Using the Documentation

Depending on how the Automic Automation administrator has configured the access to the product documentation, your user experience will be very different. A configuration option determines how the product documentation will be opened when you click ? (the Help icon) in the menu bar. There are two possibilities:

  • The context-sensitive help opens in a panel within AWI.

  • The context-sensitive help opens in a separate browser window.

In either case, the content of the documentation is the same and it is continuously updated.

You can always find the latest version of the documentation at https://downloads.automic.com/. If your company is using the documentation offline, we recommend that your system administrator visit this link regularly to download the newest version.

For more information about how to configure the access to the product documentation, see ipce.properties - Enabling/Disabling the Automic Automation Help.

This page includes the following:

Gen AI Powered Documentation: Understanding the Documentation Assistant

In addition to the product documentation, Automic Automation provides Gen AI-powered capabilities in the form of the Documentation Assistant, a bot that is trained on the information that is available in the product documentation. Use it to get a summary of the information that you are looking for, instructions on how to perform an action, and so on. If your question does not include enough contextual information or is not relevant to the product, a message is displayed indicating that the Documentation Assistant can only respond to questions associated with the product.

Important! When you use the Documentation Assistant, you are interacting with a generative AI service. AI-generated output may contain errors and unexpected results. Do not include any personal data or confidential data in your prompts, and carefully review the output before using it.

Accessing and Prompting the Documentation Assistant

  1. Click the bot icon in the main menu bar to open the Intelligent Assistant panel:

    Screenshot of the right half of AWI's main menu bar. It shows tha search fiedl, the requests icon, the bot icon (which is highlighted in the screenshot) the help icon and the blurred connection information.

  2. In the dropdown list at the top right of the panel, select Documentation Assistant.

    (Click to expand)

    Screenshot of the upper part of the UI where the bot icon is highlighted and th Intelligent Assistant panel is displyed. The dropdown that lets you select between Assistants is expanded.

  3. Enter your prompt in the Ask... field at the bottom of the panel and click Enter.

In addition to switching between the Automation Assistant and the Documentation Assistant, this panel contains the following functions:

  • All Chats

    Opens the Conversation History, where all your questions and answers are displayed. It contains all the conversations available in a session.

  • New

    Puts the focus in the Ask field at the bottom of the panel, where you can enter your next question.

You can also access the conversation history and start a new one by clicking the three dots at the bottom of the panel and selecting the corresponding option.

About the Inline Automic Automation Help

The inline Automic Automation Help is Automic Automation's context-sensitive help right within the Automic Web Interface. It provides access to the entire product documentation without you having to leave the page where you are.

Accessing the Inline Automic Automation Help

  1. Click the Help (?) button in the menu bar:

  2. The Inline Automic Automation Help opens on the right-hand side. The panel displays in-context help that is relevant to the part of AWI that you have opened it from. For example, this is what you see when you open the Automic Automation Help to the main definition page of a Time Zone object:

    (Click to expand)

    Screenshot of the Attributes page of an object where the panel is also opened and shows the inline documentation about the page.

    If you select a different definition page, say General, the content of the pane changes accordingly.

Understanding the Automic Automation Help

The Automic Automation Help has three types of panels (main, sub-panels and Home) that provide access to different functions.

Main Panel Functions

When you click the Help (?) button, you open the main panel (see previous screenshot). It consists of a menu bar, a search area, the breadcrumbs and the content area.

Menu Bar Functions

  • Docking/Undocking the panel

    By default the panel opens in undocked mode over the content of the AWI page. Click the Dock icon in the menu bar to dock it.

  • Opening the keyboard shortcuts

    1. Click the three dots in the menu bar.

    2. Select Keyboard Shortcuts. This opens the Keyboard Shortcuts topic in a new browser tab.

  • Opening the Dashboard videos

    Each major version is delivered with videos on AWI's Home page that describe some of the most important new features of that version.

    1. Click the three dots in the menu bar.

    2. Select Getting Started. AWI's Home page is displayed.

  • Opening the Automic Automation-relevant courses on the Broadcom Software Academy

    1. Click the three dots in the menu bar.

    2. Select Learning Portal. This opens the Broadcom Software Academy topic in a new browser tab. Here you can further refine the filter to search for the courses that you may be interested in. For example, select the following:

      • Solution: Automation

      • Product:Automic Automation and/or Automic SaaS

      • Content Type: Course

  • Closing the panel

    Click the X icon in the menu bar to close the panel.

Search Area

Enter what you are looking for in the search area and hit Enter or select the magnifier glass. The Automic Automation Help searches for information in the product documentation and provides links to the topics and/or videos it finds.

Breadcrumbs

The breadcrumbs at the top of the pane provide a link to the Automic Automation Help Home panel that is described below.

Content Area

The content provides an overview of the topic that is relevant to the area where you opened the Automic Automation Help and links that open relevant and curated descriptions and explanations.

Sub-Panel Functions

When you click one of the links in the main panel, a sub-panel with the corresponding information is displayed.

