What are the NEW features added in 21.4 Appian Release?

Hello, Appian Developers!

Hope you all are doing well and safe in this pandemic. So, today we are gonna learn about the new release of Appian i.e, 21.4 Appian Release. In this article, we will talk about the new things added to the 21.4 release of Appian. The Appian team is working hard and coming up with the new features, functions etc in its every release.

As far I have gone through the academy videos and community, I found that New features are added from mainly 6 topics which are newly added to the 21.4 Appian release.

1. Automation
2. Interface Design
3. Records
4. App Deployment and Monitoring
5. Application Design
6. Mobile App Development

I have not covered all the topics which are added to the 21.4 Appian Release. I covered the important features which are added to this new release, especially helpful for the freshers to Appian.

Records:

Skip Failed Syncs:

Now Appian introduced a new feature to Records, you can skip failed syncs. It means if your record type got syncs failed, this new feature will skip the failed syncs and it will simply use the data from the last successful sync.

You can turn Off-On skip failed syncs from record type object as below screenshot.

Alerts for Failed Syncs:

Now record type admins and system admins will receive an email if any syncs are failed or skipped without configuring any additional steps. This email alert will explain the details about record type failures and how you can troubleshoot to resolve this issue.

Important Points about Record Type:

• A single batch can be retried up to 3 times before failing.
• Up to 10 retries total before the entire sync fails.
• Enhancements to the record type object.
• "Search" is now "Search and User Filters" and "Views" is now "Views and Headers".
• Improved layout for configuring the record views.

Interface:

Appian introduced the new feature in the Interface i.e, Card Choice Component as a virtually engaging alternative to checkboxes and radio buttons.

We can also decorate the bar with cards to attract and enhance the user experience in terms of UI design.

Introduced two new interface patterns Tabs(Cards) and Tabs(Lightweight).

Appian introduced some new functions as below:

• a!keys()
• a!isNullOrEmpty()
• a! isNotNullOrEmpty()
• a!doesGroupExist()

The main feature which I love the most in the 21.4 Appian release is that now New Application will add the groups and folders automatically. While creating a new application, you can see an option to check if you want the application to create groups and folders automatically.

Once you checked the checkbox, you will see the below popup window that will show how groups and folders will be added automatically.

It will also use them in any new objects you create in the application which started with the application itself.

it specifies the default securities for the new objects.

 
Appian improved its searching functionality to search the applications faster by using the prefix of the application name.

Powerful New Design Capabilities:

• Wizards
• Custom Validations
• Cascading Dropdowns
• Conditional Displays

Please like and share if you like the new features of the 21.4 Appian release.

Happy Learning 😊!

Appian Associate Developer | Certification Exam Questions-Answers | L1-Certified Developer

Hi all, 

I hope everyone is doing well in this pandemic. Today I come up with an interesting topic about Appian Associate Developer which talks about the questions and answers for the L1 certification exam.

It might be some of few haven't heard about Appian, so I would like to tell you in short about What is an Appian?

Appian is a technology that is a low-code automation platform that enables customers to automate the most important aspects of their business. Oh! it might be not meaningful, in a simple way we can say that Appian is a tool where we can build applications rapidly with the help of drag and drop features as it has a low-code platform. Appian is the best BPM tool to develop the business workflow rapidly. Low-code enables building the apps rapidly, building once, and running/deploying anywhere as it is platform-independent. 

So, it is the overview of an Appian whatever I have explained above it. Many of you might be completed their training through Appian Community or their company, so this blog gonna help you a lot for your certification exam preparation for Appian Associate Developer.

I have tried to cover most of the questions asked in my certification exam and some of them I added as I am learning.

Let me tell you about the online exam first, there will be 60 MCQ questions and you will have 60 minutes to complete the exam, there are no negative marks. You have to score 62% to pass the exam. After the exam completion, you will receive an email where you could see your result as a Certified Associate Developer.

I am giving the right answer for each question, so you have to remember and please read the questions carefully before choosing the answer.

You will have the question from 3 topics, Appian, Database, and the Agile methodology.

Q1: How many pages we can use in Sites?

Ans: 5

Q2: Who will prioritize backlog refinement?

Ans: Product owner

Q3: How to send alerts to user groups?

Ans: By using custom error alert setting

Q4: How to start a process model from an Interface?

Ans: a!startProcessLink

Q5: User wants to select one particular color from a group of colors, what is the best approach?

