Appian ACD100 Exam Dumps & Practice Test Questions

Question 1:

In Appian, which three types of objects can be used directly as pages in a Site interface? (Select three.)

A. Data store
B. Report
C. News Feed
D. Process model with a start form
E. Record type

Correct Answers: B, D, E

Explanation:

In Appian, Sites are customizable interfaces used to deliver tailored application experiences to end users. Each Site can contain one or more pages, and these pages are tied to specific Appian object types that allow interaction with the system or display business data. Not all Appian objects are suitable for use as Site pages—only those that can offer a user-facing interface are valid.

Let’s examine each object to determine its eligibility:

• A. Data store:
  A data store serves as a backend component that links Appian to relational databases. It allows Appian applications to persist and retrieve structured data but lacks any visual interface. Since Sites are meant to display content or initiate user workflows, and data stores do not support such interaction, they cannot be configured as a page. Therefore, A is incorrect.

• B. Report:
  Appian supports custom reports built using interfaces and expressions, which are designed specifically to be viewed and interacted with. Reports provide dashboards, charts, and tables based on business data. They are intended for user consumption, making them ideal for Site pages. B is a valid option.

• C. News Feed:
  The News Feed is part of Appian's legacy Tempo interface. While it was once used for system-wide announcements and collaborative updates, it is not an object that can be added to a Site. It doesn’t offer a configurable or modular format that Sites require, so C is not valid.

• D. Process model with a start form:
  Process models in Appian can be exposed through start forms, allowing users to initiate workflows directly from a Site. Common use cases include submitting requests, creating records, or launching approval processes. As long as a start form is configured, the process model becomes a valid page type. D is correct.

• E. Record type:
  Record types are central to Appian’s data-driven interface design. They allow users to view, search, and interact with business data using defined views and related actions. Record types are one of the most common and powerful objects displayed on Sites, making E a valid answer.

In summary, Reports, Process models with start forms, and Record types are the only options from this list that are directly supported as Site pages in Appian. These enable a rich, role-based user experience that aligns with business requirements. Therefore, the correct answers are B, D, and E.

Question 2:

What is the correct way to prevent a user from accessing the Tempo interface in Appian?

A. Change their role from System Administrator to Basic
B. Remove the user from all application-specific groups
C. Tempo access cannot be restricted
D. Adjust the membership of the Tempo Users group

Correct Answer: D

Explanation:

Appian’s Tempo is a legacy-style, social collaboration interface that allows users to interact with tasks, records, and news. However, not every organization wants users to access Tempo—especially when Sites are used as the primary user interface. To maintain tighter control over user access, Appian provides a configurable mechanism to allow or restrict access to Tempo using group membership.

The correct and supported method to restrict access to Tempo is by managing the Tempo Users group (Option D). This group controls which users have the ability to enter and interact with the Tempo environment. Administrators can manage access by adding or removing individual users or by setting up group membership rules based on attributes like user role, department, or geography.

Now let’s examine the incorrect answers:

• A. Changing the user from System Administrator to Basic:
  This impacts administrative privileges, not interface access. Even Basic users can access Tempo if they belong to the Tempo Users group. Conversely, even an Administrator will lose access to Tempo if removed from the group. So this doesn’t directly control Tempo access.

• B. Removing users from all application groups:
  This affects access to specific applications or features within them, but not the broader Tempo interface itself. A user with no app group memberships can still access Tempo if they are in the Tempo Users group. This is insufficient as a restriction method.

• C. Tempo access cannot be restricted:
  This is factually incorrect. Appian explicitly provides the Tempo Users group for this very purpose. It is standard practice in many implementations to limit or fully disable Tempo access for specific users or entire roles.

In conclusion, if an organization wants to control which users can access Tempo, it should do so by modifying the Tempo Users group. Only those in this group can view and use Tempo, making this the definitive and supported way to manage Tempo access. The correct answer is D.

Question 3:

You missed an Appian webinar about the latest product updates. Your team lead has asked you to review the newest release information.

Where is the most reliable place to find official Appian release notes?

A. Discussions Board
B. Appian Community
C. Appian Developer Playbook
D. Solutions Support Guide

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

When you need to access the most up-to-date and official information about Appian’s product releases, the Appian Community is the primary and most reliable resource. Maintained directly by Appian, this platform consolidates documentation, announcements, and educational content, ensuring that users have immediate access to all relevant updates and enhancements.

