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Appian Release Notes

Release Highlights

This release introduces many new and exciting features throughout the platform that help you improve the scalability, speed, and performance of your applications.

We're particularly excited to shine a spotlight on three standout features this release, which ensure your applications reliably serve your needs now and well into the future.

A more scalable and performant data fabric architecture

Appian is committed to providing scalable applications that grow with your business. That's why in this release we've enhanced our data fabric architecture to support greater scalability and performance throughout your applications and Process HQ.

With this improved foundation in place, you can now sync up to 10 million rows in each record type, and store unstructured data in your record fields!

Plus, you'll see overall performance and efficiency improvements in your sites and applications. During the data fabric enhancements beta program, participants experienced 5-10x faster performance for complex queries against record types with millions of rows – with some queries up to 40x faster! They also experienced up to 5x higher write throughput and a 90% reduction in storage space used.

Process hundreds of millions of pages with AI skills

In this release, we've also enhanced our AI architecture to support greater scalability and performance throughout your applications.

Your processes can now classify or extract data from hundreds of millions of pages per year thanks to improved smart service throughput. If your applications handle massive volumes of documents, you'll benefit from fewer delays and bottlenecks in document processing. And you'll see overall performance and efficiency improvements in processing time, allowing you to process up to 75x more documents per hour.

Add process KPIs to dashboards

This release, you can unify information from your process insights and data fabric insights into a centralized dashboard.

Now, you can simply drag and drop process KPIs onto your dashboard alongside your reports, allowing you to view all the relevant data from both process insights and data fabric insights at a glance.

And, each KPI has a link directly to your process, so you can quickly navigate right to your process or investigation.

Appian AI Copilot for business users

Through these features, AI Copilot helps business users be more productive and have an easier time working with applications.

Chat with your data and documents directly in your app

Note:  These features are available as a preview. Preview features are fully supported; however, they do not reflect the full functionality or performance of the feature yet.

Revolutionize the way you interact with your data and documents using the new a!dataFabricChatField() and a!documentsChatField() components. These functions let you embed AI-driven assistance directly into your applications, enabling real-time and context-aware conversations with your data and documents.

The new a!documentsChatField component is your gateway to smarter, document-driven conversations directly within your application. Engage with curated document sets, ask intelligent questions, and uncover actionable insights in real time—no environment switching needed!

Use the new a!dataFabricChatField component to integrate AI Copilot directly into your applications, making it easy to ask questions about your data fabric without switching environments. Whether your users want to find records that match their specific criteria or get information quickly, they'll see real-time answers right where you need them.

Appian AI Copilot for developers

AI Copilot for developers helps developers be more productive and have an easier time building applications.

New regions for sample data generation

This release expands the regional availability of AI Copilot for sample data generation to include the following regions:

  • Asia Pacific (Mumbai) ap-south-1
  • Canada (Central) ca-central-1
  • Europe (Ireland) eu-west-1
  • Europe (London) eu-west-2
  • Europe (Paris) eu-west-3
  • South America (Sao Paulo) sa-east-1

For a complete list of supported regions, see Security and Compliance.

AI Skills

AI skills enable you to build and configure artificial intelligence (AI) models to use in your processes. This release includes improved scalability and performance, and new logging capabilities to enhance AI skill management and compliance.

Easily monitor all AI usage

We are excited to introduce the AI audit log, designed to enhance enterprise security and accountability. This log helps you monitor and audit AI usage within your Appian environment, ensuring adherence to internal policies, industry standards, and regulatory requirements.

Administrators can also configure the audit log to capture additional details, including the inputs provided to the AI model and its response. This level of transparency empowers you to maintain control over AI usage while meeting evolving security and privacy standards.

Expanded token limits for document processing

Generative AI Skills now extract complete data from any compatible document, no matter how large or detailed the response, with no output token limit holding them back. AI Skills will continue processing automatically until all data is extracted–no extra effort from developers required!

New domains for AI Skill services

AI Skill services were updated to support the new ".us" domain for FedRAMP compliance. This change ensures the AI Skill services public URL remains FedRAMP compliant in Appian versions 24.2 and later.

To maintain access to these services, update your network allow list with the new AI Skill endpoints. For detailed instructions, refer to Add AI Skill endpoints to your network allow list.

