Effectively scheduling resources across a department, complying with deadlines, and understanding trends over time are all objectives that can have severe consequences if not executed properly. Appian provides reports, escalations, charts, and more to help tackle these problems as part of your organization’s digital process automation, but one tool that has always been missing from the Appian toolbox is a calendar.
Macedon’s Calendar Component aims to fill this need. It is made entirely of out-of-the-box Appian components, so there is no reliance on any third-party plugins that could cause unexpected issues down the line. The component is generic, yet still flexible – when working on a new use case, there is no need to modify the Calendar’s included Self-Assembling Interface Layers (SAIL) and expression rules (though you always can if you want). Instead, the developer simply needs to provide a rule that defines what displays for a given day, similar to how they would define what displays for a given row in a Grid Layout. Additionally, several styling options are built-in to control the calendar’s size, date range, color, and overall aesthetic to match your application’s look and feel. Altogether, this allows developers to create fully functioning calendars, tailored to each use case, in just a matter of minutes.
Sounds fancy, but is it any good?
Yes! We have used our Calendar Component across multiple industries to solve a wide range of problems. From managing resource availability to surfacing critical dates of legal obligations, the Calendar Component has helped provide more insight and increased visibility into our client’s date-based records. We also use the Calendar Component internally to display upcoming key dates in our sales pipeline, schedule our recruiters’ pool, and more. Similar data points can be provided using more traditional Appian grids and sections, but we have found that using a calendar is more familiar and intuitive for users.
Awarded the title of “Best Component” on the AppMarket at Appian World 2016, the Calendar Component was overhauled in 2020 to take advantage of the newest Appian features giving it a more modern look and adding functionality that was not possible on older Appian versions. Macedon’s Calendar Component is now better suited than ever to be a part of the solution that drives your organization’s success and engages your users without slowing down your developers. Come check it out on the Appian AppMarket and let us know what you think!
Want more insights from TechNest? Stay in the loop and subscribe to our magazine.
