Overview of Automator Objects

Throughout this Tutorial, we shall be dealing with the following:

Project

A project is a key component of a process. When you create a process in Automator, one of the key steps you perform is to assign a project (or projects) to it.

A project file is a special file created with the Project Editor (or with Monarch Complete) that has an XPRJ or DPRJ extension and which contains all of the information necessary to execute one or more Automator operations. A project uses a text or database input, extracts data from the input via Monarch model files, and exports the extracted data to various file types (e.g., XLS, PDF, MDB, TXT, HTML, XML, portable reports, etc.).

Process

A process is a set of one or more XML project files (i.e., XPRJ or DPRJ files) that are to be executed to perform a desired Automator operation. Processes utilize Monarch Complete models and project files to extract data from text or database sources and then export them to various file types (e.g., XLS, MDB, TXT, HTML, XML, portable reports, etc.).

Job

A job is a resulting task for one or more projects that comprise the associated process. When a process runs, it ultimately spawns one or more jobs, with each job appearing as a row on the Jobs page.

These are explained in detail in the succeeding lessons.