RPA

Behind-the-scenes updates for RPA

We've made several behind-the-scenes updates to keep things running smoothly. There are no visible changes in this release, so you can continue developing as quickly and easily as always.

Autoscale

Autoscale combines low-code design and business process automation with unmatched scalability. This release, we're excited to introduce features that make it easier to debug and monitor these processes.

Autoscale receives compliance with multiple security frameworks

We're thrilled to announce that autoscale is now compliant with three important frameworks: FedRAMP Moderate, HIPAA, and PCI/DSS. This means autoscale meets the stringent security, privacy, and operational requirements for public sector, healthcare, and financial applications, opening the door for more applications to use this high-powered processing capability.

Stay tuned for further updates about Appian's security and compliance certifications.

Interactive playback of your autoscaled processes

Debugging your autoscaled processes is now much easier thanks to the new step-by-step playback. This all-in-one view gives you a high-level look at the state of the process and in-depth details about each node.

With the step-by-step playback of how your process ran, it's simpler to understand and visualize how data flows through your autoscaled process.

Stay up-to-date on autoscaled process errors with email alerts and log streaming

For quick, up-to-date information about your autoscaled process errors, we're introducing email alerts to help process administrators resolve issues faster.

Since these processes are running at high scale, we send the first error alert immediately to let you respond at once. If a process model triggers multiple errors, we'll condense all of those errors into a single email, so you can see the big picture of how the model is performing while avoiding error fatigue.

And for environments with log streaming enabled, autoscaled process logs are now available.

Kick off autoscaled processes directly from a portal

This release, you can easily leverage autoscaled processes in Appian Portals. We've enhanced our Portal Website Protections so your portals can kick off more autoscaled processes at the same time, enabling higher-scale usage.

Process HQ

Combining the latest technologies in data fabric, process mining, machine learning, and generative AI, Process HQ gives business users the power to explore data and identify timely insights they can use to optimize their business.

This release, we've given the home page a new look and feel, made it easier to combine your process and data fabric insights into unified dashboards, streamlined investigations of your process, and more!

Process HQ fully HITRUST certified

We're happy to announce that process insights joins data fabric insights in meeting all HITRUST requirements. HITRUST certification is a comprehensive security framework that provides a standardized and rigorous approach to managing risk and protecting sensitive information, including compliance with HIPAA.

Refreshed home page

We've updated the Process HQ home page to provide a more focused experience and give you easy access to your reports and dashboards. Jump back into your recently opened items, or browse all reports and dashboards to quickly see how your processes are performing.

Build and share dashboards that combine data and process

Your dashboards tell an important story with your data. We've already highlighted how you can tell a more comprehensive story by adding process KPIs to your dashboards. This release, you can also tailor which individual users can see your dashboards and more easily customize each dashboard's look.

Enhanced sharing for reports and dashboards

We've expanded the collaborative power of reports and dashboards. Now, report creators can share their reports and dashboards with any user in Process HQ—not just the Data Fabric Report Creators—allowing you to share the value of your insights with more people.

The option to share with individual users makes it easier to focus your shared items on the right audience. And, you can allow individual users to edit your reports, so you can work together to maintain your reports and dashboards.

Lastly, we've added the ability to share from more places. In addition to sharing from the home page, you can now share a report or dashboard while you are viewing or editing it.

Rearrange dashboards with highlighted drag and drop

In data fabric insights, we've made it easier to arrange your dashboard so it looks exactly the way you want. Whenever you drop in a new report or KPI, just look for the highlighted rectangles to add to any row or column in your dashboard.

Asynchronous dashboard reports

Last release, we improved the performance of dashboards in data fabric insights by loading KPI reports asynchronously. Now, charts will also load asynchronously, allowing you to jump into editing or analysis while more complex parts of your dashboard take the time they need to load.

Streamlined investigation of your processes

We've added more structure to the process insights workflow so you can move quickly from process overview to actionable conclusion. Each layer of analysis is highly visible as you bring your data into focus.

We start you off at the process page, where you can get to know your process as a whole with helpful metrics and visualizations.

