Manage Users

Overview

Users can be managed from a few places, depending on your role:

• System administrators can view, create, and modify users on the Users page in the Admin Console.
• All developers can access users from the Users view in Appian Designer.
• The Users record type in Tempo contains the user profiles for users of Appian.
  • You can also add the Users record type to a site page. A user can go here to view other users and to modify their own user profile.

Create a new user

System administrators can create new users.

To create a new user:

1. In the navigation menu, go to the Admin Console.
2. In the navigation pane, click Users under AUTHENTICATION. The Users page displays and contains a grid of the users in your environment.
3. Click CREATE. The Create User dialog displays.

4. Enter the user's Username. Usernames are case sensitive and cannot match existing usernames. For example, if "john.doe" already exists, you cannot enter "John.Doe".

   A username can only contain up to 255 ASCII letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers, and the special characters listed below:

   • At symbols (@)
   • Periods (.)
   • Underscores (_)
   • Hyphens (-)
   • Apostrophes (')

   Note:  If you plan on creating an application that restricts user visibility, be sure to create a username that is not personally identifiable, as usernames are still visible within the system even when a user's Contact Information and Display Name are restricted. Learn more about User Profile Visibility.

5. Enter the remaining information for the user:
   • First Name
   • Middle Name (Optional)
   • Last Name
   • Nickname (Optional)
   • Email (Must include the @ symbol and a domain such as .com)
   • Supervisor (Optional)
   • Title (Optional)
6. Specify the User Type to determine the user's rights and security:
   • Basic User: All users that are not system administrators. These users require additional roles to take action in Appian Designer.
   • System Administrator: Users that have access privileges to all tools and capabilities in Appian, can edit user roles, and create new administrators. System administrators are automatically added to the Designers group through a membership rule, but do not inherently have the designer role.
7. (Optional) Enter a Temporary Password and re-enter it in the Confirm Password field. If a password is not entered, it is automatically generated and sent to the user in an email. Regardless of whether or not you specify a password here, the password will be marked as temporary and the user will need to change it the next time they sign in.

   Note:  Passwords may be constrained to certain complexity or length requirements by your Appian administrator. Learn more about Appian Authentication.

8. Click CREATE to create the user and return to the users grid, or click CREATE & ADD ANOTHER to create the user and continue creating new users in the Create User dialog.

View and update users

There are three places where you can view and update the users in your environment:

• The Admin Console.
• Appian Designer.
• The User record type.

Admin Console

System administrators can view and search through a complete list of users in the Users page of the Admin Console.

When you search on first name, last name, or email address, Appian uses a "starts with" search. When you search on UUID, Appian uses an exact match search. You can also sort the users grid by these four fields and filter by the user's active or inactive status.

To update a specific user's information:

1. In the Admin Console, go to the Users page.
2. Click a username. The Update User dialog appears.

3. Modify any of the following fields:

   Section	Field	Description
   Profile	Username	The username used to log into Appain. Click Change to update the username. All usernames are case sensitive and can only contain up to 255 ASCII letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers, and special characters like the at symbol (@), periods (.), underscores (_), hyphens (-), and apostrophes (').
   	First Name	The user's first name.
   	Middle Name	The user's middle name, if applicable.
   	Last Name	The user's last name.
   	Nickname	A preferred or commonly used name for the user.
   	Supervisor	The name of the user's supervisor.
   	Title	The user's job title or position within the organization.
   Security	User Type	The user's rights within the system. They can be a Basic User or System Administrator.
   Contact	Email	The user's email address.
   	Office Phone	A phone number for the user's workplace or office.
   	Mobile Phone	The user's personal cell phone number.
   	Home Phone	The user's residential landline or phone number.
   Location	Address 1	The primary street address line. For example, 123 Main Street.
   	Address 2	An optional second line for the address. For example, Apt 4B or Suite 200.
   	Address 3	An additional address line for complex addresses.
   	City	The city or town name for the address.
   	State	The state for the address.
   	Province	The province for the address.
   	ZIP Code	The postal code for the address.
   	Country	The country for the address.
   Internationalization	Locale	Defines the language of text and the format of dates, times, and numbers for the user.
   	Time Zone	The user's local time zone to display dates and times.
   Custom Fields	Custom Fields 1 - 10	Customizable fields for storing additional, organization-specific information.
   Groups	Members of Groups	The groups that the user is a member of.
   	Administrator of Groups	The groups the user is an administrator of. Note that system administrators can administer all groups; only the system groups are listed here.

4. Click Change Photo to change the user's profile photo. You can upload a JPG image, which can be zoomed and cropped.
5. Click UPDATE.

Appian Designer

All developers can view and search through a complete list of users from the Users view in Appian Designer.

You can search by full name, username, and email. Appian returns any results that contain the search criteria. You can also sort the users grid by these three fields. System administrators can filter the grid by the user's active or inactive status.

To update a specific user's information in Appian Designer:

1. In the navigation menu, click Users.

   

2. System administrators can follow the same steps above for the Admin Console to update user information.
3. Basic users can modify their own user information and see a limited set of read-only details about the other users in the results.

User record type

The User record type allows you to reference user information in your interfaces and queries. By default, users can view the user profiles of other users, although you can determine who can see which user profiles by configuring record-level security.

Users can modify their own profiles from their User record, including their name, email address, office phone, mobile, location, profile photo, cover photo, and blurb (system administrators cannot modify other users' blurbs).

