Platform Health Management

Appian Max Team — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 13:09:55 GMT

Current Revision posted to Guide by Appian Max Team on 4/23/2024 1:09:55 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Any strategy for the development of new Appian applications must include prioritizing Appian platform health as a foundational element. Effective platform health management is critical to reducing downtime, maintaining high development quality and proactively identifying potential risks that threaten future performance or functionality.

However, in the rush to roll out new apps the (relatively inglorious) work of platform health management is deprioritized, and therefore, maintenance debt accumulates. Furthermore, siloed teams and the traditional communication divide between business partners and IT teams often lead to, at best, a partial or fragmented understanding of platform health. This can introduce unnecessary risks not only for existing projects, but also for future endeavors.

Appian Recommendations

By establishing a structured methodology to run, analyze, and take action on the health of the Appian Platform, you will improve visibility and awareness into the status of your environment and applications, and decrease the likelihood of production issues. Monitoring critical applications, plugins and servers associated with the Appian platform will also help mitigate enterprise-wide risks. Furthermore, regularly upgrading the Appian platform ensures your organization is able to leverage latest product improvements and stay in product compliance to receive support for defects or security fixes.

In order to avoid a fragmented approach to platform health management, Appian strongly recommends using the out-of-the-box Health Check utility on each of your environments; production and non-production (eg. dev, test, and production). Health Check can be run to provide transparency into application design, usage, and risks across your entire Appian program. This utility can be scheduled to automatically collect the information it needs and perform the analysis, so developers maintain focus on high value work. Running Health Check in all environments reduces the risk of quality issues being moved into production in the first place. For example, if you run Health Check in dev at the end of a sprint, you should prevent issues from getting to test, and if you run it in test, you should help prevent things going into production.

Users can explore the Health Check analysis findings via MyAppian. Ideally, the findings should be reviewed on a regular basis by the Platform Owner and Technical Lead for each application on the platform. Since organizations often have multiple applications owned by different teams, it is important that each of these applications has someone reviewing the Health Check output for issues related to their apps. Detailed findings are organized into four areas of your environment: Design, User Experience, Infrastructure and Configuration.

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

When exploring the Health Check findings, users can filter and sort by various attributes like risk level or category. Historical trends and other environment-level information is also provided to get a good picture of the overall environment health. In addition to the dynamic analysis capability in My Appian, the Health Check utility also generates an Excel report that contains more information. For additional help and details about these reports, check out our Understanding the Health Check Report page.

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Allocate 10% of every sprint toward maintenance and backlog work (about 2 hours per full time developer). This ensures that developers have adequate time to research and fix Health Check issues as needed or address other maintenance related activities. If done consistently, this practice will help manage technical debt and enable teams to spend fewer full sprints fixing behind the scenes problems.

Metrics Management

For any technology platform, there are key benefits that an organization expects to realize which can be measured to demonstrate value. Well defined metrics will enable the platform owner to not only demonstrate value to the leadership but also establish trust with the business and other stakeholders so the organization can scale its use of the Appian platform effectively.

Appian Recommendations

The program-level metrics can enable the Platform Owner to demonstrate that the platform is being used effectively and providing value to its stakeholders. Appian recommends that platform owners review these metrics monthly and provide summaries to relevant stakeholders or management team members. Some of these metrics can be easily monitored on the Appian platform using MyAppian including:

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

However, platform level metrics may not be sufficient when there are multiple applications built on the Appian platform for various business units. Application-level metrics specific to a project or a program will enable the platform owner to demonstrate value to the business stakeholders that their investment is giving them valuable returns. These metrics will vary depending on the type of application and the expected benefits. Also, they need to be measured and tracked for each application. Some examples of application-level metrics that might be included on a custom dashboard are:

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

MyAppian displays a wide variety of metrics pertaining to the health of your platform. Navigate to the Health tab to view information specific to managing and monitoring your Appian environments. Once in the Health tab, select Analyze, and choose an Appian environment. View recent Health Check findings and sort these findings by category, status, risk level, and Application Name in order to get a holistic picture of platform health, and to identify and mitigate risks proactively. To enable the Appian Health Check, simply visit your administrator console in the desired environment.

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

matt.cosenza — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 15:46:51 GMT

Revision 11 posted to Guide by matt.cosenza on 10/31/2023 3:46:51 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

Devon Lee — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 17:05:49 GMT

Revision 10 posted to Guide by Devon Lee on 3/22/2023 5:05:49 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

Devon Lee — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 17:05:33 GMT

Revision 9 posted to Guide by Devon Lee on 3/22/2023 5:05:33 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

joel.larin — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 15:08:40 GMT

Revision 8 posted to Guide by joel.larin on 12/14/2022 3:08:40 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

joel.larin — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 15:06:21 GMT

Revision 7 posted to Guide by joel.larin on 12/14/2022 3:06:21 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

joel.larin — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 15:04:17 GMT

Revision 6 posted to Guide by joel.larin on 12/14/2022 3:04:17 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

joel.larin — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 19:13:00 GMT

Revision 5 posted to Guide by joel.larin on 12/9/2022 7:13:00 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

joel.larin — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 19:08:00 GMT

Revision 4 posted to Guide by joel.larin on 12/9/2022 7:08:00 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

joel.larin — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 19:07:05 GMT

Revision 3 posted to Guide by joel.larin on 12/9/2022 7:07:05 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Tags: program management, Vision

Platform Health Management

joel.larin — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 14:48:28 GMT

Revision 2 posted to Guide by joel.larin on 12/9/2022 2:48:28 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met

💡Practitioner Tip: Monitor Account Health Using MyAppian

Additional Resources

Platform Health Management

joel.larin — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 14:44:29 GMT

Revision 1 posted to Guide by joel.larin on 12/9/2022 2:44:29 PM

Skills Covered

This guide teaches you how to monitor application health and leverage platform-level metrics to monitor application performance.

Skills Checklist:

Identify key benefits to using Appian Health Check.
Utilize Appian Health Check to monitor app performance.
Demonstrate value using MyAppian platform-level metrics.
Understand the difference between platform-level metrics and application-level metrics.

Platform Health Management

Appian Recommendations

Key Benefits to Health Check

Reduces overall risk
Flags best practice design violations
Reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages
Identifies developer skill gaps
Identifies high priorities for investment

How Frequently Should I Run Health Check?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding Health Check. Appian recommends scheduling Health Check to automatically run at the the intervals listed below:

At least once a month in production as part of server and application monitoring.
At least once at the end of each development cycle (eg. sprint) or as part of a project implementation checklist.
After any testing as part of a pre-deployment checklist.

💡Practitioner Tip: Reserve Time In Every Sprint For Maintenance and Backlog Activities

Metrics Management

Appian Recommendations

Platform daily usage
Daily unique mobile users
Health Check findings
Server level cloud metrics (CPU, Disk Utilization, Memory, etc.)
Average response time - cloud environments only

Appian Recommendations

Application time to build
Number of integrated systems
Number of users registered
Number of bugs
Number of processes completed
Number of transactions (eg. orders processed)
Average cycle time of steps in a process
Milestone completion time
Percentage of tasks completed
Percentage of task SLA met