Appian Step-by-Step #2

Exercise to Accompany
Manage Data Easily with Custom Data Types

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 a Custom Data Type (CDT) 4

2 - Create a Data Store 5

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

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

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 a Custom Data Type (CDT)

In this exercise, we will create a Custom Data Type (CDT) for your VFM app. This design object
is exceptionally important for any app because it defines the structure of the data in your app.
Since the VFM app is designed for managing vehicles in a fleet, we will create a Vehicle CDT,
which will include such items as vehicle make, model, year, and other related vehicle data.
Follow the steps below to create the CDT:

1. From within the VFM app, click New and select Data Type from the dropdown menu.

2. In the dialog box, retain the Create from scratch option. Change the namespace from
urn:com:appian:types to urn:appian:vfm.

A common practice for organizations is to use the following syntax for the namespace:
urn:<my_organization_acronym>:<my_application_acronym>. The
combination of the CDT name and namespace are used to uniquely identify each CDT.

3. In the Name field, type VFM_Vehicle.

4. Add a description: “This CDT maps the structure of the vfmvehicle database table into
Appian for use in variables.” Click Create.

5. In the new screen, click New Field to start adding the fields to your CDT. Note that in
Appian we use camelCasing for the names of fields (for example, vehicleCondition). Add
all of the below fields to your CDT, select the correct data types. Also, click the gray
key icon in the id row. In the new dialog box, select the Primary Key button, and
check the Auto-generate box. Click OK.

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 6. Click Save Changes after adding all fields. Close this tab, and return to the VFM app
container.

2 - Create a Data Store

In this exercise, we will create a Data Store, a design object that will map our Vehicle CDT to a
table in a database. Once we create a Data Store, add the vehicle entity to it, and then verify
and publish it, this will create a database table for our vehicle information. Follow the steps
below to create this object:

1. From within the VFM app, click New, and then select Data Store from the dropdown
menu. 

2. In the dialog box, type the name VFM Data Store, and add a description: “Manages
the sending and receiving of data with RDBMS for the VFM app.” Retain the default Data
Source. Click Create.

3. In the next dialog box, configure this object’s security. Security for this object will affect
who will be able to view or update the data from the related database. Therefore, we
will grant the Viewer permission to all users of the VFM app. We will configure security
as follows:

4. Click Save.

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 5. In the new screen, click Add Entity. In the dialog box, click the Directory icon ,
and type VFM in the Selected field. Select VFM_Vehicle, and click OK. Type vehicle
in the Name field, and click Save:

6. Scroll down, and click Verify. You will receive a warning message stating that no tables
matching the structure of the VFM_Vehicle CDT were found in the database. This is OK
since the Data Store needs to check whether the necessary tables are present before
creating a new database table.

7. Scroll down, retain the Create tables automatically option, and click Save &
Publish. This step will create a vehicle table in the database. Close this window.

If you do not have Administrator rights to create a table, select the Create tables
manually radio button, download the script, and share it with the System
Administrator.

8. Finally, let’s verify that the vehicle table has been created in the database:

● Click the Navigation button , and select Cloud Database from the
dropdown menu.
● Click the plus sign next to the Appian structure in the left navigation. Locate the
vfmvehicle table, and click on it.
● On the right, navigate to the Structure tab. 
● Validate that the id field name displays a key icon next to it, indicating that the
id column is configured as the primary key.

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 ● Verify that AUTO_INCREMENT is listed in the Extra column, indicating that
the id value is auto-generated whenever a new record is inserted. Your table
structure will look as follows:

Before you go …

Congratulations! You have completed your second Appian Step-by-Step exercise. Keep
in mind that you will need the objects created so far for your next set of exercises.

Up Next

3 Expressions: Transform Your Data

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