Main difference between ‘write to entity’ and ‘write to records'

Certified Senior Developer

Hi all, I am new to the Appian.

I am created an interface with record type, add option and a process model to save the data in database.

Created process model with the options ‘write to entity’ and ‘write to records. Below is my understanding.

  1. Enable activity chaining is refreshing record type data in both the options.
  2. Rule input for interface can be created by using CDT. This will work only for ‘write to entity’.
  3. ‘Write to entity’ and ‘Write to record’ both are same. ‘Write to record’ is the latest one and ‘Write to entity’ is the legacy approach.

 Please confirm is there any other main difference.

  Discussion posts and replies are publicly visible

Parents
  • One of the biggest differences is just the number of objects used. We created the Write Records node because that enables you to use a record type for all operations - if you use Write to DSE, you must create a CDT, Data Store, and Entity to perform the write.

    There are also a couple of additional benefits to Write Records:

    • You can write records and related records together, which makes it easy to update multiple tables at once
    • You can use Write Records to also write record events, which can help you understand the key milestones in your application
    • Write Records has an option to skip the node if an error occurs (while Write to DSE does not), which gives you more flexibility in writing data
    • Write Records is more efficient at updating data - if certain fields are not included or not changed, Write Records ignores them, making updates faster and less likely to accidentally overwrite data

    Like Stefan said - I generally recommend using Write Records over Write to DSE. It has a lot of benefits over Write to DSE, and we're also continuing to make updates to Write Records in the coming quarters!

  • 0
    Certified Associate Developer
    in reply to Peter Lewis

    Which are all ways to handle record sync error during the process itself for write to record smart service.

    If we configure write to record and if record sync fails with any reason after writing into source table then what could be the way to identify the issue in sync.

    I can think of Record sync smart service by passing identifier after write to record to make sure it works and then notify the initiator for any error and to contact support team.

    Any other suggestion apart from record sync error notification to Admin?

  • 0
    Certified Lead Developer
    in reply to piyusha6151

    The smart service will handle that and fail in case of an error. Then the alert management of the process model kicks in.

  • 0
    Appian Employee
    in reply to Stefan Helzle

    We also recently introduced a feature for a "recovery sync": docs.appian.com/.../records-data-sync.html

    This helps because if a write fails due to a sync issue, it will automatically retry a full sync and recover from the issue. It doesn't address all issues, but does account for a lot of intermittent issues!

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