The ACD101 exam validates your foundational knowledge and practical skills as an Appian developer. This assessment is designed for professionals who have hands-on experience with the Appian platform and are ready to demonstrate competency in core development areas. The Appian Certification Program recognizes developers who can design, build, and maintain applications effectively. This page outlines the exam structure, syllabus, and preparation strategies to help you approach ACD101 with confidence.
Use this topic map to guide your study for Appian ACD101 (Appian Certified Associate Developer) within the Appian Certification Program path.
The ACD101 exam uses multiple formats to assess both conceptual understanding and applied reasoning. Questions progress in difficulty and reflect real-world development scenarios you'll encounter in production environments.
Effective preparation balances focused study with hands-on practice. Organize your study schedule around the seven core topic areas, allocating more time to areas where you have less experience. Track your progress weekly and adjust your pace based on practice test results.
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Process Models, Interface Design, and Data Persistence typically account for a significant portion of the exam. However, all seven topics are tested, so balanced preparation across all areas is essential. Focus extra effort on topics where your hands-on experience is limited.
A typical Appian project starts with understanding platform concepts and designing process models to handle business logic. Data is persisted using CDTs and tables, then accessed and displayed through interfaces and records. Expression policies control visibility, validation, and calculations throughout. Seeing these connections helps you answer scenario-based questions and design cohesive solutions.
Most candidates benefit from 3-6 months of active Appian development experience. You should be comfortable building basic processes, interfaces, and working with data. If you're newer to the platform, prioritize hands-on labs covering process modeling, SAIL interface design, and expression writing before attempting the exam.
Candidates often misunderstand expression syntax, confuse when to use different data persistence approaches, or overlook best practices for process design (such as error handling and state management). Rushing through scenario questions without fully reading the requirements also leads to incorrect choices. Slow down, read carefully, and verify your logic before selecting an answer.
Review your weakest topics and redo practice questions you missed. Take a full-length timed practice test to assess your readiness and identify any remaining gaps. Avoid cramming new material; instead, reinforce concepts you already understand. Get adequate sleep the night before the exam to ensure mental clarity and focus.
You are developing an expression rule. You need to find information on employing an Appian function that you have not used before.
For more information on the Appian function, what should you do first?
When you need information on using a specific Appian function that you have not used before, the first step should be to consult the Appian Documentation. The documentation provides comprehensive details on each function, including syntax, parameters, usage examples, and best practices, which is essential for understanding how to correctly employ the function in an expression. Reference: Appian Documentation - Functions
You are configuring an employee onboarding User Input Task that will be assigned to the human resources group.
Based on the default behavior for task assignments, which statement is valid?
Based on the default behavior for task assignments in Appian, when a User Input Task is assigned to a group, any one member of the group can accept the
task. Once accepted, the task becomes locked to that user, and they are responsible for completing it. This prevents multiple users from working on the same task simultaneously and ensures clear accountability. Reference: Appian Documentation - Task Assignments and User Input Tasks
You built a grid field with the data source as a query entity.
You want to add a search box to the grid using Appian's out-of-the-box functionality. You set the parameter of showSearchBox to ''True'', but the search box is still not appearing.
Why is the search box NOT appearing?
You need to remove an unused field from an existing record type Product, which has data sync enabled and is backed by a database table.
What should you do?
In Appian, when dealing with a record type that has data sync enabled and is backed by a database table, changes to the structure of the underlying data model, such as removing a field, should be carefully managed. The correct approach involves deleting the unused field from the Custom Data Type (CDT) that defines the structure of the data for the record type. Following this change, a full resynchronization of the record type is necessary to ensure that the changes in the CDT are reflected in the record type and its associated data in Appian. This process ensures data integrity and consistency across the application and the database. Reference:
Appian Documentation on Data Management: Provides guidelines on managing data structures, including CDTs and record types, within Appian applications.
You have a Custom Data Type (CDT), ABC_book. This CDT is backed by a database table, abc_book, with data store entity, ABC_book. There is also a constant that refers to this data store entity, ABC_DSE_BOOK.
You need to write code to pull back entries from the abc_book table as CDT objects. You only want 10 entries, but you need to know the total number of entries in the table.
Which code snippet accomplishes this goal?
A)

B)

C)
