Appian Step-by-Step #1

Exercise to Accompany
Manage Users and Groups

The Appian Step-by-Step series consists of 10 exercises that accompany

the courses in the Appian Developer learning path. Exercises build upon
each other. Complete exercises in order and keep the app and all
objects until you are done with the project.

1 Manage Users and Groups

2 Manage Data Easily with Custom Data Types

3 Expressions: Transform Your Data

4 Interfaces 101: Build Forms and Other Interfaces

5 Process Modeling: Automate Your Business Processes

6 Query Data from RDBMS

7 Design Appian Records

8 Reports: Build Basic Charts and Grids

9 Sites: Create a Custom and Focused User Experience

10 Interfaces 102: Build Interfaces Using an Expression

© Appian Corporation, 2021

Introduction 2
How to Complete the Exercises in this Guide? 2
What Will I Build? 2
How Can I Get a Practice Environment? 2
Use Initials in a Shared Environment 2
Save Often 2
Additional Resources 3

1 - Create an Application 4

2 - Create Users and Groups 4

Create Users 4
Create Groups 5
Configure Security for Groups 6
Configure Security for the App 6
Group Properties 8

Notice of Rights
This document was created by Appian Corporation, 7950 Jones Branch Dr, Tysons, Virginia 22102.
Copyright 2021 by Appian Corporation. All rights reserved. Information in this document is subject to
change. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means,
without prior written permission of Appian Corporation. For more information on obtaining permission
for reprints or excerpts, contact Appian Training at academyonline@appian.com.

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How to Complete the Exercises in this Guide
This guide offers a series of exercises that will teach you how to build a functional Appian
application, step-by-step. Please use this guide to support your learning throughout the
Appian Developer online curriculum.

To understand specific Appian concepts and features, we recommend that you first view our
online courses (access our curriculum at academy.appian.com), and then complete the
associated exercises before moving to the next course in the path.

What Will I Build?

You will build the Vehicle Fleet Management (VFM) application that will automate the process
of registering a new vehicle in the fleet. This app will be designed for two personas: Registrars
and Supervisors. Registrars will use the VFM application for entering the new vehicle
information into an online form, which will be then sent to Supervisors for approval. After
approval, the new vehicle will be written to the database. After you build all key design
objects, you will assemble them into a user-friendly Site that Registrars and Supervisors will
use for adding and approving vehicles and for accessing all fleet-related reports.

How Can I Practice?

Sign up for Appian Community Edition here:
https://community.appian.com/p/my-learning-journey/. This free, unlimited-time Appian
instance comes with the pre-built VFM application that you can use to reference while building
your own version.

If you already have access to a practice environment, you will need a user account with either
System Administrator access, or an account for a Basic User who is a member of the
Designers and Process Model Creator groups. Request access from your site’s System
Administrator.

Use Initials in a Shared Environment

If you work in a shared environment, prefix all application objects with your initials to avoid
naming conflicts. For example, if your initials are JJ, name your group JJ VFM All Users.

Save Often
Appian does not automatically save updates, so save your objects frequently.

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Additional Resources

Appian provides a plethora of training resources for novice Appian developers. The following
resources are particularly popular with our learners:

Academy Online - Appian’s online courses provide useful survey courses, step-by-step
tutorials, and some additional practice exercises. Explore these resources at your own pace.
Survey courses will help you with developing a better grasp of the range of topics you need to
learn about. Video and print tutorials will help you with getting the hands-on experience with
Appian.
Appian Documentation - Appian’s product documentation will provide you with the overview of
key Appian features, newest release information, additional tutorials, and helpful patterns and
recipes to implement in your app.
Community Discussions for New Users - Join our community of experts to ask questions and
find answers from past discussions.

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 1 - Create an Application

We will start building our app by first creating an application itself. This object is simply a
container for all other application design objects. It will help us organize the project. We will
use it for keeping our objects together, and for packaging them into a zip file before we
deploy the app to a different environment. Follow the steps below to create an application:

1. Log into your Appian Designer environment, and from your Site, navigate to the Appian
Designer by clicking the

Navigation button next to your avatar. You can also simply change the URL from
/suite/tempo to /suite/design in the address bar of your browser.

2. In the Appian Designer, click New Application.

3. In the Create New Application dialog box, retain the Create from Scratch option.
Name your app Vehicle Fleet Management, and add a simple description: “An
application for managing vehicles and maintenance in a fleet.” Click Create.

4. After you click Create, you will be prompted to configure security for the app. Because
we don’t have application groups yet, simply click Save. We will come back to app
security later.

After you create the new application, it will open automatically.

2 - Create Users and Groups

Manage Users
In this exercise, we will create three new users for our application: Suzanne Supervisor,
Regina Registrar, and Mike Mechanic. We will need these users for testing the app features.
To give you an example, let’s say you built a report that displays different charts to
Supervisors, Registrars, and Maintenance employees. To check that everything works as
planned, you will log into your app and view reports using these different user personas.

Please note that you have to have administrative privileges to create users in Appian. If you
are using the 14 Day Free Trial, you will not be able to create new users. To test new
features, simply add yourself to the appropriate groups. Follow the steps below to create
new users:

1. Click the Navigation menu to navigate to the Admin Console.

2. Under AUTHENTICATION, click Users.

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 3. Click Create, and add the following users one-by-one: Suzanne Supervisor, Regina
Registrar, and Mike Mechanic. Fill out the information following the example below,
make sure to write down the user IDs and passwords, and click Create.

4. After you are done creating your test users, log out from your Appian environment, and
log in as each of these user personas. The prompts will guide you through the process
of resetting the temporary passwords. This will activate the test user accounts. Make
sure to write down the user IDs and passwords as you will be testing features using
these accounts later.

Create Groups
In this exercise, we will create the groups for our application: VFM All Users, VFM
Administrators, VFM Supervisors, and VFM Registrars. Groups are important because they
are used to set security to the application and its objects. The All Users and
Administrators groups are standard in most apps. The All Users group includes all users
with the access to the app, and it is always the parent group for all other groups in an
application. The Administrators group includes all users administering the app and its
objects. The VFM Supervisors and VFM Registrars groups include business users who
will be accessing the app to complete their work. These groups will help us define the
access to specific app features for our business users.

As you create groups and other objects, remember to use the app prefix in all names. This
will become helpful in scenarios where you have to discriminate between similar objects
from different apps. Follow the steps below to create the groups:

1. Access the VFM app. From within the app, click New and select Group from the
dropdown menu.

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 2. In the dialog box, name the group as VFM All Users, and add a description: “Parent
group for all roles in the VFM application.” Leave the Parent Group and Group Members
field empty since this group does not have a parent or group members yet. Change the
Visibility to Public, and click Create.

3. You will be prompted to review group security. Wait on the security review and setup
until you create the VFM Administrator group. Click Save.

4. Once the VFM All Users group is created, click the group name to access it.

5. From within the VFM All Users, follow the steps above to create the remaining groups:
VFM Administrators, VFM Supervisors, and VFM Registrars. Add the VFM All
Users group as their parent group. Do not set security for these groups. We will secure
them using their parent folder VFM All Users.

Add a user to the VFM Administrators, VFM Supervisors, and VFM Registrars
groups using the Group Membership field. If you are an admin and were able to create
the test users Suzanne and Regina, add them to the appropriate groups. Otherwise, add
yourself to all three groups. This way, you will be able to see the features designed for
specific users without logging in as a test user.

Configure Security for Groups

Now that we have the two main app groups VFM All Users and VFM Administrators, we can
start securing all application objects. This is what we call object-based security in Appian.
We will start by securing our groups first. To do so, we will secure the VFM All Users parent
group. All other groups will inherit security settings from its parent. To do so, follow the
steps below:

1. From within the VFM All Users group, click the Settings button for this group, and
then select Security from the dropdown menu.

2. In the dialog box, click Add Users or Groups. Start typing VFM Administrators in
the User or Group field, and then select this group from the list of suggestions. In the
Permission Level field, retain Administrator. Click Save Changes.

Now that we set security to the VFM All Users group, all other child groups inherited this
security setting. This is what we call security inheritance in Appian.

Configure Security for the App

Now that we have the groups, we will set security to the whole VFM app. From now on, we
will also set security on all objects that we create. Follow the steps below to set security to
the app:

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 Now that we have the groups, we will set security to the whole VFM app. Follow the steps
below to set security to the app:

1. In the Appian Designer, select the checkbox next to the VFM app, and click Security.

2. In the Application Security dialog box, click Add Users and Groups, and type VFM
Administrators in the User or Group field. Select the Administrator permission
level.

3. Click Add Users or Groups again. In the User or Group field, type VFM All Users,
and keep the default Viewer permission level:

4. Click Save Changes, and click Close.

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 Group Properties
You can change a group’s name or properties by clicking the group’s name, and then
selecting the Settings button :

Let’s rename the VFM Administrators to VFM Admins:

1. Click the Settings button, and then select Properties from the dropdown list.

2. In the Name field, type the new name VFM Admins. Click Save.

Before you go …

Congratulations! You have completed your first Appian Step-by-Step exercise.

You’ve created the app, and set your groups, and secured both groups and the
application. Keep in mind that you will need these objects for your next set of
exercises.

Up Next

2 Manage Data Easily with Custom Data Types

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