Hi and welcome to this video, where I introduce you to the Process Assembly perspective in
Automic Automation.
If you have upgraded from a version earlier than 12.0, you'll recognize that the Process
Assembly perspective contains the functions of the former Explorer.
The user interface is organized in perspectives that reflect user roles.
The Process Assembly perspective is the main working area of developers and object designers.
Here you create and configure objects write scripts to extend their configuration,
design Workflows and Schedules, and execute objects to check their behavior.
Let's have a look at it.
The left pane has three tabs with links to the content of the perspective.
The Packs tab is only visible if the Action Builder is installed in your system.
The Action Builder is an extension to the ADBA that can be used to create and work with
Action Packs.
Action Packs are integrations with third-party products (for example, Amazon S3, Docker,
or Tomcat).
They contain Actions.
Actions are pre-configured, reusable objects that you can use out-of-the-box to build Workflows.
This list contains the Packs that are available to you.
Here you can access all the actions in an Action Pack.
If your administrator has set up and connected a git repository, you can use the Version
Control feature here.
With Version Control I can manage different versions of my Client using a remote repository.
It lets me export and import the versions, rollback changes, create branches from those
versions and transfer objects.
The Explorer is where I access my folders and objects.
My administrator has granted me permissions to the objects and folders that I can see
here.
Some folders are created automatically during installation (for example, DASHBOARDS or <No
Folder>).
I need a special right to create folders.
In the center of the screen, you see the list of folders and objects that you have permissions
to.
The columns give an overview of the most important data about the objects (Name, Title, Type,
and so forth).
Many lists contain more columns that are hidden by default.
I'll click the arrow at the right end of the header row.
This opens a drop down list with all the available columns.
The column names that have a tick are visible.
To make a hidden column visible, I simply select its name.
I can access the functions that are available for an object from the Explorer.
If I select and right-click one object, a contextmenu is displayed
I can also select many objects simultaneously and right-click.
In this case, the context-menu displays less options.
This is because it contains only the functions that are common to all selected objects.
No Folder is a special folder.
It is the fallback folder in certain situations, for example, when importing objects from a
different Client.
If the source and the destination Clients do not have the same folder structure, the
objects for which there is no corresponding folder are stored here.
You already know the My Favorites function from other programs or from your browser.
This is where I can store the objects that I regularly work with.
The objects are not moved from their source location.
They remain there and the Favorites list simply contains links to them.
The User Catalog folder is also a special folder.
It is relevant for system administrators who are configuring the My Catalog perspective
for other users.
Since this is an administrative task, I will not deal with it in this video.
The Recently Used list contains links to the 50 objects I last worked with.
Notice that what I have here are links and not the objects themselves.
The little arrow icon indicates that this is a link and not an object.
When I delete an object, the object is not removed from the system.
Instead, it is moved to the Recycle Bin.
Let's right-click an object.
I can restore it and I can send it to another object or task for further processing.
The SEND TO function is only available if it is configured in your system.
It is not visible by default.
The Transport Case is a function that mainly administrators will use.
It is the means to move objects from one Automation Engine system to another or from one Client
to another one within the same system.
Since this is an administrative task, I will not deal with it in this video.
In the Explorer toolbar, the buttons are shortcuts to the functions that are available for the
object that is currently selected.
Only the buttons that are relevant for the object are enabled.
For example, if I select a Calendar object, the Execute button is not enabled because
Calendars are not executable objects.
With the Export Table button I can export the content of the list as comma-separated
values in a CSV file.
Let's export the list with all visible columns.
This function is very useful for large lists.
It gives you an overview of the data, and lets you sort and compare them.
Let's open the exported list.
I'll go back to the Process Assembly now.
The Details button opens a pane with detailed information about the configuration of the
object that I have selected.
I can drag and expand the pane to see long names as a single line.
I'll show you now how an object looks like.
Objects consist of several definition pages.
Some of these pages are standard and available for all object types.
Others are available for some object types only.
Let's open a Job.
The left pane has tabs that open the Job definition pages.
The General, Version Management and Documentation pages are always available for all object
types.
Executable objects have more pages: Process, Attributes and Variables & Prompts.
Windows Jobs, like the one we have just opened, also have an Output page.
All object types that can be part of a Workflow have an additinal Rollback page.
I will show you a Workflow now.
Let's go back to the Explorer list.
I'll open this Workflow.
The Workflow page contains the Workflow editor.
The editor has graphic tools to insert, connect, move and work with the tasks in the Workflow.
You design the logic of your Workflow not only by structuring and connecting tasks,
but also by defining task-specific properties.
In each task you can define properties that have an impact on the Workflow execution.
To learn more about how to use the tools in the Workflow editor, watch the Workflow Editor
video in this documentation.
That was a short overview of the Process Assembly perspective.
You can find more information at docs.automic.com.