The Appian Community serves as a centralized hub for all developers, architects, and administrators. It features detailed release notes each time a new version of the platform is launched. These release notes outline significant changes such as performance upgrades, user interface improvements, new automation features, bug fixes, and deprecated functionalities. They often link to supplemental resources like demo videos, use cases, training modules, and related documentation.

Let’s analyze the incorrect options:

• A. Discussions Board: While this board is part of the Appian Community, it’s primarily intended for peer-to-peer interaction, troubleshooting advice, and sharing best practices. It is not the authoritative source for release documentation and may contain outdated or unofficial information.

• C. Appian Developer Playbook: This resource focuses on best practices and design guidelines for building scalable and maintainable applications in Appian. Although useful for development strategy, it doesn’t provide version-specific release updates.

• D. Solutions Support Guide: This document helps with support-related topics, such as troubleshooting, contacting customer support, and understanding service levels. It’s not used for tracking feature releases or software versioning.

By contrast, the Appian Community is structured to include a “Product” or “Releases” section, where each version’s release notes are posted upon availability. If you missed a webinar or live announcement, reviewing these notes will bring you up to speed on all changes, including API updates, security enhancements, and feature rollouts.

In summary, the Appian Community is the official, regularly updated, and most accurate source for Appian release information. Whether you're troubleshooting, upgrading, or planning development work around new features, this is the place to start. Hence, the correct answer is B.

Question 4:

Regardless of whether a business process is built in Appian or not, what is the one essential element that every process must include?

A. Human interaction
B. Defined steps
C. Reporting
D. Automation

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

A business process, by definition, is a structured sequence of tasks designed to achieve a specific business outcome. The one indispensable component of any process—whether manual, automated, or a hybrid—is the presence of defined steps. These steps serve as the backbone of the process, establishing a clear path from initiation to completion.

Defined steps ensure clarity, repeatability, and accountability. They answer essential questions: What needs to be done? In what order? Who is responsible? What inputs and outputs are involved? Without defined steps, a process becomes unpredictable, unmanageable, and unmeasurable. In Appian and similar process platforms, the design of these steps is often formalized using workflow diagrams or BPMN models, which help visualize and standardize task sequences.

Now let’s consider why the other options are not universally required:

• A. Human interaction: While many processes involve human approvals or decision-making, not all require human intervention. Automated systems like data synchronization or server backups can execute entirely without people.

• C. Reporting: Although valuable for tracking metrics and outcomes, reporting is a support function, not a core requirement. Some processes, especially internal or short-lived ones, may operate effectively without generating reports.

• D. Automation: Automation enhances speed, consistency, and accuracy, but it is not mandatory for a process to exist. Many businesses still operate using manual workflows, especially in departments or regions where digital transformation is in progress.

Ultimately, defined steps are what transform random tasks into a repeatable business process. They provide the structure needed for execution, analysis, and optimization. Even when using a platform like Appian, the first step in designing any process is mapping out each task in sequence. That’s what makes the process understandable and manageable.

So, while automation, reporting, and human involvement are helpful or even common, the only universal requirement of a business process is the presence of clearly defined steps. Therefore, the correct answer is B.

Question 5:

If a client asks for a highly specific feature that is rarely used and you find no supporting documentation during your research, what is the best next step to get guidance?

A. Submit a support ticket through the official channels.
B. Refer to the Appian Academy for potential solutions.
C. Explore recommendations in the Appian Playbook.
D. Post your query to the Appian Community forum.

Correct Answer: D

Explanation:

When working on custom projects in Appian, it is not unusual for clients to request very niche features—ones that may fall outside the usual product use cases. In such situations, if your research into the official documentation, training resources, and help guides turns up nothing useful, the most effective course of action is to seek insight from others with practical experience. This makes the Appian Community the best place to go next.

The Appian Community is a large and active forum where developers, architects, consultants, and even Appian employees collaborate to share knowledge. Posting a detailed question there allows you to tap into a collective pool of real-world experience, which is especially valuable for rare or unconventional use cases that are not covered in standard documentation or training materials.

The Community is searchable and archived, meaning your question could also help others in the future. More importantly, it often delivers faster and more practical responses than waiting for formal support—particularly when the question pertains to how to implement something, rather than a platform defect or issue.

Let’s evaluate the other options:

• Option A (Create a Support Case) is most appropriate when facing technical issues, system errors, or product defects. For design or implementation questions involving undocumented features, support teams may not provide detailed guidance and will often refer users to community or consulting channels.

• Option B (Check the Appian Academy) is useful for structured learning, especially when you are trying to understand core concepts, certifications, or common design patterns. However, it doesn’t typically address edge cases or client-specific requirements.

