid.
This search is selected by default.
The system searches the UUID and ID properties of the objects currently listed in the grid.
The UUID of an object remains stable across different environments, whereas the object's local ID may change. The local ID is the Appian object identifier that gets stored in process and external database tables.
Searching on UUID is helpful when you're troubleshooting missing dependency problems on inspect or import.
Searching on the local ID is useful for finding objects like documents, folders, and groups, particularly when debugging.
name
This search option is not available when searching in a group or knowledge center.
The system searches the expression content of the objects currently listed in the grid.
Expression content may be anything from a gateway expression in a process model, the definition of an expression rule, or the visibility expression of a record view. It's a powerful way to find plug-in functions, look for specific components, or easily hunt down legacy functions so you can take advantage of their improved, modern versions.
In this search mode, the Description column is replaced with an Expression column that displays a snippet of the matching expression (or the first matching expression, if more than one is found in the same object). For example, a search for formLayout_17r1
would return all rules with a!formLayout_17r1(
in the Expression column.
apply(
and apply
will return identical results, as will the search terms CRM_getCustomerNames
and crm getcustomernames
.a!applyComponents
would be treated as a applyComponents
, and therefore return more results than intended, we strip the domain and simply search for applyComponents
. You can see the adjusted search term in the blue bar above your results.customer
or customerFeedback
will find uses of the customerFeedbackForm
interface, but the searches feedback
or feedbackForm
will not, since the name of the rule does not start with those terms.In a plug-ins grid, you can search by the name of the plug-in or the plug-in's modules.
You can search for plug-ins within specific scopes, as follows:
Scope | Grid Location |
---|---|
Plug-ins in the environment | In Appian Designer, go to the PLUG-INS tab of the Objects view. In the Admin Console, click Plug-ins in the navigation pane. |
Plug-ins referenced in an application | Go to the PLUG-INS tab of the Build view. |
Plug-ins added to a package | Go to the packages view of the application, or go to the Prepare Deployment step of a direct deployment. |
Go to the Deploy view.
Go to the Users view.
Search in Designer