Appian 24.1 Product Announcement Webinar
Summary
TLDRThe Appian 24.1 product announcement webinar, led by Senior Vice President Malcolm Ross, introduced new features and enhancements to the Appian platform. The event highlighted the upcoming Appian World Conference in April 2024, featuring a developer day and a Live Build Challenge. James Lee, head of the product evangelism team, discussed evolving webinar formats for better engagement. Rachel Raider and Kevin Fon, product managers, presented on case management capabilities and total experience enhancements, respectively. Lewis Pry, another product manager, covered automation improvements, including robotic process automation and AI skills. Lisa Graham detailed data fabric enhancements, and Elizabeth Hall provided updates on beta programs. April Shel, Senior Product Evangelist, discussed community initiatives, including a new Community Edition experience and the Appian World Conference's developer-focused events. The webinar concluded with a look at the new one-stop shop for practitioner enablement on the Appian Community site.
Takeaways
- 📅 Appian World 2024 is scheduled for April 15th to 17th at the National Harbor venue in Washington DC.
- 🎓 Appian Developer Day will be a pre-conference event on April 15th, featuring interactive sessions and a live build challenge.
- 🚀 Appian 24.1 will be released on March 1st, with quarterly releases planned for May, August, and November.
- 💡 New low-code design capabilities include adding descriptions to rule inputs for better development context.
- 🌟 Case Management Studio has been introduced to allow rapid development of customized Case Management Solutions.
- 📈 Total Experience enhancements include a new sidebar layout for portals, rich text editor, and Google Maps components availability in portals.
- 🔍 Portal monitoring has been improved with an error count link for quick access to error details and monitoring across environments.
- 🏅 FedRAMP compliant portals are now available for GovCloud customers, aligning with high security standards for federal agencies.
- 🤖 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) integration is now more seamless with a new version of the execute robotic tasks smart service.
- 🧠 Generative AI applications are being highlighted, with the Prompt Builder AI skill allowing users to create and integrate AI models into processes.
- 🌐 Self-service analytics have been enhanced, providing more control over record types available for reporting and new chart design capabilities.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the webinar?
-The main topic of the webinar is the Appian 24.1 product announcement, which includes new features and enhancements to the Appian platform.
Who is the senior vice president of product strategy at Appian?
-Malcolm Ross is the senior vice president of product strategy at Appian.
What is the role of James Lee at Appian?
-James Lee heads the product evangelism team at Appian, focusing on how people experience the Appian product in the market.
When is Appian World scheduled for in 2024?
-Appian World is scheduled for April 15th to 17th, 2024.
What is the purpose of the new Case Management Studio introduced by Appian?
-The Case Management Studio is designed to allow rapid development of customized Case Management Solutions with pre-built and configured applications and supporting objects.
What is the new feature added to the sidebar layout in both sites and portals?
-The new feature added to the sidebar layout in both sites and portals is the ability to collapse the sidebar, allowing users to spotlight page contents when navigational context is not needed.
How has the process of creating service accounts been improved in this release?
-The process of creating service accounts has been improved by allowing direct selection of groups to add the account to within the portal object, streamlining the workflow and reducing time and effort.
What is the significance of the new sync option for record data in Appian 24.1?
-The new sync option allows users to target specific records that should be synced based on a field that signifies business change or growth, ensuring that the most recent data is always accessible.
What is the benefit of the new process execution engine in the beta program?
-The new process execution engine provides elastic scalability for unattended processes, allowing it to accommodate varying workloads and spikes in demand without compromising performance or requiring downtime.
How has the Appian Community Edition experience been enhanced?
-The Appian Community Edition experience has been enhanced with a new app that offers a more intuitive, intelligent, and collaborative process mining experience, and it is now easier to register due to single sign-on with the Appian Community.
What are some of the new capabilities introduced in the data fabric of Appian 24.1?
-New capabilities in the data fabric include a new sync option for record data, improved process history tab for easier auditing, enhancements to the Right Record smart service, and a new query performance tab for monitoring query performance.
Outlines
🎉 Appian 24.1 Product Announcement Webinar Introduction
Malcolm Ross, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy, welcomes attendees to the Appian 24.1 product announcement webinar. He introduces James Lee, head of the product evangelism team, and discusses the evolution of webinar formats to better serve developers. They invite feedback on the format through a survey and announce Appian World 2024, scheduled for April 15-17 in Washington DC, with a focus on core product capabilities and a developer day featuring interactive sessions and a live build challenge event.
📅 Appian 24.1 Release Schedule and Low-Code Design Capabilities
Appian 24.1 is set to release on March 1st, with subsequent releases planned for May, August, and November. New low-code design capabilities include the ability to add descriptions to rule inputs, enhancing the development process. Rachel Raider, Senior Manager of Product Management, discusses case management solutions and introduces Case Management Studio, which streamlines case resolution with features like workflow visualization, dynamic tasks, and document management.
💡 Total Experience Offering Enhancements
Kevin Fon, Senior Product Manager, highlights improvements to the total experience offering, making it easier to build modern and insightful applications. Enhancements include a new sidebar layout for portals, expanded component plugins, compatibility with portals for query record by identifier, streamlined service account creation, and new design guidance for portal interfaces. Additionally, portal monitoring is improved, and FedRAMP compliant portals are now available for GovCloud customers.
🔍 Site and Component Interface Enhancements
Updates to site navigation and interface components are discussed, including a restyled user navigator menu, default profile photo updates, and new layout components like the pain layout and KPI component. Enhancements to multilingual experiences allow for easier testing and previewing of interfaces in different locales. Mobile improvements include automatic recovery of tasks, offline task completion, and improved signature behavior on mobile interfaces.