• Option C (Review the Appian Playbook) is good for best practices and guidance around design decisions and project execution, but it is not meant for solving non-standard, undocumented feature requests.

In summary, when facing an uncommon client requirement with no clear documentation, reaching out to the Appian Community provides the best opportunity to receive relevant, real-world advice. That makes D the correct answer.

Question 6:

During which project phase is the backlog most consistently reviewed, updated, and refined on an ongoing basis?

A. Optimize
B. Release
C. Build
D. Initiate

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

In an agile development environment, the product backlog serves as a living list of user stories, tasks, and features that the team plans to implement. The process of backlog refinement—also called grooming—is essential to keep this list organized, prioritized, and ready for future work. Of the project stages listed, the Build phase is when this activity happens most regularly.

The Build phase is where the development team is actively engaged in coding, testing, and delivering functionality in short cycles, often called sprints. During this time, it is crucial that the backlog is kept up-to-date with new insights from users, evolving requirements, and team feedback. Refinement ensures that the highest-priority items are well-defined, appropriately sized, and include acceptance criteria so they can easily move into sprint planning. This activity typically occurs once every sprint, or even more frequently in fast-moving teams.

Here’s why the other phases are less appropriate for ongoing backlog refinement:

• Option A: Optimize occurs after the release of the application, focusing on tuning and improving the system based on real-world usage. Although the backlog may be updated with insights from monitoring and user feedback, refinement is not a regular, structured process in this phase.

• Option B: Release is when the team prepares to deploy a new version of the application. The focus here is on stabilizing the product, running final tests, and executing deployment processes—not refining the backlog. Any backlog work done here is often in preparation for the next cycle.

• Option D: Initiate is the earliest phase, where initial planning, stakeholder alignment, and high-level scoping occur. While a preliminary backlog may be created, there is little to refine since most features are still in the early conceptual phase.

The Build phase is the heartbeat of agile development, where continuous planning, development, and feedback loops occur. This is where backlog refinement is most consistently practiced, enabling smoother sprint planning and ensuring the team always has actionable work. Thus, the correct answer is C.

Question 7:

When a new feature is being introduced in the test environment, where should unit testing for this feature have originally taken place?

A. Upgrade
B. Development
C. Production
D. Staging

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

Unit testing refers to the process of testing individual components of software—such as functions, methods, or modules—in isolation to verify their correctness. This type of testing is typically the first step in the software testing lifecycle and is most appropriately conducted in the development environment. The main goal is to catch issues early, at the level of individual code blocks, before the software progresses to broader testing phases.

The development environment is where developers write code, build features, and immediately test the smallest units of functionality. It is specifically designed to support rapid iteration, debugging, and continuous validation of newly written code. Within this environment, unit tests are often automated and run frequently, especially in teams practicing Test-Driven Development (TDD) or using Continuous Integration (CI) practices. Identifying bugs at this early stage saves time and cost by reducing the likelihood of defects carrying over into later phases.

In contrast, the staging environment (Option D) mimics the production environment and is typically used for system integration, user acceptance testing (UAT), and performance testing. This environment helps confirm that all parts of the application work together properly in conditions that are very similar to those in the live environment. However, unit tests should be complete well before code reaches this phase.

The production environment (Option C) is where the application is actually deployed for real users. Testing, particularly unit testing, is never appropriate here, as it could disrupt operations, alter live data, or cause instability. Production environments are strictly reserved for tested, stable code that has passed all earlier validation steps.

The upgrade environment (Option A) is a specialized setting used to test the impact of system or platform updates before they are rolled out to production. It is not typically used for feature development or low-level testing like unit tests.

In summary, unit testing is designed to validate code logic at the most granular level and should always be performed in the development environment. Doing so ensures that only stable, well-functioning components move on to higher levels of testing. Therefore, the correct answer is B.

Question 8:

Who holds the responsibility for estimating the effort needed to complete items listed in the Product Backlog?

A. Product Owner
B. Testers
C. Developers
D. Scrum Master

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

In Agile methodologies, particularly Scrum, estimating the amount of effort required for completing Product Backlog items is a collaborative and team-driven activity. However, the individuals directly responsible for these estimations are the developers, or more broadly, the members of the Scrum development team. These are the professionals who will actually implement the tasks, and thus they are best positioned to assess their complexity, dependencies, and time requirements.

Developers typically use tools such as Planning Poker, story points, or T-shirt sizing to estimate backlog items. These estimation methods promote team discussion, alignment, and collective ownership of the workload. Estimating is not about assigning time per se, but rather about gauging the relative complexity and effort required for each task. These estimates are then used to help the team understand their velocity, enabling better sprint planning and release forecasting.

