Executing two Smart Services from One Saveinto

RE: Executing two Smart Services from One Saveinto

Mike Schmitt — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 19:19:40 GMT

If you're using the newer a!startProcess(), make sure you set "is synchronous" to TRUE - the newer version doesn't obey (or care about) activity chaining in the process model, and our only options are now to either assume the process has completed or wait for a time-out (though small, utility-based process models should pose little or no issue for this constraint).

RE: Executing two Smart Services from One Saveinto

Stefan Helzle — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 18:41:55 GMT

This is the reason: https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/25.1/functions-side-effects.html

RE: Executing two Smart Services from One Saveinto

Chris.Gillespie — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 17:33:19 GMT

I shouldn't have been so quick. I created the PM, it has two process variables; languagePreference and speakerPreference. I'm having issues with receiving the error codes from the process model.

Here is the code that calls the process

                        a!radioButtonField(
                          choiceLabels: { "Yes", "No" },
                          choiceValues: { true, false },
                          label: "Is there a Speaker Preference",
                          labelPosition: "ABOVE",
                          value: local!selectedParishProfile.speakerPreference,
                          saveInto: {
                            a!save(
                              local!selectedParishProfile.speakerPreference,
                              save!value
                            ),
                            a!startProcess(
                              processModel: cons!PMSO_deleteSpeakerandLanguagePreferences,
                              processParameters: a!map(
                                languagePreference: local!languagePreference,
                                speakerPreference: local!speakerPreference
                              ),
                              onSuccess: {
                                a!save(local!languagePreferencesDeletedSuccess, fv!processInfo.pv.LanguageErrorOccured),
                                a!save(local!speakerPreferencesDeletedSuccess, fv!processInfo.pv.SpeakerErrorOccured)
                              }
                            ),
                            
                            
                          },
                          showWhen: if(
                            a!isNotNullOrEmpty(
                              local!selectedParishProfile.speakerRequired
                            ),
                            local!selectedParishProfile.speakerRequired,
                            false
                          ),
                          required: if(
                            a!isNotNullOrEmpty(
                              local!selectedParishProfile.speakerRequired
                            ),
                            local!selectedParishProfile.speakerRequired,
                            false
                          ),
                          choiceLayout: "COMPACT",
                          choiceStyle: "STANDARD",
                          spacing: "EVEN_MORE"
                        ),

The process variables LanguageErrorOccured and SpeakerErrorOccured, are being populated in the PM.

But not the local variable

RE: Executing two Smart Services from One Saveinto

Chris.Gillespie — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:47:41 GMT

I agree! I think Appian puts in a lot of limitations because they are afraid that we creative programmers will find ways to do......

What? I love their single user licensing model, how would allowing us to put in two or more smart services impact their bottom line?

RE: Executing two Smart Services from One Saveinto

Chris.Gillespie — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:30:28 GMT

Thanks again Stefan!!!

RE: Executing two Smart Services from One Saveinto

Mike Schmitt — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:09:06 GMT

One potential workaround is to contrive a way for the setting to require 2 user clicks (say, a confirmation button, or post confirmation, etc). That might or might not be feasible given the other on-form designs of course.

Frankly I, too, sometimes find this limitation a bit trivial (they want to prevent us from execting dozens or hundreds of smart services in one SaveInto, and, for some reason, the only way they can think of to do that is to limit it to 1? what?) - but honestly it's not THAT much of a lift to simply whip up a process model that takes care of all of it, and simply swap out a startProcess call.

RE: Executing two Smart Services from One Saveinto

Stefan Helzle — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:37:11 GMT

This is correct. Create a process model.

There is an upcoming Appian Rocks (https://appian.rocks) podcast episode where we discuss the reasons for this design decision.