🤖 Automation Innovations with Robotic Process Automation
Lewis Prky, Senior Product Manager, introduces enhancements to automation capabilities, including seamless integration of robotic tasks into process models and an enhanced robot management dashboard. Robot Keys become the default authentication mechanism for increased security. The get table values low-code action is now part of the task recorder, and document extraction AI skill is improved for better data extraction from documents. Generative AI is introduced through the prompt Builder AI skill, demonstrated in an insurance claims automation use case.
✨ Data Fabric Enhancements and Sync Options
Lisa Graham, Senior Product Manager, discusses new data fabric enhancements, including a new sync option that targets specific records for syncing without exceeding the 4 million row limit. The process history tab is improved for easier auditing of record data changes. The right record smart service is updated to preserve input data and allow more flexibility in writing to base record types. A new query performance tab is introduced for monitoring query performance, and custom JDBC connected system objects are simplified with new database support.
🌟 Self-Service Analytics and Beta Program Updates
Elizabeth Hall, Senior Beta Program Manager, provides an update on the process mining experience beta program and the new process execution engine for unattended processes. Enterprise-grade capabilities are introduced, including Azure Active Directory authentication methods for SQL Server, simplified plugin deployment, multi-factor authentication, and third-party OAuth provider support. A new design object log is added for monitoring changes to objects, and database enhancements are announced for improved performance.
📚 Community Edition Experience and Developer Resources
April Shel, Senior Product Evangelist, unveils the new Appian Community Edition experience and recognizes top community discussion leaders. She discusses the results of the 2023 developer sentiment survey and highlights the growth of the Appian Market. New learning paths, training content, and YouTube channel content are announced to support developers. Upcoming live streams and the Appian World 2024 conference are previewed, with details on the developer day, community hub, and the Live Build Challenge.
📈 One-Stop Shop for Practitioner Enablement and Webinar Conclusion
April Shel introduces a one-stop shop for the latest releases, featuring a comprehensive resource center with feature highlights, training, and Q&A summaries. She encourages feedback through the webinar survey and thanks attendees for joining the Appian 24.1 product announcement webinar. The next product announcement webinar is teased for mid-May, covering the 24.2 product release.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Appian 24.1
💡Product Strategy
💡Case Management Studio
💡Total Experience
💡Automation
💡Data Fabric
💡Self-Service Analytics
💡Beta Programs
💡Appian World
💡Developer Community
💡Generative AI
Highlights
Appian 24.1 product announcement webinar introduced by Malcolm Ross, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy.
James Lee, head of the product evangelism team, will collaborate to deliver engaging content for developers in 2024.
Appian World scheduled for spring 2024, taking place at the National Harbor venue in Washington DC from April 15th to 17th.
Appian Developer Day will be a pre-conference day with interactive sessions for developers on April 15th.
Live Build Challenge event will be held at Appian World, offering a special team-based approach for participants.
Free certification exams will be available at Appian World, providing a great opportunity for professional development.
Appian 24.1 will release on March 1st, 2024, with quarterly releases planned for May, August, and November.
New low-code design capabilities allow adding descriptions to rule inputs for streamlined development processes.
Case Management Studio introduced to help customers develop customized Case Management Solutions quickly.
Total Experience enhancements include a new sidebar layout for portals and improved record query performance.
FedRAMP compliant portals are now available for GovCloud customers, aligning with the latest industry security standards.
Multilingual experience improvements allow for easier testing and previewing of interfaces in any Appian supported locale.
Mobile offering enhancements include automatic recovery of tasks and improved signature behavior on mobile interfaces.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) enhancements allow seamless integration of robotic tasks into process models.
Prompt Builder AI skill introduced for generative AI, enabling users to create prompts for AI models to follow.
Data Fabric enhancements include new sync options and improved query performance monitoring.
Self-service analytics updates provide more control and flexibility for end users to create impactful data views.
Beta programs for process mining experience and a new process execution engine for unattended processes are currently in progress.
Enterprise-grade capabilities include Azure Active Directory authentication methods and simplified plugin deployment.
Appian Community Edition experience unveiled for hands-on experience with the Appian platform.
Appian World 2024 promises an expanded Developer Day, Community Hub, and an enhanced Live Build Challenge with a $30,000 cash prize.
