Finding object properties

RE: Finding object properties

Stewart Burchell — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 17:28:42 GMT

Conceivably (although it's a roll-your-own solution and has a relatively high start-up level of effort) you could use RPA to automate what I think you've been doing manually so far. Your design would:

have a list of object types that support versioning
would iterate through that list
for each object type:
- check the relevant box in Designer
- select each object in your list (if there are multiple pages of objects you can grab the count at the bottom right of the list and calculate how many pages you need to process)
- select the "More" button and select 'Versions'
- retrieve the relevant information from the versions pop-up pane)

As I suggest this should work in theory, but you'll need RPA enabled in your environment and a server to host your bot on. Which all sounds way harder than just installing Content Tools and getting some basic info that way.

RE: Finding object properties

Mathieu Drouin — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 11:44:50 GMT

Stewart Burchell I can't speak to why he can't use content tools.

But on my end, I can see some potential uses cases for getting the object revision history and in my experience, the function in the Content Tools plugin isn't a reliable option. I've mentioned it before but no one has ever responded to me.

Please see my comment here: community.appian.com/.../content-tools

RE: Finding object properties

Stewart Burchell — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 10:31:07 GMT

Still not understanding the "why" here.

Your idea (to query the Appian Primary DB) initially sounds like a good one but I'm pretty sure the Appian Object data is held in one or more files and not DB tables...

RE: Finding object properties

michels2793 — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 10:06:01 GMT

In my project to track and audit components, a module is being developed that must have the list of objects and their versions so as not to have to enter object by object and see what version it is in. Due to technical limitations you cannot use the content tool, it is very unfortunate, but it is what it is. So, I have investigated and perhaps by consulting the Appian primary database I can get some answer but I don't see in which table the information I am looking for can be found.

RE: Finding object properties

Stewart Burchell — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 10:00:45 GMT

Thanks. The answers you've provided are all "what" but no provide indication of "why"...it's the "why" that will enable people here in this forum to provide you with possibly more options and potentially better ones that might be met in just answering your specific query.

RE: Finding object properties

michels2793 — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:53:35 GMT

1-I need to list the object names and their versions.

2-I need this information for processes, rules, decisions, web API and any object that contains the version as metadata of itself.

3-Limitations set by the client

RE: Finding object properties

Stewart Burchell — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:41:55 GMT

Ok, so I now have questions:

what do you need this information for? what are you going to use it to do?
which environment(s) do you need to get this information from?
why can't you deploy Content Tools to your target environment(s)?

RE: Finding object properties

michels2793 — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:23:56 GMT

Thank you very much, but I apologize because I did not say that, due to technical limitations, I cannot use Content Tools. Any other option?

RE: Finding object properties

Stewart Burchell — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:17:27 GMT

You can do this:

getcontentdetailsbyuuid(
  getconstantorruleuuidbyname("your object name")
)

RE: Finding object properties

michels2793 — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:09:01 GMT

Hi John. Is there a way to obtain these metadata and others, such as the version of an object in our application, from an expression rule?