From that process overview, you can create individual views to zoom in on meaningful segments of your process. Each view has its own redesigned page that displays the same system-provided KPIs and visualizations as the process page, tailored to show just the view-specific data. Here, you'll also be able to quickly customize your focus by creating your own KPIs.

For any KPI you create, we'll automatically generate a new KPI page that displays system-provided metrics and visualizations, this time narrowed down to just cases related to the KPI.

From the KPI page, you can drill down on specific characteristics of those related cases to get the most granular information about how your process operates. You can then assemble these details into an insight that lets you propose improvements to your organization.

With this streamlined presentation, you can reliably move from getting to know your process to knowing what you need to do to improve it.

Apply precise filters to your KPIs

You can now define your KPIs with even more precision, using a combination of multiple characteristics to examine and track your data.

Keep an eye on your KPIs with thresholds and alerts

To make it even easier to measure the health of your business processes at a glance, you can now set thresholds on duration KPIs to ensure your process is in line with your expectations.

You can also enable email alerts for threshold violations. Pick and choose which alerts come directly to your inbox, so that you can stay up-to-date with the state of your processes and be confident you'll never miss an issue.

Plus, we've streamlined the KPI configuration steps. You can now create Duration KPIs and SLA KPIs in one place—the Duration KPI template.

Collaborate faster with AI Copilot in occurrence insights

Once you've identified insights into your process, it's time to share those insights with your colleagues. Now AI Copilot makes that even faster, letting you automatically generate summaries for insights in occurrence investigations, just like in duration investigations. Use the suggested text to quickly draft useful summaries so you can improve collaboration across your organization.

Easily rename record types

Having record types with clear, descriptive names makes it easy for Process HQ users to understand the data they're working with. Now, data governors can edit the record type display name, which appears on a dataset in the Data Catalog and on a record type used in a process.

In just a click, data governors can provide clear display names that are useful to both business users and AI Copilot.

Data Fabric

Appian's data fabric stitches together data from multiple systems into a single, secure data model, so you can build applications quickly. This release, we're excited to introduce field-level security, support unstructured data in your record types, and a modernized look and feel to your record views and actions.

Sync 10 million rows per record type

As your organization's data needs grow, we've ensured that your data fabric can grow with you by increasing the number of rows you can sync in each record type—from 4 million to 10 million rows!

Configure field-level security

It's already easy to secure each row of enterprise data using record-level security, and now it's just as easy to secure each of your fields with field-level security.

Using a familiar low-code experience, you can determine who can see which fields in your record type. Then, we'll automatically apply that security throughout your apps and Process HQ, so users can see only the fields they need, where they need them.

In some scenarios, a field will show null values if a user doesn't have access to it. To reduce confusion and visual clutter, you can use the a!doesUserHaveFieldAccess() function to hide fields a user doesn't have access to see.

With field-level security, you have greater control over who can see your enterprise data.

Store unstructured data

We know that your data models often have fields that contain a lot of text, like support case descriptions or survey responses. Now, you can use our new Extra Long Text data type to store field values up to 64,000 characters.

Modernized record views and actions

With generated record views and actions, it's already quick and easy to set up the views and actions you need. Now, we're giving these generated views and actions a fresh look and feel.

And, we've built in intuitive and quickly customizable defaults that will give you a jump start on building great user experiences. For example, we'll automatically choose the best field type for your inputs, such as using a paragraph component for longer text fields like descriptions.

Cleaner record view tabs

We've streamlined record views by automatically hiding record view tabs when there is only one view configured. This provides a cleaner interface for users, making it easier to focus on the content that matters most.

Write to multiple record types at once

Writing data just got easier! Now, you can use the Write Records smart service to create or update data in multiple record types—even if they aren't related. Just specify one or more record types to update, and we'll immediately write all of your changes in a single database transaction.

Easily configure unique fields in your data model

Now, you can configure unique fields in your service-backed record types so you can unlock additional relationships. For example, you can use a unique field on the "one-side" of a one-to-many relationship or on either side of a one-to-one relationship—connecting even more of your enterprise data.

Sync data in batches using URLs, URIs, cursors, or tokens

Web services often use different paging methods to return data, so this release, we're introducing a new way to page through and sync data from your external systems. Now, you can use the data returned from your integration to determine the next page of results. This allows you to page by dynamic values like URLs, URIs, cursors, or tokens.

