Design best practices

As you design a process that uses autoscaling mode, keep the following in mind:

• During development, test the size of your process variables with the largest data you expect to handle to ensure you do not hit the size limit of 1 MB. We recommend you implement a pattern where more processes are executed with process variables storing less data, rather than fewer processes with larger process variables.
• If you need to use functionality that isn't supported, you'll need to design a separate process containing that functionality (with autoscaling turned off) and run that process with the Start Process Smart Service.
• We recommend building observability into your process by using the Write to Data Store Entity Smart Service during development. This smart service can capture what values exist for variables at different points in the process. By writing these values to a database, you can more easily identify any issues in process model configurations.
• The best way to drive load to the EPEx engine from external systems is to use an Appian Web API and the a!startProcess function. Keep in mind that frequent calls might cause high resource usage on the App Server. This design pattern is constrained by the site resources and will impact other functionality. We recommend batching these Web API calls when possible.
• If you import a process with autoscaling enabled to an environment without this capability, your process will automatically be set to run in standard mode.

Debug and monitor processes

As you get started building a process intended for autoscaling, you'll want to consider how you'll debug and monitor those processes for optimal development and execution.

If you are building a brand new process model, we recommend that you enable autoscaling before you begin. An icon is shown when autoscaling mode is enabled, and this makes it easy to see whether a model is configured to run in that mode.

When autoscaling mode is enabled, the process modeler palette shows only compatible nodes.

The modeler also shows you which configurations are not supported or ignored when you validate the process model. These validations can help prevent you from developing a process model that relies on unsupported configurations. These validations won't appear if the autoscaling option is disabled.

You can find additional information in the Monitor view of your application. The Autoscaled Process Activity tab is the central location to view metrics about your process executions.> appian-style-note