what is the difference between Record type and Data Store entity, I am having a really hard time understanding the difference between them, and when to use each one , a real-world examples would be great
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Data stores allow you to insert, update, query, and delete data in the format needed by your applications without writing structured queries (SQL).
A record type is a design object that allows you to structure and model your enterprise data so you can easily build data-centric applications.
About Record Types - Appian 24.3
Data Store Object - Appian 24.3
For your better understanding you can go through with that.
Record Types are for presenting data to users in an Appian application, whereas Data Store Entities represent database tables used to manage the underlying data.
Displaying and interacting with business data in a user friendly way
Both record type and data store entity supports CRUD operations. But record type provides more features, ease of configuration, ease of development than data store entity which requires considerable knowledge on database concepts
It is recommended to start moving towards record types than traditional CDT approach to utilize the full potential of data fabrics.
so, we can say that Data store Entity are similar to typical database tables?
Yeah, database tables or views which are mapped in Appian specific format, so that we can work on it inside the application.
also I read somewhere that data store entity is for data to out-lives the application life cycle, is that true ?
I am not sure what you mean, but
"Data Store" is similar to "Database"
"Data Store Entity" is similar to "Table in the Database"
ok , thank you for you time
Some major differences can be seen between CDT and Record.
Record
CDT
Used to connect cloud data to Appian
Used to connect data to Appian by using a bridge call data store.
Within records, we can easily modify and manage the data to present it to users
Data can only be modified after querying.
Easy to handle relationships.
We need to handle relationships on the database side.
We can fetch up to 5,000 records.
We can fetch a specified number of rows.
We can connect to databases, processes, Salesforce, and web services to create records.
We can connect only to database tables or existing data.
We can create separate new fields, meaning virtual fields (i.e., custom record fields), to manage and manipulate records.
With CDT, we cannot create custom fields.