You can easily get started by generating a record data source that uses the Batch by Text, URL, or URI method. This will automatically create an expression rule that uses the a!pageResponse() function to return the data you need and identify where the next page of results are located.

With this additional paging method, you can unify even more of your enterprise data in Appian.

Seamlessly remap record fields to different source fields

Today, it's easy to remap your record fields if you need to resolve a schema mismatch. Now, we're expanding these capabilities so that you can easily remap fields if you change the source of your record type. With just a click, you can map your existing fields to the fields in your new data source.

Power up custom record fields with the enhanced a!customFieldMatch()

We've enhanced the a!customFieldMatch() function so you can build custom record fields with conditional logic using as many record fields as you need.

And, you can now use custom record fields created with a!customFieldMatch() to filter data in a!measure()—allowing you to filter aggregations in your queries, grids, and charts.

Case Management Studio

This release, we're continuing to improve Case Management Studio to best fit your case process needs with enhancements to case and task routing, powerful new task types, and numerous quality of life improvements.

Simplify assignments for both cases and tasks

This release, we're making it even faster and easier for you to dynamically assign cases and tasks to the right people every time.

Case assignment

New automation rules for case assignment allow you to define conditional logic to specify which users and groups cases are initially assigned to, as well as dynamically adjust case assignment for in-progress workflows. Not only can you configure the conditional logic to assign and reassign cases based on specific events, such as when a case is created, a case is updated, or a case field is updated, but you can configure it all using our no-code design tools.

Task assignment

In addition to new automation rules for case assignment, we're enhancing our existing task assignment capabilities to provide advanced configurations for conditional task assignment.

The advanced configurations give you even more granular control over your workflows by allowing you to select from multiple task assignment types. These allow you to assign tasks rotationally, to those with the most capacity, or to a shared queue for case workers to pick up as needed.

Our built in, no-code task assignment capabilities allow you to intelligently assign tasks in the way that best fits your needs using tools that require minimal effort and provide maximum results.

Create cases in workflow with the Create Case task type

Our new Create Case task type allows you to create new cases directly from a case workflow, helping you to organize work into distinct cases and create more flexible workflows.

When you create a new case using this task type, we'll go ahead and link the new case to the original for you. And both the new and original cases will automatically appear as related cases in both summary pages—no extra steps or configurations required!

Send customizable emails with the Send Email task type

This release, we're also introducing another new task type; the Send Email task type. Not only does this task type allow you to send emails directly from a workflow, but it also allows you to create reusable, standardized email templates for those emails. And, each email can be fine-tuned with ad-hoc adjustments specific to the case for each task.

This task type combines the ease of reuse, the predictability of standardization, and the confidence that every email is personalized to the recipient every time.

Case Management Studio quality of life updates

In Case Management Studio, we're dedicated to not only providing big new features, but also improving the quality of life for developers and business users alike. This release we have three enhancements to help your cases and workflows run as smoothly as possible: recreating task instances, auto-resolving un-used activities, and more granular control over case and task SLAs.

Many common workflows require users to go back through a previous activity or step in a workflow. Now, we’ll create a new version of the task each time a user re-does it. This allows you to keep track of your historical data and improves the quality of your findings in process insights.

Not every path and activity in your workflow is going to be used every time. So, we will now automatically resolve all activities on unused paths, saving you time and manual effort.

Both case and task SLAs now have more configuration options. You can now set SLAs and their related due dates in days, hours, and minutes. And we've added a progress bar to allow you to more quickly and easily see where the case or task is in the process.

Sites and Portals

Appian enables you to create superior, seamless experiences across desktop and mobile devices for all your users using portals and sites. This release, we've made portal publishing simpler, while also giving you new branding options and making it easier for users to share encrypted links.

Simplified portal publishing

We've updated the portal design experience to no longer prevent your portal from publishing due to potential errors, allowing you to more easily catch and fix issues. Now, just like in sites, the published portal will update with your changes and the portal object will display helpful guidance on how to resolve any issues. With simplified portal publishing, you can be sure that your portal always reflects your latest changes.

Match your branding more closely with new options

This release we're bringing you new branding options that allow you to customize the look and feel of your sites and portals.

