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Installing Contract Writing

This content applies solely to Contract Writing, which must be purchased separately from the Appian base platform.

Introduction

Appian Government Contract Writing is built on the Appian low-code platform and helps you and your contracting professionals manage and streamline your procurement writing process. This guide provides guidance for installing the solution.

Installing Contract Writing consists of four main steps, including:

  1. Downloading the software package.
  2. Deploying CW plug-ins to the Appian environment.
  3. Creating the database objects in the business data source.
  4. Importing the CW application into the Appian environment.

Before starting the installation process, review the System Requirements to make sure all minimum requirements are met.

System requirements

Technical support

Current customers can log into Appian Community and open support cases. All users of Contract Writing can also email Appian Support at support@appian.com.

Step 1: Download software package

The first step in installing Contract Writing is to download the software package that contains the following files. These files will be used in the remaining set up steps.

  • scripts/01.ContractWritingv2.1.0.sql: SQL script for creating the database objects needed for the CW application.
  • ContractWritingv2.1.0.zip: Application package to import into Appian.
  • ContractWritingv2.1.0.properties: Import customization file for configuring the application package.
  • appian-solutions-1.28.0.jar: JAR file used to deploy the Appian Solutions plug-in for self managed environments.
  • content-tools-2.1.2.jar: Jar file used to deploy the Content Tools plug-in for self-managed environments.
  • rich-text-editor-2.1.0_signed.zip: ZIP file used to deploy the Rich Text Editor plug-in for self-managed environments.
  • html-to-pdf-v2.1.3.jar: JAR file used to create PDF documents.
  • pdf-tools-2.4.1.jar: ZIP file used to externalize process variables.
  • advanced-document-templating-1.1.0.jar: JAR file used to create dynamically generated DOCX and PDF documents.

To download the software package:

  1. In MyAppian, navigate to the Support tab.
  2. At the top of the page, select DOWNLOADS and then SOLUTIONS.
  3. In the grid, click Contract Writing 24.3.2.1.
  4. Under Downloads, click Contract Writing Components and agree to the License Agreement.
  5. Click Contract Writing Components to download the ZIP file.
  6. Unzip ContractWritingv2.1.0.zip to access the installation files.

Step 2: Deploy plug-ins

Contract Writing relies on the following plug-ins to be deployed and configured in the target system before the application files can be imported.

Appian Cloud environments

To deploy the plug-ins for an Appian Cloud environment:

  1. In the target environment, log in as the deployment user.
  2. Navigate to the Admin Console and click Plug-ins.
  3. Click ADD PLUG-INS.
  4. Search for and click Appian Solutions.
  5. Click DEPLOY.
  6. Repeat the above steps, but search for and click:
    • Content tools
    • Document page counter
    • HTML to PDF Conversion
    • PDF tools
    • PDF Utilities
    • Rich Text Editor
    • Zip utility
    • Advanced Document Templating

Step 3: Create the database objects

To create the structure for the database tables, views, and other objects that are a part of the CW application, you will need to run a DDL script in your database.

To create the database objects:

  • In your database, run the ContractWritingv2.1.0.sql DDL file that was downloaded in Step 1.

Note:  This DDL file is optimized for MariaDB. If you are using a different type of database, the DDL file may need to be modified.

Step 4: Import the Application

The next step to install the Contract Writing application is to import the application files into the target environment.

To import the application:

  1. In the target environment, log in as the deployment user.
  2. Navigate to the Appian Designer.
  3. Click IMPORT.
  4. Click UPLOAD and choose the ContractWritingv2.1.0.zip file that was downloaded in Step 1.
  5. Select Include related import customization file and click UPLOAD. Select the properties file that was downloaded in Step 1.
    • Note: If you have credentials for any of the integrations, you may include them in the properties file.
  6. Click INSPECT in order to ensure that there will be no complications on import.
    • Note: Inspection could take several minutes and may timeout, but import will continue in the background.
  7. Click IMPORT.
    • Note: The import may time out due to file size, but import will continue in the background.
  8. Review the import results.

Note:  If the business database is not called Appian, a warning will occur when inspecting/importing the data stores. After the import is complete, open each data store object and update the Data Source to fix this.

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