(Click to expand)

Its menu bar gives you access to the following functions

  • Opening the Documentation Assistant

  • Expanding and collapsing the panel

  • Opening the history, including links to the topics that you have viewed in the current session.

  • Opening the table of contents

  • Closing the panel

Home Panel Functions

The Automic Automation Help always opens to the product documentation content that is relevant to the AWI are that is currently displayed. To go to the HOME page you click the Home link in the breadcrumbs at the top of the panel. For example:

(Click to expand)

Screenashot showing the panel opened to the Time Zone definition page. On top of the title, the breadcrumbs are available, where HOME is the starting point. The screenshot highlights Home.

This is what the Home panel looks like:

(Click to expand)

The Automic Automation Help offers much more than just the official product documentation, it is your starting point to access the following content:

  • Get Started

    Provides links to the Automic Automation and Automic SaaS Getting Started Guides in the product documentation.

  • Review What's New

    Provides a link to the topic describing the new features and function in the current release.

  • Explore the Product Documentation

    Opens the entire product documentation showing the chapters as a tree view. Each node is a link.

  • Explore Training

    Opens a list of links that open Automic Automation and Automic SaaS courses on the Broadcom Software Academy.

  • Watch Videos

    Provides a link to the topic that lists all the videos contained in the documentation.

  • Learn from Communities

    Pulls content from the Automic Automation Community and presents it in the form of links. Click a link to open the complete discussion related to that thread.

  • Reading History

    Shows all the pages the you have opened so far. Each entry is a link that lets you revisit that page.

Integrating your Own Content

The Automic Automation Help has a beta function that lets you integrate your own customized content in its panel. If you are interested in a demo of this beta feature, please reach out to Broadcom's Support team to request it.

Traditional Context Sensitive Help

The traditional context-sensitive help is available if your administrator has disabled the inline Automic Automation Help, see ipce.properties - Enabling/Disabling the Automic Automation Help.

You can also access the online product documentation on the product documentation website: docs.automic.com.

Scope and Target Groups

The following table describes the topics and guides available in this documentation:

Guide Description
Welcome topics In addition to providing useful information about the release policy, Broadcom's Marketplace and Support, and so on, this section introduces you to Automic Automation and Automic SaaS. See About Automic Automation and About Automic SaaS.
What's New in 24.0.0

Summary of the new features in a version of the software and links to the topics in the documentation that deal with them.
Getting Started with Automic Automation

Read these topics to get acquainted with the UI and to learn about useful functions that make your work more comfortable. The Getting Started section also provides topics that describe the first steps for all user roles.
Getting Started with Automic SaaS Read these topics to understand the essential first steps so that administrators, object designers and operators can quickly set up the system, and run the first Job and monitor it respectively.
Using Automic Automation

Addressing mainly (but not only) developers, object designers and operators, this guide describes functions and provides examples that illustrate them.

It also contains all you need to know about the Automation Engine scripting language.
Administering and Configuring

Meant for system administrators, this guide contains information about user and authorization management, security, configuration and house-keeping activities.

Installing Automic Automation

Also meant for system administrators, this guide contains guidelines for planning, installing and updating the solution and all its components.
Integrating in Automic Automation

This guide provides guidelines for integrating Automic Automation with third-party systems.
Reference

Here you can find many useful reference lists, such as INI file configuration, predefined variable and VARA object settings, API parameters, descriptions and examples of script elements and many more.
Usage Data (Telemetry) Configuration Information about how to collect and send telemetry data (product usage and system configuration data) to Broadcom.

  • Installing Automic Automation

    Also meant for system administrators, this guide contains guidelines for planning, installing and updating the solution and all its components.

Context-Sensitive Help

Click the ? button and select Help to open the online help to the topic that explains the area or function in Automic Automation where you are.

Help with a Perspective or a Page in a Perspective

Every view in the Automic Web Interface provides direct access to the topic in the product documentation that deals with it.

Click the ? button on the menu bar and select Help. The online help opens in a new browser tab and the relevant topic is displayed.

Help with Script Elements

When using the Automation Engine scripting language, you can access the topics that describe its elements and functions directly from within the script editor. For more information, see Context-Sensitive Help for Script .

Searching for Information

  • Using the Search field

    You find the Search field on the upper right corner of the online help.

    Use this method if you want to search for a topic without bothering about where it is located in the documentation. Type one or more terms related to it and press Enter.

    The list of results displays the first ten hits. If there are more, you can scroll back and forth using the Previous and Next buttons at the bottom of the list.

  • Using the table of contents

    Use this method if you are already familiar with the structure of the documentation or if you want to get acquainted with it. The table of contents is the pane on the right hand side that provides a tree structure that you can expand and collapse to access the topics.

    Use the arrows on the right corner of the help toolbar to navigate back and forth in the tree structure.

Printing a Topic

The product documentation is available as online help only. To print a topic, click the printer icon on the help toolbar.

See also: