Versions

RE: Versions

seanw583 — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 17:58:02 GMT

I think others have already provided good feedback, I would add that per the Knowledge base(links below), there can be a performance hit if an object has a very large number of versions. Usually this would be constants that are being updated by the system on a recurring basis.

community.appian.com/.../kb-1314-how-to-address-high-memory-usage-in-appian-cloud-environments
community.appian.com/.../kb-1226-content-collaboration-engine-consumes-high-memory

RE: Versions

charlesm492 — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 19:39:16 GMT

The only thing this should really have an affect on is storage space, but it would have to be a very, very extreme case in order for there to be any detriments from this. However, one other side effect is lack of value if there are a ton of versions. As Larry mentioned, a good practice might be to, when making a change and saving often in order to not lose or to test your changes, only keep the final version of your change and delete the others. This way the versions would be more tied to actual commits or releases rather than having tons of versions for every small change that was made while trying to get something to work and it would be much simpler to compare the versions if trying to determine which one is potentially causing an issue.

RE: Versions

ajinkyab277 — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 19:38:36 GMT

There is no such limitation for version. But it is always better to have one version per release/sprint/story (or logical completion of development phase).
So as best practice developer can always make sure that they are deleting all their intermittent version at the end of development

RE: Versions

Larry Nguyen — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 19:07:29 GMT

In regards to best practices for versions of objects in Appian, I'm not aware of any.

I think in general minimizing the versions is good for maintenance and tracking of real changes. Some developers like to save very often incrementally for fear of losing work, which is fine, but can make it difficult later on to track the trail of "real" changes. To minimize these, you could probably do something similar to "squashing commits" in git. Basically, if you've saved several times for a particular change or enhancement and are satisfied with your final development version for that increment of work, you could delete your own previous versions that were related to that particular change or enhancement you've done. This is not to be confused with deleting all previous versions of the object, that would be bad.

RE: Versions

ravir0001 — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 19:39:26 GMT

Is there any best practice considering the number of versions an object can have?
I think we dont have any best practice regarding Object Versions. We have best practice for naming convention for the Objects.
Here it is : A unique PREFIX and an object naming convention has been defined and followed for all objects.
Visit the link "docs.appian.com/.../Standard_Object_Names.html".
Managing Object Versions : docs.appian.com/.../Managing_Object_Versions.html

Is there any limit to the number of versions an object can have?
I think there is no limit as it always refers latest version during execution.

Whats the effect of having more versions of an object performance-wise?
I think you dont have any performance issues. It may take some disk space but it may not cause any performance issues.
Refer the below link for more details :
docs.appian.com/.../objects-view.html
Versions (Single-choice)- Opens a versions modal that allow designers to open previous versions of objects.
Connected Systems, Constants, Decisions, Documents, Expression Rules, Integrations, Interfaces, Process Models, Query Rules, and Web APIs all have a versioning capability.

Thanks,

Ravi.

RE: Versions

Shanmukha — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 08:23:15 GMT

Hi Rohini,

As per my understanding. You can have n number of versions for any object in Appian but considering the fact that, It is better to maintain less version of object on environment basis. For the DEVELOPMENT you can have n number of versions and when it comes to TEST environment then try to reduce the version count (like deploying application objects once complete testing has been done in development) and when it comes to PRODUCTION, the same is applied as test.

RE: Versions

vasuj — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 07:20:03 GMT

Hi rohinip

As per the documentation we can create any number of versions for an object, when it comes to best practice we should try to minimal the versions for an object. However it doesn't effect the performance on making more versions, but occupies the Memory in disk.

For reference go through this - docs.appian.com/.../Managing_Object_Versions.html.

Thanks
Vasu J

RE: Versions

vasuj — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 07:18:43 GMT

RE: Versions

vishnuv — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 07:01:36 GMT

Still curious to understand how versioning will effect the performance. Practical points are much appreciated.

Thanks.

RE: Versions

rohinip91 — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 06:38:32 GMT

Can you please share some thoughts on how the performance may effect for certain operations (what kind of operations) ?

RE: Versions

ravalik — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 04:57:07 GMT

HI rohinip,

As per my understanding there is no such constraint .Please find the below link:
docs.appian.com/.../Managing_Object_Versions.html.

Thanks,
ravalik

RE: Versions

Eliot Gerson — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 03:24:16 GMT

I would caution against keeping around too many versions of any given object. While there is no firm number for what constitutes "too many" versions, and no hard limit on the number of versions we allow an object to have, you should keep in mind that 1) the versions will continue to take up space in memory and on-disk and 2) having objects with a large number of versions may negatively impact performance for certain operations.

I agree that this is a topic that might benefit from more elaboration in the Playbook, Knowledge Base, or general product documentation. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

RE: Versions

rohinip91 — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 04:10:52 GMT

Thanks Shiva for the link..it cleared most of my doubts...

RE: Versions

Shiva Valusa — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 03:38:54 GMT

Yes, there is no limitation on maintaining versions.

Please refer following link to get understanding on managing versions of an Appian object.

docs.appian.com/.../Managing_Object_Versions.html

RE: Versions

Swapna Chella — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 03:26:23 GMT

Hi,

AFAIK , there is no such limitation on versioning and it doesn't effect performance as it always refers latest version during execution.

Regards,
Swapna