Transcripts
welcome everyone you're at the appion
24.1 product announcement webinar my
name is Malcolm Ross senior vice
president of product strategy I'll be
walking you through today's content but
we have some special announcements to
start with before we get into the
content I'm really happy to have been
helping you as developers of the appion
software for 12 years now but we're
looking forward to evolving the appion
24.1 and future product announcement
webinar formats to better suit your
needs and give you more detailed
engaging content with that I'm happy to
involve James Lee who heads our product
evangelism team to help think about how
we can best deliver this content in 2024
and into the future James why don't you
introduce yourself to the audience here
thanks Malcolm excited to be here and
excited to be collaborating with you uh
on this product release uh so let me
talk a little bit about myself I've been
at appan for just about 5 years I joined
into our Cloud support team so got to
learn a lot about our platform and Cloud
architecture I then moved over into our
Marketing Group to help Drive Community
programs and grow our developer
community so to the developers on the
call really thankful to have you here as
well um and as Malcolm mentioned I've
recently headed up the newly formed
product evangelism team here at appion
really focusing on how people experience
the appion product in Market whether
it's presentations like this our
Keynotes at our conference event even
the very popular Live Build Challenge
that April shup on my team helps support
at our different Regional events so
overall really excited to be here and
really excited to be collaborating on
some of these latest and greatest
Innovations coming up of the happy and
product now today of course we're going
to be doing a traditional webinar format
where we go through the topics go
through all the feature details and
James along with our product management
team are going to help facilitate that
but we also want your feedback so if you
check out that link that we're going to
push through big marker right now it's
going to link to a survey that we really
appreciate your feedback on how we can
better evolve this we have better ideas
to maybe think about a Consolidated web
experience that gives you all this
information in one place activating more
YouTube live streams and other types of
formats that might be more engaging to
connect with other developers and of
course our product managers to go more
deeply and understand the appan products
set we so appreciate you taking the time
to fill out the survey really look
forward to your feedback but first of
course we're happy to announce that
appan world is going to be once again
scheduled for the spring of
2024 so mark that calendar on April 15th
to 17th we hope to see you in the
Washington DC this year at the National
Harbor venue to learn more check out
appan world.com or follow that big
marker link that we're going to pop up
to you right now and as a preview for
the agenda we have lots of great content
focused on the core capabilities of the
product we're going to keep this very
product centr interest this year so if
you're Appian practitioner developer you
don't want to miss out those sessions on
generative AI applications in your
solution around the latest capabilities
of app and data Fabric and of course the
larger automation capabilities of the
entire platform as well so really look
forward to seeing you there check out
the agenda there also at appn
world.com but for you specifically we
are going to be running the appen
developer day again so this going to be
the pre-conference day on April 15th
again this is going to be jam-packed
with more interactive sessions for
developers who want to go deep in
exploring the appm product and of course
we have lots of great activities James
also what do you have planned for appn
developer day yeah Malcolm we have a
great program coming for developer day
but uh one highlight that I think we'll
get to at the end of this webinar with
April shup is going to be our live build
challenge event so developers you're
going to get a lot out of attending the
conference this year just like every
year um so they make sure to stay tuned
for that for that portion at the end
yeah we don't want to miss the live Bill
Challenge and of course April Shel as he
said is going to cover all the details
about how to register and participate in
that live Bill challenge we have
actually I think a special teams
approach this year which is going to
allow even more people to get up on
stage and show their show their chops
right exactly everyone loves a good
tournament ladder match so we're looking
forward to the we're looking forward to
the present a this year for sure yeah
looking forward to see who Rises to the
challenge awesome and to continue on on
the developer Focus for appion World
we're really excited to bring back uh
the free certifications exams at appion
World this year this is something we did
last year that was very popular um it's
a $200 exam typically so this is a great
justification for your your bosses and
managers to send you to appion world and
get hands- on with all this great
content so if you are interested in
registering registration opens at the
end of February so be sure to look out
for that information
and you know register your interest to
do your certification at appion World
this year yeah that was a huge success
at the San Diego event we had last year
I think we had hundreds of people online
take or in person taking those free
certification exams and he said these
exams you know you definitely need to
study before you come in uh you want to
pass it but as well those are proctored
exams which do have that $200 cost so
this is again as you mentioned James a
great benefit to go to your manager and
say I really need to be an app in world
because it's included in the cost of the
ticket to the apan world event to take
that certification exam so I hope to see
you there couldn't agree more Malcolm
all right now getting into the release
content for today appion 24.1 will be
releasing next Friday March 1st and
again you can expect a quarterly release
Cadence from appan with the other
releases this year coming in May August
and
November so as we just mentioned appion
24.1 will be releasing March 1st which
is next Friday uh at that point you can
then schedule your Cloud environments
for upgrades to the latest version of
appen or for our self-managed customers
you can find a installer download
available within appan
form now to kick things off let's go
over some of our new low code design
capabilities firstly you can now add
descriptions to rule inputs whenever you
use the save selected expression as
option in the expression editor rule
input descriptions help help streamline
your development process by giving
fellow developers valuable context where
they need it now continuing from there
I'm excited to invite Rachel Raider
senior manager of product management to
share a bit more about some of the
Innovations we've been making to our
case management capabilities Rachel over
to
you hi everyone I'm Rachel Raider and
I'm here to talk about case
management to help customers develop
Case Management Solutions quickly appan
has created case management Studio
a suite of applications and supporting
objects that have been pre-built and
configured to allow rapid development of
customized Case Management Solutions
here we can see the first part of case
management studio called workspace
workspace is a site that empowers case
workers and managers to make informed
decisions with confidence by providing
everything they need to quickly and
efficiently resolve cases case workers
and managers have case records workflow
visualization Dynamic tasks and document
management right at their fingertips and
with including included email
notifications tracking reporting and
auditing your team has total visibility
into each case's status and progress
workspace also includes a public portal
module for case management use cases
that include unauthenticated
users next let's move on to Studio a
site where business users can configure
the functionality available in the
workspace in studio you start by
