About the beta program

What is Elastic Process Execution (EPEx)?

Elastic Process Execution (EPEx) is a new process execution engine that supports elastic horizontal scaling of unattended executed processes, unlocking high throughput automation use cases. The new engine will make efficient use of memory and compute resources and support enhancements to Appian task capabilities.

What is the EPEx Beta Program?

The beta program will allow selected customers and partners to gain hands-on experience with EPEx ahead of it being generally available (GA).

What is a good use case for the beta program?

This program is intended for participants who can build apps that belong to at least one of the following use case categories:

• High throughput automation: Integrating human tasks only when needed as exceptions
• Process orchestration: Connecting different external systems together using EPEx as a central data pipeline
• High volume data processing: Communicating asynchronously with external systems

What are the benefits for participating customers and partners?

1. Early access to Appian's newest innovations. This allows participants to explore new features and capabilities before they are generally available and consider how the new features impact resource planning and process investments internally.
2. Direct access to Appian Product and Engineering to provide product feedback and influence future investment at Appian.
3. Opportunity for teams to learn the new software months in advance of general availability so they can minimize implementation timelines and maximize return on investment when the software is released.
4. Free support from Appian subject matter experts to advise on the best use cases and implementation strategies.

Who needs to be involved?

At a minimum, at least one Appian developer needs to be assigned to this project. Depending on the scope of the application, it is possible that other roles such as architects and business stakeholders would need to be involved as well.

What is the cost?

No additional licenses will need to be purchased for the beta program.

What is the time commitment?

The time commitment depends on the complexity of the use case and the number of Appian developers that are dedicated to the project. One developer building an application from scratch is going to require more time than a few developers making updates to an application that has already been built.

We also ask that participants in the beta program make time to meet with the Appian product team regularly throughout the process. This will likely be more frequent at the beginning of the project (~1 hour a week) and less frequent as the project goes on (~30 minutes every other week).

What is the mechanism for providing feedback?

The Appian product team will meet with participants regularly to review this feedback and answer any questions. Participants are encouraged to document feedback to bring to these meetings.

Is there a legal agreement?

Yes, all organizations participating in the beta program must sign a legal agreement, separate from any existing agreements or contracts that are in place.

What will I receive when the program is over?

Appian will provide a summary of customer feedback and other findings from the program.

How will the beta functionality be provided?

Appian will provide a new site on the pre-release version where customers have access to build applications from scratch, or import their existing applications. Appian employees will have access to this site. Additionally, Appian employees can create accounts for any user from the participating organization.

How often will the beta functionality be updated?

The newest beta functionality can be updated as frequently as once a week. Appian will determine when an upgrade is available, and work with the customer to set a maintenance window where the upgrade will take place. Any updates to the beta functionality will require about an hour of downtime on the relevant site. Participants can request the timeframe where this upgrade takes place.

Technical FAQs

What kind of process models are supported with the new architecture?

The new process execution architecture will support unattended (automation) loads after the initial release. Process models must only contain supported nodes and configurations in order to run executions in the new engine. Customers will need to remove any unsupported nodes and configurations from their process models to run them using elastic scale.

How can we run the process models in the new process execution engine?

If your process model contains only supported nodes, you can choose to run the process in the new engine by following these instructions.

Will all the process models eventually be compatible with the new architecture? Will we always need to make changes?

Eventually, the plan is to be compliant with most existing process models irrespective of the nodes they use. Some minor backwards incompatibilities may change certain behavior. See additional details on changed behavior.

If the new technology introduces constraints or if we find some existing behavior is at odds with the future benefits for our customers, we will evaluate that behavior on a case-by-case basis. All process models will need to be tested after enabling EPEx to ensure expected results.

Are smart service plug-ins compatible with the new architecture? Are they likely to remain out of scope?

Refer to this list to see which plug-ins are supported in EPEx.

If you need a certain plug-in to be available to run at a high throughput with the process model that runs in the new engine, please inform the Appian product managers.

Is activity chaining supported in the new architecture?

Activity chaining is not currently supported as we do not support attended tasks. If you have a use case that you believe requires chaining, let us know so we can evaluate the need for supporting chaining or something similar to address your use case.

Is there a plan to allow compatible and non-compatible nodes in the same process model (that is, enable EPEx on only some nodes)?

We do not have plans to mix compliant and non-compliant nodes in the same process model. Since the execution is in a completely new engine for the entire process model, this is technically not feasible.

How will the database connections be handled across multiple execution resources? What will be the behavior in the event of too many requests to the database?

Based on the current design, in the event where all available database connections are being used, any additional threads will wait for the next available connection to be open. This ensures that process execution continues without interruption.

Are all expressions within script nodes compatible with the new architecture including plug-ins?

All out-of-the-box expression capabilities are compatible. Our initial testing suggests that plug-in functions run in script tasks are compatible as well. The decision to officially support plug-in functions will be made at the end of the beta program.

Are there reasons or constraints why we wouldn't want to adopt as much EPEx as possible (such as cost / contract / license)?

We are working on a new licensing model, which is necessitated by the new elastic scaling of resources. For the same process load that you have today, we don't expect your costs to increase under the new model. However, if you add new processes that use substantially more resources, we expect cost to go up proportionately. Remember, the beta program is not going to cost you, and you can use this opportunity to test your future load.

Can I request additional scale to run high throughput processes during the beta program?

During the beta program, Appian may not fulfill all scalability requests. We'll do our best to accommodate any scaling requests but can't guarantee that they will be fulfilled for all use cases. For more information, create an Appian support case with EPEx beta in the title.

To help accommodate these cases, you can work with your POC to load test your processes. Together, you can run tests with low load and review the metrics. This insight will help identify and adapt any bottlenecks, so you request additional scale only if needed.