Item: Appian
Rating: 7
Author: Jess Sandy

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Quickly implementing an approval process for form submission. Email mailbox integration with a Microsoft Graph API. Appian was offering a pre-built solution that we could easily customize to meet our specific purposes.

Pros and Cons

Easy to get non-technical people up to speed.
Compare and deploy means that deployments are simplified and avoid error.
Integration is generally easy.

Debugging can be difficult as error messages are not always detailed enough.
Support is hard to get for individual freelancers and small company business partners.
The flexibility between desktop and mobile development can sometimes limit specific development toward one platform.

Return on Investment

Quick implementation.
Meet security regulations.
Cloud providers manage the infrastructure for us.

Support Rating

Appian support is always available and helps with all the issues that are put forward to them. Support is quick to respond and will work with you to find the solution; generally answers come within 24 hours. When faced with a high-priority production incident, Appian support has been quick to help.

Usability

Very easy for non-technical people to develop and learn. Nice to use interface when building. The preview in the interface editor allows you to see how the interface will appear when viewed in Mobile vs Desktop—mobile needs work but it is good to see and to have available to you. Very intuitive for business users.