organizing case types into categories
according to your business needs this
hierarchy is automatically available
when case workers open new cases in
workspace or when end users open new
cases from the public
portal let's take a look at the
workplace safety case type in the
incident category here you can build out
your data fabric by adding fields that
are unique to the case type shared by
All Case types in the category or common
to all case types in the system each new
case type in the category or in the
system will have those common fields
already included which saves time and
enables robust reporting on those shared
Fields customize case workflows with
configurable tasks which can be created
edited rearranged and reused across
workflows once you've created a task you
can optionally add it to a task block
task blocks allow you to create flexible
reusable paths that can also be reused
across workflows so you don't have to
reconfigure the same series of tasks
over and
over to make it easy for case workers to
see how far along a case is you can
organize a case type's tasks into
Milestones while building out a case
typees workflow you can Branch into
multiple par tasks and bring multiple
flows back together into a single task
task block or a milestone according to
your business
needs one of the most important parts of
a workflow is the intake form that
people use to open a new case you can
design this form directly in studio
using a sleek and simplified version of
aion's classic Dragon drop the form
preview shows the actual step-by-step
wizard that users will see when they use
this form in workspace the editing
experience makes it easy to see all the
wizard Pages at once so you can can move
components around or even rearrange
Pages as needed forms built in studio
are real appion interfaces so if you
need even more customizations you can
always edit the forms in
designer finish configuring a case type
by choosing which Fields will appear on
the case summary in workspace drag and
drop fields to get them in your
preferred order and the summary
interface will automatically display a
readon version of that data
field this page is also where you can
figure the form that case workers use if
they need to edit an inflight case this
experience is similar to building the
intake form and if you've already built
your intake form you will be offered the
choice to copy that form as a starting
point for the edit
form this wraps up our segment on case
management
Studio thank you Rachel I can't wait to
see how people use these Innovative case
management capabilities to empower their
business
users next I'm going to pass it over to
Kevin Fon senior product manager at
appion to go over some of our latest
total experience capabilities Kevin over
to
you thanks James I'm excited to be back
today to talk about some of the great
enhancements we've made to our total
experience offering this release we've
made it easier than ever to build modern
and insightful applications that engage
your users no matter the local or device
I'm really excited about all of the
enhancements we have this quarter so
without further Ado let's take a look at
what you can look forward to this
release last release we delivered a new
sidebar lay out for sites to help you
create modern looking uis with Sleek
navigation options for your users this
release we've added the same sidebar
layout to portals providing you with
more flexible design options for your
portal styling and navigation we've also
enhanced the sidebar layout for both
sites and portals the sidebar is now
collapsible allowing your end users to
Spotlight page contents when they don't
need navigational context and best of
all no additional configurations are
necessary on upgrade collapsibility will
automatically be enabled on all sites
and portals that have a sidebar
configured additionally this release we
expanding what's possible in your
portals by allowing you to leverage some
of the most popular component plugins
starting this release the rich Tex
editor Google Maps and esri arcgis map
components can be used in Portals these
plugins bring modern functionality to
your portals and allow you to create
richer user
experiences this release aank query
record by identifier is now fully
compatible with portals this allows you
to query both unsynced and synced record
types in a portal so that you have the
records you need wherever you need them
not only that you'll notice faster
queries to your records when you use
Aang query record by identifier across
all of your
applications it's also now easier than
ever to create service accounts directly
from your portal object now when
creating a service account within the
portal object you can directly select
groups to add the account to this
streamline workflow eliminates the need
to navigate away from the portal object
reducing the time and effort involved in
assigning groups during portal
design as part of our ongoing efforts to
streamline portal development we're
introducing new design guidance for
portal interfaces and rules when you're
developing a rule or interface that's
used in a portal the new design guidance
tells you if you're using functions and
comp components that aren't supported in
Portals this results in a smoother
experience when creating portals
speeding up the development of your
application we've also made it easier to
monitor your portals no more sifting
through log files to understand why
users are seeing errors in your portal
just click an error count in the portal
monitoring tab to view the error details
for each portal and help you know
exactly where to look when
troubleshooting this enhancement to the
portal monitoring tab makes it easier
than ever to create and maintain portals
that are responsive reliable and
available to all of your users I'm now
going to show this in
action I'm starting this demo on the
monitoring page in appan designer on the
monitoring page there's a section for
portal monitoring this gives me a quick
glance into the status of all my portals
including how much traffic each portal
is seen their performance and whether
users are seeing errors new on this page
I can click the error count to view all
of the errors that users have run into
when using the portal allowing you to
quickly find and resolve issues before
more users run into them I also want to
highlight that from the same dashboard
you can also easily monitor portals on
all other connected environments you can
see here I can select another
environment in this case I select a test
environment once I select my environment
my grid is updated with all of my
portals in the test environment and I
can quickly see all of the errors that
happened there making them easier to
solve I'm also very excited to announce
that fedramp compliant portals are now
available to our govcloud customers fed
ramp certification is the gold standard
of security and risk assessment for
cloud Technologies and federal agencies
achieving fedramp certification makes
appium portals a trusted choice for
federal agencies we'll be ruling this
out to our existing fedramp customers
over the next few months if you would
like to be one of the first to enable
fedramp compliant portals in your
environment reach out to happy and
support
today we're also continuing to improve
your sit's user
experiences in particular we're bringing
you more control when linking to records
this release we've evolved a URL for
record with two new parameters Target
location and view these parameters allow
you to specify a specific record View
and site page to open the record Link in
and don't worry we've brought the same
changes to Aang record link and Aang
user record link ensuring that your
users will have have an intuitive and
seamless navigation experience whether
navigating from an external link or
internal
link we've also made a couple of updates
to the site navigation bar to improve
your end user experience we've restyled
the user and Navigator menu to give your
sites a more modern look we've also
updated the default profile photo in
Latin language locals to show you the
users's initials instead of the generic
profile icon when the user has not
uploaded an image and don't worry you