You can now specify the capitalization for all button labels and configure the shape of dialogs and tooltips. Because these configurations automatically apply to all interfaces in a site or portal, they will save you time while allowing you to better match your branding and design guidelines.

Shorter encrypted URL parameters

We've shortened the length of encrypted URL parameters created using a!urlForPortal and a!urlForSite, making it easier for users to share tailored links to specific information without reducing security. The shorter URL parameters will automatically apply to all newly generated links, while keeping your existing links fully functional.

New standard logo on sites

Last release, we started implementing a standard Appian logo on site navigation bars in certain Appian Cloud environments. This release, sites in all Appian Cloud and self-managed environments will display this logo.

pal_logo

Interfaces

Appian makes it easy to build beautiful, information-dense interfaces that you can use throughout your applications. This release, we're bringing you exciting improvements to grids, forms, milestones, and selection components, while also giving you a speedier experience when designing interfaces.

Help your users stay organized with drag and drop grid row reordering

We're excited to introduce grid row reordering for editable grids. Now, your users can easily reorder tasks in workflows or prioritize to-do lists by simply clicking and dragging them to the desired position. You can easily enable this capability for your users in just a few clicks—no custom code or complex configuration required!

Fine tune form formatting

This release, we're giving you more control over the look and feel of your forms. It's now faster and easier to fine-tune spacing above and below input components like text fields and checkboxes with new margin parameters. And, new parameters for form layout allow you to set the form width, background color, fixed header position, and divider line visibility. With these new capabilities, we're empowering you to create visually appealing and functional form experiences with even simpler expressions.

Gif showing a form with different spacing between components

Designing interfaces just got faster

You'll notice that interface objects now load much faster while designing—with performance improvements of up to 400%! These performance enhancements scale based on the complexity of the interface, so larger and more intricate designs will see the biggest boost in speed.

Quickly configure more modern milestone styles

Creating milestones just got easier. You can now choose from three milestone styles, allowing you to quickly configure modern and intuitive status indicators and wizard steps.

Improved flexibility in records-powered selection components

This release, we've enhanced some of our most popular records-powered components, like dropdowns, radio buttons, and checkboxes. Now, you can format and display multiple record fields in the Choice Labels parameter to provide users with more information and help them easily differentiate between options.

And, you can sort by the exact values in your choice labels by simply referencing choiceLabels in your sort.

Appian Mobile

Appian Mobile enables users to monitor, collaborate, and take action on their applications, all from the convenience of their iOS and Android device. This release, we're bringing you improvements that elevate the user experience with offline tasks and simplify the design of offline custom task reports.

Improved user experience for completed offline tasks

With the new a!submittedOfflineTaskIds() function, we're giving you the power to optimize the user experience of offline tasks. This function returns a list of task IDs for submitted offline tasks, making it simple for you to remove completed tasks from custom task reports when they are no longer needed. With this function, we're helping you to build more seamless offline user experiences to meet the evolving needs of your mobile workforce.

Simplify your offline design with expanded support for offline site pages

Offline mobile now supports offline-enabled interfaces that are added directly as site pages. This new capability gives you more flexibility for designing read-only interfaces for offline experiences, such as custom task reports.

Administration

Each release, we continue to give administrators more control over how they manage, secure, and administer their Appian environments. This release, we're excited to share streamline component plug-in deployments for self-managed customers, an upgraded Cloud Database version, and Enhanced Business Continuity available in more regions.

Streamlined component plug-in deployment for self-managed customers

Component plug-ins can now be deployed on self-managed instances without a Developer Token or signature. This change streamlines the plug-in development process, making it faster and easier for developers to create and deploy custom UI components.

Upgraded Cloud Database to version 10.6.18

Your Appian Cloud Database (MariaDB) has now been upgraded to version 10.6.18 by default.

Enhanced Business Continuity available for European commercial AWS regions

Enhanced Business Continuity for Appian Cloud now supports sites in multiple European regions:

  • Frankfurt
  • Zurich
  • Stockholm
  • Milan
  • Ireland
  • London
  • Paris

A site in one of these regions can be configured to backup to another of these regions.

