Moving Portals from the Publishing Manager to Appian Designer

The Appian Portals Publishing Manager has been deprecated as of version 22.4. This step-by-step guide will show you how to move your existing portals into Appian Designer.

Although published portals can still be updated using the manager, we recommend you convert your portals in order to take advantage of new improvements that come with the portal object, such as the ability to test your reCAPTCHA credentials or configure your portal as a Progressive Web App. It will also let you co-locate your portal object together with supporting design objects in your application.

Step 1: Copying the Portal Configuration

You must manually copy or record the existing configuration to recreate the portal later in the process. If possible, take a screenshot of the configuration data to ensure accuracy.

To view the portal configuration:

1. Open the navigation menu in your development environment and go to the Appian Portal Publishing Manager.
2. Click the Update button.
3. Select the portal you want to copy. The configuration options populate automatically.
4. Copy or record the following data fields for use later:
   • The portal name.
   • The primary interface.
   • The display name.
   • reCAPTCHA credentials, if provided*.
   • Any non-default branding options.
   • The service account name, if provided.

Note: The application properties do not need to be copied; these will be pulled in automatically from the environment by the portal object. You will be able to set different property values for your connected systems or other supporting objects in higher environments by using an import customization file during deployment. If you were depending on these properties to set different values for portals than for sites on the same environment, you may need to create a new copy of your supporting object specifically for your portal. 

*If Google reCAPTCHA is configured on your portal, the credentials will not be visible here. Visit the Google Cloud Console to retrieve your credentials. See the Google reCAPTCHA docs page for more information.

Step 2: Deleting the Existing Portal in the Dev Environment

To use the same web address for your new portal, you must first delete the existing portal from the dev environment. This will bring the dev portal offline. If you skip this step, you will not be able to publish the new portal, because the web address will still be in use by the existing portal.

If you plan to use a different web address for the new portal, you can safely skip this step.

To delete the existing portal:

1. Go to the Appian Portal Publishing Manager.
2. Click the Delete button.
3. Select the portal you want to delete.
4. Click Delete to submit the form.

Step 3: Creating and Publishing a New Portal Object

Create and publish the new portal object using the information copied from the existing portal in step 1.

To create and publish the new portal object:

1. Go to the Appian Designer.
2. Open the application containing your portal's supporting objects.
3. Click New and choose Portal.
4. Enter a new Name for the portal object.
5. Enter in the Display Name copied in step 1.
6. Enter the original name of the portal in the Web Address Identifier field, so that the portal uses the same web address as before.
7. Choose the appropriate branding options and service account.
8. If using reCAPTCHA, click the plus sign button next to the field, enter your credentials, test the connection, and click Create to make a new reCAPTCHA connected system.
9. Toggle on the Published option at the top of the page, and confirm that the web address is correct.
10. Save the portal object and wait for the status to say "published" in the top banner.
11. View your portal using the link, and test it to make sure it looks and behaves as expected.

Step 4: Deleting the Existing Portal in Higher Environments

After verifying the new portal setup is correct in development, you must delete the portal from higher environments before deploying the new object. This helps avoid problems that will occur if the portal's web address is still in use.

Again, you can safely skip this step if you have chosen a different web address for the new portal.

To delete the existing portal from higher environments:

1. Go to the Appian Portal Publishing Manager.
2. Click the Delete button.
3. Select the portal you want to delete.
4. Click Delete again to submit the form.

Repeat this step for all environments containing the portal.

Step 5: Deploying the Portal Object

The final step is to deploy your portal to each higher environment. Since the portal is published in our dev environment, deploying the portal object will automatically publish the portal on the target environment. This saves you from having to log back into higher environments to publish the portal.

Find more information on deploying a portal in the documentation.

Your portal has now been moved to Appian Designer and is once again available for use in all environments. If your portal is not reachable after deployment, check the deployment log for errors. Further edits to the portal can be made through the portal object or supporting objects, and the updates to the portal may be deployed across environments.