Best Practice for Deploying Patches

Hi Judy, By "Process Owner" you mean the process initiator ??

No - I'm referring to the individual who is the owner / creator of the process. The security on the process will dictate who initiates it, which is typically someone other than the person who created the process (i.e., the end user who starts an action). However, if the process is started by the person who created it - then we could have a problem if the creator is a developer or system administrator whose account has been deactivated. I assumed that if we used the Appian.Administrator account to deploy updates - it would change the process owner for the process model, but evidently, it doesn't.

I think this is what you are referring to. You can export your app and re-import using this notation in a customization file to force the update of the object owner to match your deployment user:
docs.appian.com/.../Managing_Import_Customization_Files.html

I'm thinking that is the best option Tim - I will have our administrator export the application and then re-import it using the administrator account. We haven't used the customization file in the past but I will look into that as well.

Thank you all for your suggestions!

The deployment guidelines linked previously were for v17.1 and are horribly out of date. I think it was 17.3 that Appian amended the import procedure to not update objects that had not changed by default. Assuming you are cloud then you will have this functionality.

I just looked at the 18.2 version and it basically says the same thing:

"On import, process models are published as a new version.
If you are reimporting an existing process model, draft versions you may be working on are overwritten when the imported process model is published.
When importing process models (for the first time) that are linked recursively, the process models are published twice - resulting in two new versions.
Subsequent imports (updates) publish the recursively linked process models one time per import, creating one new version.

The user performing an import is listed as the creator of notes and attachments associated with the process model, as well as the owner of the process model."

That's true. Hopefully someone from Appian will see this and review.
If you look at the section around "Reading the Import Log" you will see the "Not Changed" note that links through to the Import Package docs. Here it reads:
"When you click Import Package, the object's definition will not be updated in the target environment because there are no updates to make. The Last Modified information will remain the same as it was pre-import and no change will be made to the designer of any process models with this status."

Thanks Mike! I think if we just export the application using our service account and then re-import it, we should be okay. I was trying to avoid doing that. I'm also working with the cloud team because I think the 'Owner' column displayed on the Process tab in 18.1 is not correct. The 'Created by' and 'Author' columns displayed elsewhere (i.e., in the /design view) all show the service account name (Appian Administrator). So - perhaps the 'owner' is correct - but Appian has a bug in the Process tab in the /designer view.

Yeah - it all gets a bit confusing particularly since Appian uses different terms for these things in different contexts. For instance in /design all we see for process models is "last modified", which is different from a process model's "creator", however when a process is set to "run as designer" (i.e. in a subprocess call) it actually uses the "last modified by" user, not the creator.

When you say "Owner column", where exactly are you looking? The default view of the Process instances listing in legacy designer lists "Started By" but this isn't really the same as "Owner", though you could be referring to something different that I'm not thinking of.

If you are in 18.1 or earlier and click on the Processes tab, then view Process Models - the default column headings include: Name, Description, 'Owner', Created, Last Modified. I will try to upload a screenshot.

I see it now - as far as I know, "Owner" there reflects the process model's creator, but (confusingly) not the Last Published By user, which is the more important thing.

I see it now - as far as I know, "Owner" there reflects the process model's creator, but (confusingly) not the Last Published By user, which is the more important thing.