Exercise 9: Saving and associating workflows

Complexity:

Beginner

Data Requirement:

ArcGIS.com

Goal:

Learn how to save the Task Assistant Manager workflow to a file and associate the same workflow with a saved map document.

Previously, in Exercise 4: Adding a step to configure feature layers, you saved your task assistant workflow to a file. In this exercise, you will explore this process in greater detail. You will first save the workflow to a file, then associate the same workflow with the saved map document on a single computer.

Saving a workflow

To save a workflow to a file, do one of the following:

• Click the Save Workflow button on the Task Assistant window. This option automatically saves your workflow to its current location if it has already been saved. If the workflow is currently unsaved, the Save Workflow As dialog box appears.
• Right-click the workflow in the Task Assistant window and click Save Workflow. This option works the same as the Save Workflow button mentioned above.
• Right-click the workflow in the Task Assistant window and click Save Workflow As. This option causes the Save Workflow As dialog box to appear.

In this part of the exercise, you will save the workflow to a file.

1. Right-click in the Task Assistant window and click Save Workflow As.

   The Save Workflow As dialog box appears.

2. Navigate to the location in which you want to save the workflow.
3. Type a name for the workflow in the File name text box.
4. Click Save.

   When a workflow is saved, a style file for that workflow is also saved at the same location. The style file has the same name as the workflow, except that it has a .TMStyle extension. The style file stores any custom styles that are used by the workflow. Storing a style file with the workflow allows easier distribution of a workflow's custom styles. If no custom styles are used, the style file still exists as an empty file.

   See also Style Manager to learn more about style files and Distributing Task Assistant Manager files for information about distribution of workflow and style files.

Associating the task assistant workflow with the MXD

In this part of the exercise, you are going to associate the task assistant workflow with a map document file (.mxd).

1. Right-click the task assistant workflow you saved in the previous exercise in the Task Assistant window and click Associate Workflow with MXD.

   The Associate Workflow with MXD dialog box appears.

   

   Note:

   The current MXD is displayed by default in the MXD text box. If the task assistant workflow has been saved prior to opening this dialog box, the full path of the workflow file is also displayed by default in the Workflow text box.

2. Perform steps 3 through 8 if either of the text boxes in the Associate Workflow with MXD dialog box are empty or if you want to alter the default values.

   Otherwise, proceed to step 9.

3. Click the ellipsis button (...) next to the MXD text box.
4. Navigate to the location of the MXD.
5. Click Open.
6. Click the ellipsis button (...) next to the Workflow text box.
7. Navigate to the location of the saved task assistant workflow file.
8. Click Open.
9. Click Associate.

   The MXD and associated task assistant workflow appear in the MXD and Associated Workflows lists, respectively.

   

10. Click Close.

In this exercise, you saved a workflow to file and associated the workflow with a saved map document. You can proceed to the next exercise, Exercise 10: Distributing the task assistant workflow with an ArcMap document.