won't have to configure a thing these
updates are automatically applied when
you
upgrade in addition to these
enhancements to sites and portals we've
also added several new interface and
component enhancements we're adding a
new layout component the pain layout the
pain layout allows you to seamlessly
present complex information giving you
up to three independently scrollable
areas to display both content and
context this flexibility lets users
spend less time navigating between
separate interfaces PES to get the data
they need and empowers them to complete
their work more
naturally we're also introducing the new
kpi component that allows you to display
existing record data including changes
in a meaningful easily digestible way in
the best part there's a range of kpi
templates to choose from so that you can
customize it to fit your
needs in 23.3 appan introduced the
horizontal line component which lets you
create organized and appealing interface
that easily Orient your users now we're
giving you more control over the look
and feel of those horizontal lines style
these lines as dots dashes or solid to
boost the beauty and usability of your
interfaces you can now edit instructions
directly in the live view of an
interface in design mode just like you
can with field labels simply click into
existing instructions and edit the text
it's as easy as
that we've also added many new features
features that will make it easier than
ever to build multilingual experiences
for your end users this release you can
easily test and preview interfaces in
any app and supported local while you
develop right from the interface
designer now there's no need to switch
your user local setting just click the
drop down and select a local to preview
your interface
in this release we're also making
translation strings more powerful you
can now embed Dynamic values like
usernames dates and times into static
translation strings providing your users
with more information and higher quality
translations this powerful enhancement
opens up a wide range of design
possibilities for your multilingual
interfaces maintaining your translation
sets is now easier than ever with a new
filter to help you identify duplicate
translation strings within a translation
set you can filter for duplicates based
on the primary local to help you decide
when to create new strings or use
existing ones get insights into your
translation set and streamline your use
of existing translation strings
fast additionally translation strings
now import asynchronously so you can get
back to work on your application while
we update the translation set no waiting
around
necessary we've also made a few small
improvements to your translation
experience you can now sort translation
sets faster and easily compare
translation string versions across
environments take advantage too of
enhanced performance when generating
translation strings from an interface
and our increased limit of translation
strings per translation set from 1
12,000 to
5,000 these improvements will save you
time during development and deployment
as well as better the overall health and
performance of your localized
applications last but certainly not
least we've made several enhancements to
our mobile offering this quarter users
can now automatically recover tasks when
they are closed unexpectedly
safeguarding user entered data and
minimizing the risk of data loss
when a user reopens a task that was
unexpectedly closed we will now prompt
them to continue where they left off or
start the task over users can complete
offline tasks with confidence knowing
their data will be persisted we've also
added a new retry button to the pendan
form list that users can tap to manually
retry form submissions that were
unsuccessful this improves the offline
mobile experience by giving users more
control allowing them to recover
unsuccessful submissions on their own
and finally we've improved the behavior
of signatures on mobile interfaces now
when mobile users sign their name using
the signature component app and mobile
now displays a preview of the signature
when you use print to PDF on app and
mobile these signatures will now appear
on the printed form as well as you can
see it's been an exciting release for
our total experience offering and I hope
you are as excited as I am about some of
these new offerings I'll now pass it
over to James to kick off our next
section thank you Kevin it looks like
it's going to be easier than ever to
build delightful experiences for all
users next I'm going to pass it over to
Lewis prky senior product manager at
appion to go over some of our latest
Innovations with automation Lewis over
to
you thanks James I'm thrilled to be here
today to introduce all of the incredible
enhancements to our automation
capabilities starting with robotic
process automation you can now
seamlessly integrate robotic tasks into
your process models a new version of the
execute robotic tasks smart service lets
you configure robotic tasks directly
into the process node eliminating the
need for connected systems or
integration rules this makes it so much
faster and easier to use RPA in your
processes we've also made it easier to
oversee and adjust your robot Workforce
through an enhanced robot management
dashboard in the operations console this
dashboard is designed with it operation
managers and efficiency in mind allowing
you to quickly assess the health of your
robots and robotic tasks and even take
action as needed for instance you could
restart or disable robots that are
erroring and even reroute robotic tasks
to different robots to ensure that the
work gets completed on time we're
aligning appion RPA with the latest
industry security standards by
automatically pre-signing all agents to
do this we've made Robot Keys the
default authentication mechanism for
Windows Mac and Linux
robots not only does this make your
robot Workforce more secure but it gives
you the flexibility to automate the
setup of your robots and thereby scale
your Workforce more
efficiently the get table values low
code action is now part of the task
recorder making it easier than ever to
quickly extract data from HTML tables
use the task recorder to extract the
data you need from an entire table and
save it directly to a robotic task
variable eliminating the need for manual
entry and intricate
coding we've enhanced the document
extraction an AI skill to more
accurately extract data from tables and
checkboxes this update improves your
ability to extract structured data from
a variety of document formats for
example you'll see much better
extraction accuracy for tables in scan
docs tables with complex or multi-line
rows and hand filled
checkboxes please reach out to your
account executive to submit an
automation Kickstart assessment for IDP
if you are interested in gaining access
to this
feature we've made it easier to continue
training a document extraction AI skill
now you can start training a new model
based on a Model you've trained
previously your new model has the same
sample documents fields and labels you
added before saving you time with this
jump start you can go on to add and
remove documents fields and labels to
train the new model this release we're
empowering you to use generative AI
anywhere in your processes through the
prompt Builder AI skill simply create a
prompt Builder AI skill and describe
what you want the model to do you can
provide example inputs and outputs such
as a claim and a map of pii so the model
knows your requirements then you can
test the AI model directly within the
skill to save valuable development time
and feel confident the AI model performs
as expected when you're ready to start
using the prompt add the execute prompt
smart service to your process your
prompt and input text are then sent to a
private generative AI model use the AI
model outputs however you use data in
your appion processes to display
information make decisions write to the
database and
more now that you've heard about the
power of the prompt Builder I'll show it
in action in the context of an insurance
claims automation use case let's Dive
Right In Here we have an existing
application that manages the processing
of incoming claims for this use case
