Archer 6.9 Application Builder Not Working? This May Be The Solution

Are you experiencing performance issues in the RSA Archer 6.9 application builder?

What’s the problem with the Archer application builder?

When all of the modules in RSA Archer are not fully licensed, references to the unlicensed modules cause performance issues when using the application builder. 

Users experiencing these performance issues find that the more configuration changes they make in a session on a new instance of Archer 6.9, the slower the system responds—until they eventually have to end the Archer session by logging out, shutting down all browser sessions, clearing the browser cache, and then starting all over. (So far, we have only come across this issue within the Hosted SaaS version of Archer 6.9)

Here’s how you fix the Archer 6.9 performance issues:

There are two workarounds we’ve found that resolve the performance issues: 

1. Remove calculated fields that reference unlicensed use cases. These fields cannot validate due to the unlicensed modules. These needed to be identified and addressed individually. This is a relatively obvious step (given the “unable to validate” error message upon trying to save any changes to these fields) but still a labor-intensive and unexpected task. 
   1. These fields are tricky to hunt down and take inventory, and it’s a time-consuming manual task. If you’re on an on-premise Archer instance, however, there’s a shortcut. This shortcut requires installation of the Archer toolbox, however once that’s installed, it provides a report of all calculated fields that are not validating properly.

2. Identify all cross-references to modules that aren’t licensed and remove those fields from the layout. (We continue to be careful to select the fields in question to move off-layout without clicking them, as clicking to open properties of an unlicensed reference field results in a loading spinner that never resolves and requires a browser reload and clearing of cache). Unlike issue 1, there is no error message to indicate this is needed making it an even more labor-intensive and systematic process, not unlike clearing a minefield.  

Although the situation is a painful one to work through, it must be said that this is not something that most Archer users will face as it’s isolated to the Application Builder—which is generally used exclusively by Archer Administrators and Developers and only comes to light in new instances (especially those where not all modules are licensed) or when older instances undergo large volumes of customizing.

We also only experienced this in the SaaS environment, and trust that existing Archer customers with on premise solutions may never face these challenges.  

The good news is that a better process is coming.

A solution is being created based on user feedback, and all of these application builder issues are expected to be resolved within the newer releases of Archer.  (At the time of this post in January 2022 the Archer SaaS environment is still on Archer 6.9 SP3 which is still experiencing this issue).

In the meantime, if you don’t find these workarounds effective you can always contact us or open a support ticket with RSA Archer.