Function to get 'user agent' data

RE: Function to get 'user agent' data

Shyam Bommakanti — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 00:52:45 GMT

Though Appian has provided an ability to limit the concurrent logins, is it a good practice to refrain from concurrent logins(I assume that the solution in this case would be restricting the user to have only one login)?

I don't remember coming across any best practices about concurrent sessions. Every requirement is different and has different priorities. If something is OOB and the LOE is low and usually business wants to do it. Cases like this it's not just LOE but also other limitations as not allowing concurrent sessions to satisfy the business requirement. I follow as much transparency as possible so that my client can take an educated and right decision.

As Appian has an ability to access the application from multiple devices such as tablet, desktop, mobile etc, is it right to ask a user to log out from an device before starting to use another device?
This can be mitigated via setting up lower timeout: forum.appian.com/.../Post-Install_Configurations.html

Again, it depends on the requirement, if it's a hard requirement to capture the device used to make some decision this is a work around with limitations.

RE: Function to get 'user agent' data

Stefan Helzle — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 00:46:12 GMT

I think the question is about whether it is possible to react on the user agent directly in a SAIL form. This is just not possible without direct support from Appian.

RE: Function to get 'user agent' data

sikhivahans — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 00:19:45 GMT

@shyamb So I do have two questions here: Though Appian has provided an ability to limit the concurrent logins, is it a good practice to refrain from concurrent logins(I assume that the solution in this case would be restricting the user to have only one login)? As Appian has an ability to access the application from multiple devices such as tablet, desktop, mobile etc, is it right to ask a user to log out from an device before starting to use another device?
It would be grateful if you could answer my questions incase if you have an experience around this.

RE: Function to get 'user agent' data

Shyam Bommakanti — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 23:02:31 GMT

There's no expression that gives you the user agent and also couldn't find anything in public APIs that gives user agent.

You could explore this plugin that parses login logs: forum.appian.com/.../summary

And you can limit the concurrent logins in admin console: forum.appian.com/.../Appian_Administration_Console.html

With combination of the above 2 you could find a solution.

RE: Function to get 'user agent' data

sikhivahans — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 22:35:00 GMT

@heriz Hi, I am not sure if you are already aware of this - How about creating a plugin that parses the login-audit.csv mentioned at https://forum.appian.com/suite/help/7.11/Logging.html#Logins? Also I guess, definitely for sure, there isn't any OOTB feature for doing so.

Even though if we depend on the logs, I guess we need to think over this - what if the user logs into multiple devices at the time of form submission?

RE: Function to get 'user agent' data

ryanh — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 21:44:36 GMT

I believe there are some Apache plugins that will help do this, or possibly the generic log files from apache. Once in a log format the logs might just include some form of key value that lets you tie the requests back to a specific user. Maybe the logging process in Appian that saves when users login (success/failure) could be expanded to include this.

RE: Function to get 'user agent' data

Stefan Helzle — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 17:43:00 GMT

AFAIK there is no such function available.