we'll configure a prompt Builder skill
that will automatically extract
important data points from incoming
claims emails so so that they can be
written to a record before the claim is
routed to the proper team first we'll
configure our AI skill we'll select the
prompt Builder as the skill type provide
a name and configure the object security
now we'll configure the object we'll
start by writing our prompt which is
where we provide instructions about the
task we'd like the underlying generative
AI model to accomplish we'll tell the
model that its job is to extract
information from incoming claims emails
and return the results in Json format
next we'll configure the temperature of
the model which is an indicator of how
random or creative the response is
likely to be because we just want the
model to return a list of entities
contained in the email we'll choose a
low value then we'll provide an example
of a previously processed cling email
and the correct answer for the Json
response providing examples helps
reinforce to the model what input you'll
provide to it and what you expect in
response now that we have configured our
skill we can easily test it directly
within the designer to see how it is
working on additional examples here I'll
paste in another claim email and click
test we can see that within seconds the
model responds with a list containing
all of the important information in the
claim in Json
format I'm happy with how the skill is
performing its task so now it's time for
me to integrate it into my claim
management business process I'll open up
the relevant process model which we can
see has been configured to just an email
write claims data and then rra the claim
to call the prompt Builder we just
configured we'll simply drag out the
execute prompt smart
service in the setup tab we'll select
the prompt Builder AI skill we created
in the first step then we'll navigate to
the data tab for the smart service input
we'll provide a process variable
containing the body of the incoming
claim for the smart service output will
store the response from the model which
will contain the extracted claim data
which can then be written to the record
and that's it within a couple of minutes
we were able to leverage aion's private
generative AI to automate what was
previously a manual and timec consuming
process I hope that this demo was
helpful for you to visualize how simple
it is to incorporate generative AI into
your workflows we can't wait to see what
you build with these new app and
automation
capabilities if you're interested in
learning more please click the link in
the popup to complete our generative AI
interest form now I'm going to turn it
back over to James so can learn more
about the other great features coming to
the platform with this
release wow thank you leis the promp
Builder AI skill looks ready to deliver
compelling value and I've been so
excited to get Hands-On with it myself
for anyone else interested please do be
sure to complete that generative AI
interest survey that Lewis had shared
earlier next I'm going to pass it over
to Lisa Graham senior product manager
level two here at appion to share about
some of our latest capabilities with our
data fabric Lisa over to you
thanks for the intro James hello
everyone my name is Lisa Graham this
release we've made a diverse set of
enhancements for you demonstrating our
continued commitment and investment
across many areas of our data fabric
with that in mind let's dive in we know
that as your business grows the volume
of your business data does too but have
you ever found yourself wishing you
could provide more specific instruction
on which attribute of your record data
actually represents the change or growth
of your business so that when a sync is
performed you are always getting the
records of data that you want well wish
no more because we're introducing a new
sync option that lets you target which
record should be synced while never
exceeding the current 4 million row
limit once you've enabled this setting
simply select a field that signifies
your business change or growth like L
modified or create a date then whenever
a full sync occurs appion will only sync
the last 4 million rows based on that
criteria so you and your users always
have access to the most recent data
based on your
definition identifying change data
within your record variables just became
clearer any time you test an expression
interact with an interface or examine a
process instance the changes to your
record data are easy to spot in bonus
this feature also works to highlight
data that has changed as a result of the
right record smart
service speaking of making change data
pop in the process modeler we've
improved the look and feel of the
process history tab so you can more
easily audit updates to record data
including field level changes you can
quickly view a formatted list of your
processed data at a glance or expand the
view to see the full details of any
variable with formatted process history
data you can easily read your process
data troubleshoot potential issues and
ensure the proper functioning of your
automations before I get to our next
round of updates let's look at these
last two updates in action I'm beginning
with testing out an interface by
completing certain fields and as I do so
notice the icon changing in the list on
the right making it easy for me to
ensure that my data is changing when I
expect it
to similarly if I look at the details of
a process I can see all the data that
was changed as a result of the process
running including related record
data I can also see changes made as a
result of the right record smart
service I can see how the IDS are
returned along with all the input data
making verifying or troubleshooting your
processes fast and easy writing data is
an essential part of application
development so we've enhanced and
streamlined the right record smart
service experience based on your
feedback
the output now preserves all of your
input data so that you can keep using it
in your process without reiring your
record types just replace your existing
nodes with a new right records node and
you're ready to go but the benefits
don't stop there you can use the right
record smart service in more scenarios
where the database configuration can't
be modified specifically any Source
field not just foreign keys can be not
nullable and now you can write to a base
record type even when relateded record
types are set to not allow rights the
smart service will just skip over
anything that can't be written this
empowers you to build faster and
provides you with more options to manage
your
data now we may not want to admit it but
I'm sure we've all been the author of or
even the victim of a slow query
troubleshooting slow queries can
sometimes be like a rabbit hole it's
timec consuming and sometimes
unrewarding however this release that is
all about about to change because we are
introducing a new query performance tab
within the monitoring section where you
can see how and where data is being
queried throughout your
applications at a glance you'll see when
a record query occurred how long it took
and the user involved and even which
interface rule or component was used to
run the query amazing right with this
centralized view of query details you
can more easily understand and optimize
your record queries hopefully giving you
some much needed time back and overall
speeding up the experience for your end
users okay let me see if I can tackle
this tongue twister creating custom jdbc
connected system objects has been
simplified now after your jdbc driver is
successfully deployed a system specific
jdbc connected system template appears
in the created connected system pick
list dialogue nailed it this allows you
to quickly locate and connect to to your
desired Source system with fewer clicks
we're also excited to add two new
supported databases postgress SQL 15 and
SQL Server
2022 these databases are supported as
both appan data sources and business
data sources Additionally the default
jdbc driver for postgress SQL has been
upgraded from version 42.4 to
42.7 as always appan continues to find
new ways to keep your data fabric fresh
and up
