About Automation Processes

The role of an automation process is to automate the definition of ASD objects such as views, sheets, or drawings. It provides an automatic behavior for an ASD object, and it can be used for the following:

• To propose pre-initialized parameters when an ASD object needs to be created.
• To automatically create an arborescence of ASD objects like a drawing with children sheets and children views.

The main characteristics of an automation process are as follows:

• An automation process type depends on the type of object that needs to be automated. After the type is defined, it cannot be modified. For example, a drawing process cannot be modified to a sheet process.
• An automation process has a logic that automatically computes specifications which cab be used to initialize the object being automated. This logic is called Specifications Logic, and is based on the Enterprise Knowledge Language (EKL).
• An automation process has inputs that are consumed and analyzed during the execution of the Specifications Logic. These inputs are called the automation process inputs.
• An automation process requires context information when it is executed. The object storing such information is called an automation process context.
• An automation process may have children automation processes. The ability to define children automation processes will allow customers to define an arborescence of objects which have their specifications automated.
• An automation process that is child of another automation process requires an additional logic that defines how the child automation process must be triggered from its parent. This logic is called Trigger Logic, and based on the Enterprise Knowledge Language (EKL).

The following EKL types that are supported and can be used as automation process inputs:

• ProductOccurrence
• String