While system administrators can modify users' profiles, they cannot prevent users from modifying their own profiles. To restrict which fields a user can edit on their own profile, go to the User Profile page of the Admin Console.

Reset user password

System administrators can reset a user's password from the Admin Console. However, users can change their own password at any time from the Settings page in a site or Tempo.

To change a user's password:

1. In the navigation menu, go to the Admin Console.
2. In the navigation pane, click Users.
3. In the users grid, select the users that should have their passwords reset.
4. Click Reset Password. A new temporary password is emailed to each selected user.

Deactivate and reactivate users

System administrators can deactivate and reactive users from the Admin Console.

Deactivate users

If you deactivate a user, the user account is still present in the system, but the user cannot sign in. Additionally, any default and runtime object permissions for that user are revoked.

Running processes that were started by a user who was later deactivated will pause by exception. This will not happen immediately, but is guaranteed to happen no later than the next time the application server is restarted.

Process models or any node in a process model configured to run as their designer will fail to run if the designer user becomes deactivated. Also, when process models are imported from one environment to another, the user importing these applications becomes the process model designer. For these reasons, Appian recommends that applications be imported into test and production environments using a service account of type System Administrator that will not be deactivated.

To deactivate a user:

1. In the navigation menu, go to the Admin Console.
2. In the navigation pane, click Users.

3. In the users grid, select the users to be deactivated.

   Note:  The Administrator user account cannot be deactivated.

4. Click the Deactivate button on the grid toolbar. Appian prompts you to verify that you do want to deactivate the users in question.
5. Click Deactivate.

Reactivate users

When a user account is reactivated, the last login time is set to the current date and time to prevent the user from being immediately deactivated (if a policy is in place to do so for users who do not log into the system within a certain amount of time). Learn more about Appian Authentication.

To reactivate a user:

1. In the navigation menu, go to the Admin Console.
2. In the navigation pane, click Users.
3. For the Status filter, select Inactive to filter by all inactive users.
4. Select the users you want to reactivate.
5. Click REACTIVATE. The user is now reactivated and can sign in to the system. Users must reset the expired passwords when attempting to sign in.

Unlock users

When a user account is locked according to a password policy (such as having too many failed sign-in attempts within the designated time frame), a banner displays on the Update User dialog for that user. System administrators can unlock users from the Admin Console.

To unlock users:

1. In the navigation menu, go to the Admin Console.
2. In the navigation pane, click Users.
3. In the users grid, click the username of the user to be unlocked. The Update User dialog displays.

4. In the banner at the top of the dialog, click the Unlock User link. The user account is now unlocked, and the user can attempt to sign in again.

   

5. To dismiss the Update User dialog, click CANCEL.

Manage user rights and security

System administrators assign certain rights to a user by making the user a Basic User or a System Administrator.

• System Administrator accounts have administrative rights (the highest level of rights).
• Basic User accounts require additional roles. These roles are granted the necessary rights to perform various tasks, such as administering the objects they create. Basic users must be given the designer role to access Appian Designer.

To modify a user's type after creating the user:

1. Go to the Admin Console or Users view in Appian Designer.
2. Click the username in the Users grid. The Update User dialog opens.
3. For User Type, select Basic User or System Administrator.
4. Click Update. The user's rights are updated throughout the system and will take effect when the user next logs in.

Other User Rights

All user actions are verified using access control lists prior to execution. Individual objects can be secured by granting rights to individual users or groups based on group membership and user role maps.

Preferences

A basic user can select their preferred time zone, language, and calendar settings in Tempo. However, system administrators can override these individual settings in the Admin Console.

To set these preferences:

1. Click on the user profile in the header bar.
2. Click SETTINGS.
3. Configure your preferred user settings.
4. Click SAVE CHANGES.

Alerts

All email and mobile notifications can be configured individually by users. The server administrator can configure email notification settings for the entire site, but each individual user can override these settings for their own account.

Tempo

The following user rights are available to viewers of Tempo:

Ability	System Administrator	Basic User
View public events (events that are not targeted to any specific user).	Yes	Yes
View events targeted to a group the user belongs to.	Yes	Yes
View posts added by users the user is following.	Yes	Yes
Search for posts added by users the user does not have viewer rights to.	Yes	No
Post to his or her followers.	Yes	Yes
Post a comment on any visible feed entry.	Yes	Yes
Send a message to everyone.	Yes	No
Send a message to a user he or she does not have viewer rights to.	Yes	No
Send a message to a Tempo Message Audience Group the user is a part of.	Yes	Yes
Create a task for a user the user does not have viewer rights to.	Yes	No
View tasks assigned to the user or sent by the user.	Yes	Yes
View tasks assigned to other users.	Yes	No
Give kudos to other users.	Yes	Yes
View kudos given to other users.	Yes	Yes
View an action without view rights to the associated process model.	Yes	Yes
Take an action that is in a viewable process model and application.	Yes	Yes
Take an action without view rights to the associated process model.	No	No
Open a case without view rights to the associated process model.	No	No
View his or her own profile.	Yes	Yes
View a profile of a user they do not have viewer rights to.	Yes	No

Add users to groups

Users can be added to a group by navigating to the group in Appian Designer, and clicking Add Members in the toolbar or by configuring a membership rule.

See Group Management for more details.

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