toate next up is self-service analytics
self-service analytics exposes the power
of your carefully woven data fabric with
end users so they too can craft
impactful views of data to drive better
decisions let's start with a new feature
within the record type designer that
gives you more control over which record
types are available to use in
self-service
analytics from within any record type
select the workspaces menu item on the
left
now if you've been with appium prior to
this release this menu option used to be
called Tempo one of our other end user
workspaces under the new self-service
analytics section you can specify if a
record type should or should not be
available in self-service analytics to
help you get started by default any
record type already available in Tempo
will also be available in self-service
analytics while any new record type that
you create will default to not show in
self-service analytics so that you can
decide if and when it makes sense for
users to have this record type for
reporting purposes lastly if you select
a record type to be shown in Self
Service analytics it will show as a data
set in the data catalog as well as any
related record type within other data
sets again as a reminder all record
types in self-service analytics
automatically enforce your record type
security and record level security
ensuring that users are accessing only
the data permission to them with this
layer of security you can be confident
that your data is always secure no
matter where it's viewed now let's take
a look at some new features within
self-service
analytics when it comes to building
reports end users want flexibility and
control to Define what they need when
they need it in our preview release end
users got a taste for how to leverage
chart designs using one or two Fields
now users can layer in more Fields into
their bar column area and line charts to
show more comp comp Lex views of their
data in addition we've added several
more configuration options users can
select how they want their data to stack
up or in the case of a pie chart what
style they prefer users can also
customize the color scheme of their
reports to complement their company's
branding or presentation theme charts
can be paired with the grid of data
below it to allow for more interactive
configuration changes or to give users
greater visibility into into the report
data users can also choose to give
report viewers the ability to download
the chart image or export the
unaggregated grid of data once they
finish building out their report users
can name their report add an optional
description and save the report for
future
exploration creators can easily switch
to view mode to see what their report
will look like to other users viewing
their
report all saved reports are easily
accessible from a new report library
page that highlights recently opened
reports as well as reports that you've
created or that have been shared with
you from the library users can open
reports in a new tab duplicate reports
and most importantly share your reports
with other users allowing you to spread
the value of the report you
created well that's all for me this time
around I hope you enjoyed learning about
all the new data fabric features back to
you James Thank you Lisa I was so
excited to see self-service analytics
unveiled in our 23.4 release and it
looks like it's only gotten better I
can't wait for users to get handson with
it next I'm going to hand it over to
Elizabeth Hall senior beta program
manager at Aion to talk through some of
the latest updates on our beta programs
Liz over to
you hi everyone my name is Elizabeth
Hall and I'm appan senior beta program
manager I'll be giving a quick update on
our in progress beta
programs back in July we launched a beta
program for a new intuitive intelligent
and collaborative process mining
experience since then over 30 customers
and partners across several industry
verticals have used process HQ to
uncover process bottlenecks and discover
valuable insights beta program
participants have uncovered a combined
total of over 700,000 days of cycle time
delays enabling them to make data driven
decisions and improve their appi and
processes process HQ leverages data
Fabric and record events we encourage
you to use these platform capabilities
When developing applications so that you
can easily M process insights once
process HQ is generally available if you
would like to learn more about process
HQ you can click the button on the
screen and we'll reach out with more
information in the coming
weeks additionally we're working on a
new process execution engine that
provides elastic scalability for
unattended processes this means the
engine can seamlessly accommodate
varying work loads and spikes in demand
without compromising performance or
requiring downtime our beta program
began earlier this month which allows
select customers and partners the
opportunity to use and provide feedback
on this new
architecture if you have a specific use
case in mind that involves the execution
of unattended automation process models
at a high volume we'd love to hear from
you you can click the link to the form
in the popup to provide details about
your use case the product team will
reach out to you if your use case is a
good fit for the beta program now back
to you James thank you Liz for the
updates attendees of the webinar please
be sure to use the interest form shared
to register your interest for these beta
programs continuing on from there let's
go over some of the latest Enterprise
grade capabilities in this
release starting things off this release
you can now use Azure active directory
password and service principal
authentication methods for connecting to
SQL Server simply add an authentication
connection property to your connection
URL and specify your preferred
method appion has also made it easier to
deploy plugins appion cloud and
self-managing customers can now upload
and deploy plugins directly from the
admin console removing the need to copy
the jar file to the appion file system
appion Cloud customers are still
required to receive approval for private
plugins according to the cloud
deployment guidelines before uploading
aion's native authentication just got an
added layer of security as well you can
now enable multiactor authentication
which will email users a verification
code to complete the login process after
they've entered their usernames and
passwords with 24.1 we're also
introducing the ability to call app and
web apis using access tokens issued by
third-party ooth providers each ooth 2.0
client that you configure in the admin
console is tied to a service account
making this feature ideal for use with
the client credentials Grant this new
method allows you to manage your
credentials in a centralized location
giving you more control over how your
web apis are
authenticated we're also excited to
introduce a new design object log that
allows you to quickly monitor changes to
your objects from one place the design
object CSV log is supported by appan
Cloud log streaming as well so you can
see who made changes to your design
objects and when in real
time to improve overall database health
and performance the appan cloud database
will now require a primary key on any
Maria DB tables created in new sites
we're working behind the scenes and
continuing our mission to provide you
with the most reliable performant Cloud
database to your
applications we will also be upgrading
all Maria DB databases to version
10.66 in another update the
international components for Unicode or
IQ library has been upgraded to the
latest version
74.1 this update will allow you to stay
current on localization changes such as
time zones date formats currency changes
and
others and lastly Zurich and u UAE will
be new appion Cloud regions supporting
High availability at the end of March
with these new regions appion will cover
24 regions globally with 72 availability
zones and with that I'm going to hand it
over to April Shel senior product
evangelist to go over some updates about
Community April over to
you thank you James April schel here
your number one developer Advocate I
have a lot that I want to cover today so
let's jump right into it starting with
