How to generate a unique URL that can be used to open a process.

Question

Is it possible to generate a unique URL to open a process in Appian?
I would like to be able to start an Appian process instance using an API from another system, and open that process from a screen like "Appian process list" on the other system. A process has multiple User Input Tasks and also enters sub-processes, but I would like to be able to open the process from the "Appian Process List" no matter what state it is in. Is it possible to generate and return a unique URL for opening a process, regardless of the task, when a process instance is launched? How should I implement this? I've recently started learning Appian. Please forgive me for asking a beginner's question. Thanks in Advance.

Shubham Aware · Answer

takuyak0088 said: Generate a unique URL associated with the process → Click on the URL and be redirected to the page of the currently active task by Appian's internal processing. 
 Yes, you can generate a task link using the a!urlForTask() function. Any authenticated user with viewer access permissions will be able to access that task.

Harsha Sharma · Answer

Instead of using tasks its better to configure processes like cascading related processes and use a!startprocess() in the API. It can be like : 
 1. Break your process model into smaller processes. Each sub process will have activity chained User input task as the first node and parameters to provide data from previous steps into the sub process. 
 2. Configure web apis to start process using a!startprocess(). For the value within start process you can maintain a backend status in database storing till which UI the process is complete and what should be the next step. You can build an expression to return the process model to start depending on the request (primary key). 
 Example: A process model having 5 user input tasks should be break into 5 sub processes. Each process will have a UI node then automated nodes to store data, send email etc whatever process needs you have, lastly the process will end. 
 External system will call the Web API by passing a record id and using the expression rule logic, web api will start process showing the expected UI and related process will commence. One link trigger from external system will complete execution for one sub-action. So each api call will be like a related action showing one UI at a time. 
 Here instead of a unique URL API will be calling unique process model depending on the last step for the record.

Harsha Sharma · Answer

You can create a process report to store record id and active Task id. Now with first API call you can query the process report using a!queryProcessAnalytics(). Then in API output use a!urlfortask(taskIds:{TaskID})) to get the Unique url for the task e.g. 
 <https:// ENV_URL .appiancloud.com/suite/tempo/tasks/task/ taskID > 
 Clicking on this generated URL will open the task. Only issue is this opens in Appian Tempo, so if you want it to be embedded into another system itself it will need additional configuration. But if idea is to click on link and navigate to Appian to complete the task then it will work after authentication.

How to generate a unique URL that can be used to open a process.

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