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Automation Builder Canvases
- 19 May 2025
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Automation Builder Canvases
- Updated on 19 May 2025
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Itential Platform offers a powerful, low-code drag-and-drop interface designed to simplify the process of automating your network infrastructure. Using visual elements and reusable components, you can easily build your workflows by arranging tasks onto the canvas, making it easier to visualize the workflow structure.
The canvas types used to design, build, and manage workflows in each release version of the Platform are explained in this section.
New Canvas Experience (2023.1 and higher)
Workflow (Automation) Builder using the New Canvas will also run in sequence from top to bottom, a similar feature to the second generation (Gen 2) canvas, but has a revitalized task palette that is readily available for use.
Figure 1: New Canvas
| Label | UI Element | Function |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Actions Toolbar | Button (from left to right) to: Create a New Automation, Go to Studio homepage, Search, Import. |
| 2 | Search Bar | Find available automations in the system. |
| 3 | Applications Menu | Applications that comprise the Studio suite. |
| 4 | Sidebar Control | Allows the user to shrink or expand the sidebar navigation. |
| 5 | Automation Title Bar | Buttons (from left to right) to: Display workflow status, Save automation, Start job, Open secondary actions menu. |
| 6 | Task Toolbar | Buttons (from left to right) to: Undo, Redo, Show Task Palette, Spread Tasks. |
| 7 | Task Search | Search and filter available tasks. |
| 8 | Task Palette | List of available tasks for the automation. |
Gen 2 Canvas (2022.1)
The second generation (Gen 2) Automation Builder provides a similar feature set to the first generation (Gen 1) canvas, but has a visual interface that runs from top to bottom, along with a built-in job preview for debugging, improved task-level feedback on the canvas, a more sequential approach to adding tasks to the canvas, automation-wide error handlers, and improved static data input components.
Note:
Transitions in Gen 2 behave somewhat differently from transitions in Generation 1. Each task is only permitted to have one outgoing transition of each type (success, failure, and error), and loop and revert transitions are not supported.
The only exception to the one transition per task rule is the decision task. This task is used to choose an execution path among a sets of options based.
Figure 2: Gen 2 Canvas
| Label | UI Element | Function |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Generic actions | Buttons from left to right: New component, Home page, Search component, Import component, Documentation. |
| 2 | Search and list view | Enter a search term to filter automations in the list view by name. |
| 3 | Collection list of other applications | Components from other applications in the Studio suite. Click one of the line items to expand and display a search bar and list view of the application's set of components. |
| 4 | Left sidebar footer control | Click the left double arrow to collapse the sidebar and the right single arrow to expand it. |
| 5 | Editor tabs | Click a tab to change editors for that component. Click the x to close the tab. Use the mouse scroll-wheel to scroll back and forth when tabs extend beyond the screenspace. |
| 6 | Secondary actions menu button | Contains the following items: View metadata, Clone automation, Export automation, and Delete automation. |
| 7 | Primary actions menu bar | Buttons from left to right: Show/hide error and failure handlers, Save automation, Run job, Select zoom level. |
| 8 | Console drawer | Contains several useful utilities for automation designers. Click one of the header buttons to open that section of the console drawer. |
| 9 | Right sidebar | Displays when nothing is selected on the canvas. Shows useful information such as a URL to use for starting the automation as a job; a task count display for the number of tasks, and a list of which apps and adapters the automation depends on. |
| 10 | Default error handler selector | Select a different automation to serve as the default error handler. It will become available as a dropdown option in the error handler settings of tasks when populated. |
| 11 | Right sidebar footer control | Select the arrow button to collapse the side panel. |
Gen 1 Canvas (2022.1)
Itential's legacy Gen 1 canvas will run from left to right. Below is a sample worfklow in a Gen 1 Automation Builder canvas, along with a reference table that highlights the various menus, toolbars and controls.
Figure 3: Gen1 Canvas
| Label | UI Element | Function |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Actions Toolbar | Buttons (from left to right) to: Create New Automation, Return to Home, Search, Import, and Open documentation. |
| 2 | Search | Search bar for available automations in the system. |
| 3 | Applications menu | Applications that comprise the Studio suite. |
| 4 | Sidebar control | Allows the user to shrink or expand the sidebar navigation. |
| 5 | Automation title bar | Buttons (from left to right) to: Save automation, Start job, Open secondary actions menu. |
| 6 | Transition toolbar | Functions (from left to right) include: Transition selector (T key), Transition binding, Transition action. |
| 7 | Automation inspector | Use the dropdown to select an item to search for and use the text field to enter a search term. Use the alternated arrows button and select a task to highlight where its inputs come from and where its outputs go. |
| 8 | Task toolbar | Buttons (from left to right) to: Increase font size, Decrease font size, Fit automation, Copy task, Delete task. |
| 9 | Task search | Search for available tasks. |
| 10 | Deprecated task toggle | Shows or hides deprecated tasks. |
| 11 | Task list | Available tasks for the automation. |
| 12 | Task list controls | Allows user to shrink or expand the task navigation. |
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