While the Product Owner (Option A) is responsible for defining and prioritizing Product Backlog items based on customer value and business needs, they do not estimate how difficult or time-consuming those tasks are to implement. Their primary concern is the "what" and "why" of the work, not the "how long" or "how complex."

Testers (Option B) may contribute insights about testing complexity if they are embedded within the Scrum team. However, when referred to as a separate role, testers are not the ones responsible for providing overall effort estimates. Their input is valuable, but the estimation must be collaborative and ultimately owned by those doing the implementation.

The Scrum Master (Option D) plays a facilitative role in this process. They ensure the estimation sessions run smoothly, remove impediments, and help uphold Agile principles, but they are not involved in technical estimations themselves.

In Agile, it's a key principle that the people doing the work estimate the work. This leads to more accurate planning, greater accountability, and higher team morale. Developers are the ones who understand the codebase, dependencies, and potential risks—making them the only logical choice for estimating backlog items.

Therefore, the correct answer is C.

Question 9:

What is the primary purpose of an Appian Process Model in application development?

A. To manage user roles and security configurations across environments
B. To define the UI layout for interface forms
C. To automate business workflows and orchestrate process logic
D. To store structured data records and business rules

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

In Appian, a Process Model is a fundamental building block used to automate business workflows. It enables developers to visually design and orchestrate a series of activities that reflect a real-world business process, such as onboarding a new employee, processing a loan application, or managing an approval chain.

Answer C is correct because process models serve as the engine that drives automation within Appian applications. They define the sequence of steps, logic (e.g., conditional paths), assignments, timers, subprocesses, and system integrations necessary to move data and tasks through a business workflow. Appian provides a drag-and-drop interface for process modeling, allowing developers to lay out flows and actions without writing low-level code.

Option A is incorrect. While role and security configuration is critical in Appian, that is handled through groups, role maps, and application-level security settings, not through process models.

Option B is also incorrect. The UI layout for forms and interfaces is created using Appian Interfaces, which leverage SAIL (Self-Assembling Interface Layer). These are designed independently from process models, although they are often called from within process steps.

Option D incorrectly describes Data Stores and Records. These components handle data persistence and structured business information, not the automation of process steps.

Process Models are not only responsible for coordinating human and system tasks but also enable Appian to integrate with external systems (via Web APIs, RPA bots, or connected systems), trigger time-based events, and capture audit history.

In summary, the primary function of a Process Model is to automate and orchestrate business activities in a visually manageable way, making C the most accurate and comprehensive answer.

Question 10:

In the Appian development lifecycle, what is the main purpose of an Appian Interface object?

A. To define the user experience by rendering dynamic, interactive forms using SAIL
B. To model business logic and orchestrate backend data processes
C. To create database tables and enforce schema rules
D. To store user credentials and manage authentication tokens

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

Appian Interfaces are critical components that define the front-end user experience in an Appian application. They are built using SAIL (Self-Assembling Interface Layer), Appian’s proprietary expression language for building rich, interactive forms and dashboards.

Answer A is correct because Interface objects allow developers to design dynamic, responsive, and reusable forms that end users interact with. These interfaces are often embedded in tasks, records, and reports, and can dynamically adjust based on user input, real-time data, or conditions specified in expressions.

Option B describes something closer to Process Models or Expression Rules, which handle business logic or process orchestration behind the scenes, not user interface rendering.

Option C is incorrect because database schema management in Appian is handled by Data Stores and the CDTs (Custom Data Types) that map to relational database tables. Interface objects have no role in defining data schema.

Option D is a security-related function typically managed by authentication services, service accounts, and Appian Identity Providers, not Interfaces.

The beauty of Appian Interfaces is their reusability and modularity. A single interface can be reused across multiple tasks, processes, and applications. Developers can also break down complex interfaces into smaller reusable components using Interface Rules, which improves maintainability.

SAIL supports a wide range of UI components like dropdowns, grids, charts, and file uploaders. These components are backed by Appian Expressions, allowing real-time changes to the interface based on user interactions or system variables.

Interfaces also integrate tightly with Appian Records, enabling data-driven displays that reflect the latest values from the system. Because they render on both desktop and mobile without requiring platform-specific coding, Appian Interfaces provide an elegant, low-code solution to building enterprise-grade UIs.

Therefore, A is the most accurate answer, highlighting the Interface object’s role in defining dynamic, user-facing components.