Increases in Speed and the Impact of Low-Code Development

I had the opportunity to speak with Matt Richard, CTO of LiUNA, following the keynote at Appian World, in which several improvements to the company's low-code development platform were reviewed from the latest release.

Matt and his three-developer team have been using Appian for the past seven years to replace and update more than 50 different legacy systems. While they use Appian to manage and support 500,000-plus members across 300-plus organizations, what Matt is most pleased with is Appian's willingness to listen to and address feedback. He said, "Appian listens to developers and solves their issues within a release cycle."

The new version of the platform fulfills Appian’s “Connected Systems” vision for no-code integration across popular enterprise systems and services. The release reinforces Appian’s commitment to simplicity through visual query design of business data sources and intuitive controls to display that data in a grid. The new version reinforces the brand promise of worry-free deployment through enhanced automation for DevOps, and the addition of new certifications to Appian’s list of security accreditations.

“Today’s release advances low-code development as a key IT asset for quickly building and deploying transformational and mission-critical business applications,” said Malcolm Ross, Vice President of Product at Appian. “Appian has the speed and enterprise-grade qualities to take our customers from idea to application in eight weeks. That’s the mission of the Appian Guarantee.”

Connected Systems

With the new release, Appian expands the Appian AppMarket’s library of no-code Connected Systems and UI Component Plug-ins. These packaged integrations to specific third-party functionality and systems increase the speed and business impact of solutions for the contact center, customer experience, and operational performance. They are built by Appian, its partners, and customers using Appian’s recently-announced Integration Software Development Kit (SDK) that simplifies the creation of third-party integration plug-ins.

A sample of the new Connected Systems and Component Plug-ins now packaged with Appian or from the Appian AppMarket includes:

• Twilio – makes integration with Twilio easy for Appian Intelligent Contact Center™ (ICC) customers, empowering contact center reps with advanced call controls for real-time customer communications.
• Salesforce – delivers intuitive no-code integration between Appian and Salesforce.
• Automation Anywhere – orchestrate and manage Automation Anywhere robotic process automations from Appian.
• Google Maps – provides integrations to location and directions services from Google Maps for interactive display in an Appian interface.
• Google Charts – created by Appcino, integrates data and chart visualizations from Google into Appian.
• Google Cloud Translate – detection and translation services for input text.
• Event Pusher – created by Vision Point Systems, enhances Appian interfaces with dynamic event handling powered by Pusher.
• Temasys Skylink Real-Time Communications  – offered by Temasys adding real-time web communication and co-browse within Appian interfaces.
• Microsoft PowerBI – create and easily embed coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights from PowerBI directly in Appian.
• Amazon S3 – manage Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 data stores and access S3 objects directly from an Appian interface.
• Genesys – delivers easy access to Genesys data and enhances Appian/Genesys integration with advanced voice transfer telephony controls.

When I asked Matt which of these additions he was most excited about, he said it was the AI integration with Google.

He was bouncing ideas off his team on how they could use the new AI capabilities to make the lives of the local leaders easier and the lives of members better.

Low-Code Development through Visual Query and Grid Design

The new release makes application design even more simple. Appian previously announced the expansion of its SAIL (Self-Assembling Interface Layer) framework to allow automatic creation of interfaces based only on a data model. The latest release makes this easier with a new no-code visual interface for creating datastore queries. Query creation is used in every application and is one of the most challenging tasks in application design. The new Visual Query Editor allows designers to create queries faster and with fewer errors while requiring less expertise to get started. The Visual Query Editor is fully integrated with Appian’s Interface Designer and new-evolved Paging Grid.

Worry-Free Deployment

The new release bolsters the brand's position as a secure, reliable, and scalable cloud platform. New DevOps features make it easier to automate the deployment of new apps across systems. This includes a host of automated code review and monitoring features across application elements including process models, data, rules, and interfaces.

With this release, Appian has also extended its leadership in security accreditations with the addition of:

• ISO 27001 – Demonstrates that the certified organization has identified the risks, assessed the implications and put in place a managed set of security controls to limit any damage to the organization, its data, and operations.
• HITRUST – A health care certification offering a third-party assessment that verifies an organization meets all of the industry-defined requirements of the Common Security Framework and provides a prescriptive framework for managing the security requirements inherent in HIPAA.
• Impact Level 4 – Federal and Department of Defense agencies can now use Appian as a managed service for low-code applications that must meet the strict IL4 requirements for Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). At IL4, an Appian application can be used to manage and store Export Controls, Privacy Information (including PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), and other information requiring explicit CUI designation.