something special we've been working on
for you we're excited to unveil a new
appan Community Edition experience app
and Community Edition is the Premier way
for members of our community to get
handson with the Appian platform all
community members are welcome to join
our beta SSO with Appian community means
that registration is a breeze if you
needed any more incentive to register
the beta is running on appion 4.1 EA so
come get handson with so many of the
amazing new features you learned about
in the webinar today check it out and
let us know what you think next up I'd
like to recognize our top Community
discussion leaders you have questions
and these folks have answers I'd like to
give a big thank you to Stefan Mike
Matthew sanchit haret AB condo Pete
Stewart and Dave for helping to make
sure the thousands of questions that
were asked by developers in 202 three
were answered they are a big part in our
outstanding 95 plus% response rate on
app and Community discussion questions
now there's many ways that appi and
developers contribute to this community
and that includes helping us learn more
about you with surveys thanks to
everyone who took the time to complete
the 2023 developer sentiment survey did
you know that 90% of developers feel
that becoming proficient and appion has
positively impacted their job prospects
90 90% of developers enjoy working with
the appion platform and 85% of
developers say that aion's comprehensive
training options were instrumental to
their success the complete results are
available on community share them on
social to help Inspire more people to
build great careers as appan developers
Switching gears let's talk about some
app market
highlights 2023 was a huge year both in
terms of overall app market growth and
app market engagement we've increased
our number of total list listings by
71.5% regularly checking the app market
is sure to spark your creativity and
help you in your projects and in the
year of Genai we've added 20 plus
plugins and utilities and that number
continues to grow whether you want to
leverage open AI Claud or coher in your
appan applications or take advantage of
gen tools for data generation document
summarization email generation entity
extraction or another use case well
we've probably got something for you and
while the App Market has a ton to offer
don't forget about appion out ofthe boox
AI capabilities that you've heard about
in the webinar today the prod
announcement webinar is a great place
for a highlevel overview of what's new
if you're looking to get more in depth
we provide training content in a variety
of forms we're excited to announce a new
learning path that introduces the
features of case management Studio
describes its modular design approach
and provides tips on how to leverage
this capability for your own use case
every quarter we update our online
training content to help you dig deeper
into features covered in our release
webinars as a reminder completing the
release showcase helps you stay up
to-date with the latest features and
maintain that appan
certification along with Academy online
courses we offer a lot of great content
on the appan community YouTube channel
the YouTube channel is democratizing
learning for practitioners and it's
growing exponentially we had a
substantial incre increase in
subscribers almost a quarter of a
million views in 2023 and over 100
diverse pieces of content ranging from
quick tutorials to live stream
discussions to Live Build Challenge
watch parties we have even more planned
for you in 2024 so make sure you
subscribe and turn on notifications so
you never miss an update our next live
stream will be a Hands-On walkthrough of
some of the 24.1 release highlights I'll
be joined by app and product manager
Pete Lewis and Macedon Technologies
principal consultant Nicole Walter Pete
will share insights on product strategy
while Nicole will give us a lead
developers perspective on the impact of
adopting new features tune in to see
appion 24.1 in action and ask the
experts your questions we've had the
opportunity to introduce you to a lot of
experts through our community live
streams I just wanted to take a second
to give them a big thank you for all the
folks on this slide who've joined at
least one of the live streams that we
had in 2023
we've had apiant experts across product
Management Solutions Consulting customer
success product evangelism and product
and Technology strategy we've also had
some special external guests Stefan Mike
Matt and Dan we look forward to bringing
you more live streams that give you a
chance to learn from experts hear
diverse perspectives and connect with
the community while asking questions in
real time live streams provide a great
virtual way to connect with other Appian
Developers but there is nothing quite
like getting together in person appan is
turning 25 this year and with it we're
bringing you the biggest and best appan
world yet here are some of the amazing
Community focused experiences we have in
store for you we're kicking off the
conference with a full day experience
that's built just for appion developers
devday registration will open up on
February 27th and it's free with your
appion world 2024 registration this
experience will include a developer
Centric keynote Hands-On Labs
presentations from your peers and unique
opportunities to get certified and
provide feedback along with our expanded
Dev day we're bringing back our
community Hub the community Hub will be
open throughout the conference on
Tuesday and Wednesday it's a drop by
practitioner lounge with staffed booths
for you to engage with live product and
solution demos community and learning
resources and your fellow appion
enthusiast last year we really leaned
into the arcade theme with neon signs
and classic arcade games like NBA Jam
and Miss Pac-Man I don't want to spoil
what we have in store for you this year
but I promise you won't want to miss it
and last but not
least every year the Live Build
Challenge has grown bigger and better
and this year is no exception we're
bringing a new format which will allow
for more developers to participate while
building more robust apps with all of
our product capabilities ities teams
will earn points throughout the
conference through many challenges and
these many challenges will be building
out the foundation of their applications
the two teams who earn the most points
during the mini challenges will then
face off on stage building on their work
along with eternal glory the winning
team will take home a $30,000 cash prize
I cannot wait to show you what we have
in store all right I think it's time I
wrap up just have a one more slide here
I know it can be hard to keep up with
everything we're bringing you each
quarter which is why we are creating a
One-Stop shop to enable you on the
latest releases prior to this quarter
you could use Community to register for
the release webinar and then view the
recording after but we've given this
space a big upgrade it's now a One-Stop
shop for practitioner enablement with
feature highlights release Focus
Community YouTube channel content like
our upcoming appion 24.1 release
highlights live stream resources like
release notes release showcase training
needed to maintain your certification
summarized Q&A from these live streams
and a pdf version of the product
announcement webinar deck additionally
we've provided a space to ask questions
about this release remember you can
access the product announcement webinars
from the community homepage let us know
through the webinar survey what you
think of the new enablement area and any
ideas you have to make it better
all right back to you James to close us
out thanks April thank you to all of you
for attending the 24.1 appion product
announcement webinar we're really
excited to see you all at our appan
World Conference later in April of this
year including the developer day
conference you've heard so much about
and for everyone else you can also tune
in again for our next product
announcement webinar which you can
expect in miday of this year for our
24.2
product release thank you all really
appreciate your
time
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)