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).

Shubham Aware · Answer

harishbabub6381 said: Is a!toJson() / a!fromJson() supported and reliable in Portals ? 
 Not supported directly in Portal interfaces. Instead, send your form data as maps from the Portal and convert to/from JSON inside a Web API that the Portal calls. 
 harishbabub6381 said: Can we safely trigger a Web API every 30 seconds to save the form data? Any performance or timeout issues to consider? 
 Calling a Web API every 30 seconds for auto-save is supported and Portals auto-scale to handle traffic. To reduce load, consider increasing the interval to 60 seconds. Use URL parameters for storing draftId since localStorage isn&rsquo;t available in Portals. https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/25.2/portals-security.html https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/25.2/portal-capabilities.html