Ans: Dropdown component

Q6: What is the batch size to retrieve all the data?

Ans: -1

Q7: What is the lowest level of permission required to delete a folder?

Ans: Administrator

Q8: Which environment is most common for user acceptance testing?

Ans: Staging environment

Q9: In the life cycle of scrum master, what is the definition of ready?

Ans: A list of criteria that a user story needs to meet in order to be added to a sprint.

Q10: A product owner and some or all of the team are reviewing our planning to the product owner's feedback. Which Agile ceremony is being described?

Ans:  Sprint Planning

Q11: Most accurate reason to use database view?

Ans: Views definition automatically update when dependent data structure tables are changed

Q12: When should you select the option to Create a new version of the XSD file?

Ans: When datatype (CDT) configurations are not acceptable through a datatype CDT designed

Q13: Primary key contains null values?

Ans: False

Q14: You want users to get back-to-back tasks, what will you apply in-process model?

Ans: Activity chaining

Q15: You want to generate documentation for a process model which two security permission can achieve this?

Ans: Editor and Administrator

Q16: If you enable more than one language in the user input task

Ans: configure the form tab of the task in each language

Q17: Which statement regarding starting a process is true?

Ans: Process messaging must be used to start a new process from within a running process

Q20: There is already data available outside the Appian. How do you get this data to Appian to create a record?

Ans: Service Backed

Q21: What is the output of ("="(Len(HELLO,5)) ?

Ans: =10

Q22: How to pass the input from the interface to the nested interface?

Ans: Rule Input

Q23: Life cycle of Appian Delivery Methodology?

Ans: Initiate, Build, Release, and Optimize

Q24: Which function allows you to trigger a process on interface revaluation and remain on the task?

Ans: a!startProcessLink

Q25: Process has multiple end nodes where each node is configured with the default in which situation will this process be terminated?

Ans: When the system administrator manually terminated the process

Q26: Appian best practices, what is the naming convention for an Interface?

Ans: <app_prefix>_NewRuleName

Q27: Appian best practices, what is the naming convention for a Constant?

Ans: <app_prefix>_NEW_CONSTANT_NAME

Q28: What purpose do default test values serve when creating an interface?

Ans: Pre-populated rule inputs give designers a representation of what end-user will see

Q29: Which option is most appropriate to assess the performance of a single interface?

Ans: Performance View

Q30: Existing record type, where do you go to select between a grid or a feed view?

Ans: In the list tab of the record

Q31: Given a direct URL to access a record view which configuration would allow the user this access?

Ans: Record type security is all that is required

Q32: Which Appian's objects don't have any security?

Ans: CDTs and Group Types

Q33: What does the recordType! domain do?

Ans: References data from a record

Q34: You are adding a new related action to a record which statement is true about this task?

Ans: After selecting a process model the context section is used to populate process model parameters

Q35: You need to create a record list that displays a link in one of the column cells which field property should you use for the link?

Ans: Display Value

Q36: You are looking for helpful checklists, tools, techniques, examples, and best practices for implementing Appian and managing Appian, which Appian resource should you use in this scenario?

Ans:  The developer playbook

Q37: Three roles of Agile?

Ans: Product owner, Scrum Master, and Developer

Q38: Deployment rollback is possible in the Appian?

Ans: No

Q39: What is Agile?

Ans: Agile is a Software development methodology

Q40: We can use JavaScript and Bootstrap in the Appian?

Ans: False

Q41: Interface cannot be reusable?

Ans: False

Q42: Which smart service will you use to save the data in the database?

Ans: Write To Data Store Entity

Q43: Daily scrum meeting for?

Ans: 15 minutes

Q45: CDT stands for?

Ans: Custom Data Type

Q46: What are the primitive data types in Appian?

Ans: Integer (Number), Integer (Decimal), Text, Boolean, and Date

Q47: Can we trigger a sub-process from the main process?

Ans: Yes

Q48: Name some functions which have no parameters?

Ans: loggedInUser(), now(), today() etc

Q49: Which function will add the new item in an array?

Ans: Insert()

Q50: Which function will you use to merge to array?

Ans: merge()

Mostly I have covered the important questions and answers for the Appian Associate Developer certification exam. I hope it will help a lot. If you found any wrong answer kindly comment. If it is helpful for you please share it as much as possible. All the best for your Exams.

Thank you for your time to read this blog😊.

Please comment if you want more articles about any technologies.