Hi Appian Team and Community,
We’re designing a generic, audit-compliant task module to support multiple business processes—KYC, retail and corporate loan origination, ESG, and more. Before finalizing our architecture, I’m weighing two approaches for task management:
Uses process reports and task assignment rules
Tasks are tied to process instances
UI and SLA logic driven by Appian’s native task engine
We build our own TASK_GROUP and TASK tables
TASK_GROUP
TASK
Tasks are instantiated based on business rules and metadata
UI, counters, and SLA logic are fully controlled via record types and expressions
If we rely on Appian’s built-in human tasks, what happens if the process instance is deleted or archived? – Can we still access task metadata (status, assignee, timestamps) via process reports or APIs?
What are the trade-offs between using Appian’s native task engine vs a custom task registry? – Especially in terms of auditability, lifecycle control, and cross-process reuse
Is it common practice in enterprise-grade implementations to build a custom task pool for traceability and reporting? – Or do most teams rely on Appian’s built-in task management?
For context: our vendor recommended the database-driven approach, citing limitations in Appian’s native task handling—particularly around long-term traceability, cross-process reuse, and lifecycle control once processes are deleted. That inspired us to explore a fully generic task registry that can support dynamic instantiation and stage-based progression across domains.
We’re aiming for a scalable, future-proof design that supports dynamic task instantiation based on business rules, stage-based progression, and full audit history. I’d love to hear how others have approached this, and what Appian recommends for long-term maintainability.
Thanks in advance!
Discussion posts and replies are publicly visible
ahmadb803565 said:If we rely on Appian’s built-in human tasks, what happens if the process instance is deleted or archived? – Can we still access task metadata (status, assignee, timestamps) via process reports or APIs?
When process instances are deleted/archived, task metadata is lost unless explicitly stored elsewhere. You cannot access task history via process reports after deletion.
ahmadb803565 said:What are the trade-offs between using Appian’s native task engine vs a custom task registry? – Especially in terms of auditability, lifecycle control, and cross-process reuse
Native tasks are easier to set up with built-in features but can't be reused across processes and lose audit history, while custom task tables give you complete control and permanent records but take more work to build.
ahmadb803565 said:Is it common practice in enterprise-grade implementations to build a custom task pool for traceability and reporting? – Or do most teams rely on Appian’s built-in task management
For enterprise systems that need strong auditing and task sharing across different processes, most teams are building custom task databases like your vendor suggested. It's becoming the standard approach for your type of requirements.For enterprise-level applications, I would recommend creating a generic DB-driven task framework that can be used across all applications. This allows tasks to be called on an ad-hoc basis from anywhere, provides full control over task lifecycle, and consumes less memory compared to process-bound native tasks.