As an Analyst, you typically work with clients to gather, interpret, and document requirements, and create user stories. You have a keen understanding of how to translate business needs into Appian requirements. You are well-aware of Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), and Agile methodologies and best practices.
You can leverage Appian features to create future state process diagrams and determine new use cases. At a high level, you understand how Appian can integrate with other third-party technologies. You participate in all phases of an Appian delivery lifecycle, including requirements definition, story writing, prioritization, refinement, testing, and user guides documentation.
Candidates should fully prepare for an exam using the objectives below as a checklist to identify possible gaps between knowledge and the skills measured by the exam. The relative weight illustrates the approximate size of each section. It is recommended that focused preparation should be in areas where any knowledge gaps are found.
Introduction to the Appian Platform (24%)
- Identify the purpose of each Appian object
- Identify commonly used Appian resources (i.e., Appian Community, playbook, help documentation)
- Recognize role-based application security
- Describe common Appian use cases (i.e., platform capabilities)
- Recognize different Appian user experiences
- Differentiate between Appian Designer, Appian Process Modeler, and Cloud Database
- Design the user experience (in collaboration with the development team)
- Identify use cases likely to require third-party components (e.g., DocuSign, Google APIs)
Appian Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) (22%)
- Identify the role of the analyst across all phases of the SDLC (initial, build, release, optimize)
- Recognize the roles and associated responsibilities of team members
- Differentiate between various stages of the Appian SDLC
- Describe the scrum lifecycle of a user story, including Definition of Done (DoD) and Definition of Ready (DoR)
- Explain the different agile scrum ceremonies
- Identity use cases for various environments
- Evaluate the test scenario before user acceptance testing (UAT)
Requirements Gathering (20%)
- Identify the purpose of requirement gathering
- Identify the characteristics of requirements gathering
- Explain how Appian features can address common business requirements
- Identify important elements when gathering initial requirements
- Translate customer requirements into user stories and Appian development plans
- Solve common challenges in requirements gathering
- Explain when common UI components should be used for Appian interfaces
User Story Creation (14%)
- Illustrate the standard user story format
- Categorize user stories and collect appropriate requirements based on categorization
- Work with the Product Owner in managing product backlog
- Identify the story status (e.g., Draft, Defined, Done)
- Explain the different components of a story (e.g., description, acceptance criteria of use case, dependency)
Business Process Modeling (20%)
- Identify different integration types (e.g., JSON REST, SOAP WS, Connected Systems)
- Illustrate the best method to clearly define user roles when creating a process model diagram
- Identify common Business Process Model Notation (BPMN) elements
- Specify which nodes would or would not be used in a given scenario
- Explain the most common gateway types in the Appian Process Modeler
- Describe the benefits of creating a future state process model with SMEs
- Identify automation opportunities from a given process