Resolved General Issues

  • AN-302637 - High
    Fixed a rare issue that prevented the Appian Site from accessing AI Skills, Process Insights, and Portals features.
  • AN-241158 - High
    Fixed a bug when importing a new data type version, removing the need to republish process models in order for them to use the latest version of the data type.
  • AN-291308 - Medium
    Fixed an issue which caused 404 errors to show in the browser tools when opening a portal page.
  • AN-284721 - Medium
    Fixed an issue where the sites metrics log was not getting populated with logs for Oracle backed environments.
  • AN-303168 - Low
    Fixed the incorrect warning which displayed for the a!tagItem() function in the portal designer view.
  • AN-299254 - Low
    During application server startup, the log now includes periodic output that lists which engines the application server is waiting on.
  • AN-305735 - Low
    Fixed an issue that in rare cases could cause incorrect filter evaluation due to rounding errors for query filters comparing Decimal and Integer types.
  • AN-285287 - Low
    Fixed an issue where secondary sort info was not provided in the results of aggregation queries for synced record types.
  • AN-305737 - Low
    Fixed an issue that caused custom record fields calculating date differences to return incorrect results for negative differences where the start date is after the end date.
  • AN-288517 - Low
    Fixed an issue that occasionally caused one-to-many related data to be sorted incorrectly for queries relying on default sorting behavior.

Resolved Accessibility Issues

  • AN-255823 - High
    Fixed an issue where the single or first option in a picker list was not announced by screen readers on initial search.
  • AN-272225 - High
    Fixed an issue where a card choice component displaying a validation was not programmatically indicated as being invalid.
  • AN-275463- Medium
    Improved the accessibility of field labels by removing redundant announcements of requiredness and the help tooltip text.
  • AN-254937 - Medium
    Fixed an issue on the Forgot Password page where the instructions were not programmatically associated with the input.
  • AN-208890 - Medium
    Improved the accessibility of grid fields by preserving focus within the paging controls, even as controls become disabled.
  • AN-204763 - Low
    Fixed an issue on the Change Password page where errors were not being announced by screen readers and invalid form fields were not programmatically indicated as being invalid.
  • AN-298597 - Low
    Improved the perceived color contrast of placeholder text for all input components by increasing the font weight.
  • AN-294769 - Low
    Fixed an issue in grid fields where components that did not have accessibility text were incorrectly defined.
  • AN-272213 - Low
    Fixed an issue where required card choice field options were incorrectly defined.
  • AN-297190 - Low
    Fixed an issue in the User Settings dialog where toggles were not programmatically associated with their corresponding label.
  • AN-274850 - Low
    Fixed an issue where the screen reader announcement was incorrect for picker components that were required, had no field label, and had reached the maximum number of selections.

Evolutions

The following capabilities have a newer, improved version in this release.

a!queryRecordType()

The a!queryRecordType() function was evolved so that the default value for fetchTotalCount parameter is now false. This parameter is no longer returned automatically in queries to synced record types. With this evolution, you'll notice faster queries when the fetchTotalCount parameter is false.

Existing, old versions of this function in your applications will continue to function normally, but will be renamed on upgrade to indicate that they are older versions. As always, make sure you are using the right version of the docs for your version of Appian. See Function and Component Versions for more information.

Process investigations

In Process HQ, process investigations have evolved so that insights are associated with a related KPI, instead of an investigation. On upgrade, existing insights are automatically associated with appropriate KPIs and can be accessed from both the view and KPI pages. Users are now be able to drill down and create insights from these places in the workflow as well.

Deprecations

The features listed below are deprecated and will be removed in a future release of Appian. Do not begin using deprecated features, and transition away from any prior usage of now deprecated features. Where applicable, supported alternatives are described for each deprecation.

End-of-support for older versions of RDBMS

The following relational database management systems (RDBMS) either have already reached or are approaching the standard end-of-support dates set by their vendors and will no longer be supported in a future release of Appian. Customers are strongly advised to upgrade to a newer supported version.

Removals

The features listed below have been removed from Appian and can no longer be used.

End-of-support for older versions of RDBMS

The following relational database management systems (RDBMS) have already reached the standard end-of-support dates set by their vendors and are no longer supported in Appian.

RDBMS End-of-support Date
Oracle 12c R2 31-Dec-2024
Oracle 12c R1 31-Dec-2024

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