April showers bring May feature releases to the Appian Platform. Get ready for sunny skies ahead with some seriously great new updates to Appian in 23.2.
1. AI Skills, a low-code way to embed AI into your Appian apps, fast.
The AI buzz is everywhere. If you’ve been getting bombarded with requests to “use more AI,” we’ve got you covered.
In 23.2, Appian now has a low-code way to build, train, and deploy machine learning (ML) models in your Appian apps with the debut of AI Skills. The new Appian AI Skill Designer allows teams to apply artificial intelligence to critical use cases, including email classification, document classification, and document extract. Just add these AI Skills as you would any other design object—no third-party software or team of data experts required.
Read more about using AI Skills in your workflows.
2. More pages in sites and portals (one of your top requests!).
With 23.2 the wait for more pages is over! You can now add up to 10 pages on your Appian sites and portals, giving you the flexibility you need to build a perfect self-service workflow.
And, with dynamic headers that adjust to browser size or a mobile device's default behavior for viewing extra tabs, you can create beautiful, frustration-free experiences with no extra work.
3. A portal power-up, including custom domains and easier data visualizations.
In this release, it’s faster and easier than ever to design, improve, and publish your portals.
Now, you can configure portals with a custom domain to match your existing web address and create a more cohesive user experience.
You can also use records to power a chart, card choice, or read-only grid in your portal—a!recordData and a!relatedRecordData functions fully supported.
And new advanced warnings and guidance in the portal object, faster republishing times, and two new error logs speed up portal development and troubleshooting.
4. Data fabric updates, coming to you at record speed.
The latest data fabric updates provide better transparency and easier security, so you can get the full picture of your enterprise data without any massive efforts.
New record events allow you to track who takes action on your records and when. You can even track events across processes and see event histories for records in a digestible summary view, giving you a complete picture of how your enterprise operates. And in this latest release, we’ve made it easy to secure your enterprise data with codeless record-action security that allows you to use familiar low-code security rules to determine who can see your actions and when.
5. Excel at automation with new RPA modules.
In 23.2, you can more easily handle Microsoft Excel files with new low-code Excel modules for Appian RPA. You can now use Appian RPA to read from, write to, and format your Excel files.
Plus, we’ve added some enhancements that make RPA bots easier to work with, like giving them the ability to interact with browser notifications to prevent unexpected errors that require manual intervention. And we’ve made it easier to extract information with the ability to retrieve data from HTML formatted tables, even when they span multiple pages. This information can then be used in Appian or written into other applications like Excel.
6. Interface updates for better design flow.
In 23.2, we continue to deliver updates that make building apps with low-code faster and easier.
This release, we’re making input configuration even easier. When you drag and drop any design library interface, the improved inputs dialog now automatically maps inputs and local variables to speed up configuration. You can even rename local variables directly from Design Mode and edit interfaces faster with the ability to see changes in real time.
It’s also even easier to use icons. More easily change icon positions in buttons, and use the new View Icons button in the Expression Editor to browse and select the icons without breaking your design flow. Plus, icons in rich fields are now automatically treated as decorative, meaning they can be skipped by screen readers so your UI is more accessible.
Want more from Appian?
Appian Community is the home of Appian Developers. Dig into the platform, learn best practices, and get coached toward certifications that will speed up your projects. Rather than giving you pre-fab models, we empower you with the skills and automations you need to get started quickly while tailoring a project to your specific application needs.
Read the release notes to find out more about Appian 23.2.
