Auto-Saving Form Data Every 30 Seconds in Appian Portals – Is a!toJson() Supported

Question

Hi Community, 
 I'm exploring a lightweight auto-save strategy for a Portal form and would appreciate some guidance. 
 ️ I understand that triggering a Web API on every keystroke or field update is not supported or scalable in Portals &mdash; totally agree with that. 
 Here's the approach I'm considering:

On initial form load, generate a draftId (UUID) and store it (via URL or localStorage ).

Hold all inputs in local!formData .

Every 30 seconds (or on key actions like tab change or &ldquo;Save Draft&rdquo;), send a full snapshot of the form to a Web API using a!toJson(local!formData) .

On form reload, use the draftId to fetch and restore the saved draft using a!fromJson() .

My questions:

Is a!toJson() / a!fromJson() supported and reliable in Portals ?

Can we safely trigger a Web API every 30 seconds to save the form data? Any performance or timeout issues to consider?

Mike Schmitt · Answer

You correctly point out that a!toJson() is REPORTED TO BE "incompatible" with portals - but i believe this claim itself is an error , as after extensive testing on my own sites, it turns out it WORKS JUST FINE . I figure it's a matter of the documentation keeping up with the technology, or something similar. 
 As to the technical nature of what you're after - I defer to Stefan's guidance, in that integrations *should* be handling JSON conversion for you, and that you should be able to simply pass raw data (unless there's some other special reason you require JSON translation that you haven't specified).