Accessing the Help Systems

Displaying the Navigation Pane

The help systems have a navigation pane (on the left). The content pane (on the right) for displays topics and search result lists.

The navigation pane has two tabs:

Navigation Pane Tab	Description
Contents	Presents a hierarchical outline of the Help system's material. Drill down through the "books" to access topics, as described in the next section.
Glossary	An alphabetical list of glossary terms for all Archibus programs and business applications. Select a term to see its definition in the right pane.

To hide the navigation pane, click on the triangle-shaped button on the right border of the navigation pane.

To resize the navigation pane, hover over the navigation pane's right border and drag.

Paging through the Contents

The Contents tab organizes the help topics by domain and also includes books for each Archibus program (mobile, Web Central, Smart Client, Extensions for CAD and Revit). On the Contents tab, you drill down through a series of organizing "books" to access specific topics. Note that the Archibus Essential SaaS module s are housed within their respective domain.

To become familiar with an application or program, you can follow the structure of the Contents, selecting the "blue arrow" icons to drill down through the content and selecting the "yellow dot" icons to load topics.

Moving to Linked Topics

A topic may contain links to other topics in the help system, as indicated by colored text. For example, in the below image of the Service Console Overview topic, "Archibus Workplace" is in blue text because it is a link to another topic.

Click on the colored text, and the new topic will either replace the current topic in the browser, or, if it is a glossary word, it will display in a pop-up topic. Click outside of the popup window to close the glossary pop-up window.

Once you access topics from the Table of Contents or by searching, note that the topics may link to topics outside of the original book on the Table of Contents. For example, they may link to topics on the Archibus programs, such as using Web Central's Data Transfer features. The blue text at the top of a topic indicates the component or view (along with its navigation path) to which the topic pertains.

Bookmarking Frequently-Used Topics

You may wish to save a topic that your frequently access so that you can easily return to it without drilling through the Contents or searching for it again. The URL for the topic displays in your Web browser, as shown in the below image. Use your Web browser's Bookmark or Favorites tool to save a this topic in the same manner that you would save any favorite web page.

Tip : When you access a topic by searching for it or selecting it on the Table of Contents, the search string and the Table of Contents path are included in the URL, as shown in the below image. It is not necessary to save the search string and Table of Contents components of the URL. If you want to work with a shorter URL -- for example. in order to email it to a colleague -- omit from your text selection the characters after ".htm" portion of the URL.

Accessing Context-Sensitive Help from the Navigator

Rather than page through the Contents, you might want to access online help that is specific to your current work. You can access online help that is specific to the selected role or process listed on the Navigator.

1. In the Smart Client or Web Central, load the Navigator.
2. In the Navigator, drill down to the Role or Process level.
3. Right-click while on the process or role, and choose Help from the pop-up menu.
4. A help topic that overviews this process or role opens in its own browser session
5. The Table of Contents pane displays this topic's position in the hierarchy.
6. Follow the Table of Contents hierarchy to access other topics detailing how to work with this process or role.

Note: If you are using a non-English locale, you will receive a help topic from the English version of Archibus Help when right-clicking on a Navigator entry. Since the localized versions of Archibus Help do not contain the help topics covering application details, the right-click Help command presents the appropriate topic in the English version of Archibus Help.

Locally-installed Help Systems

Archibus Help and Archibus System Management Help are stored on the Archibus web site at these locations:

Archibus Help	https://help.archibus.com/user_en/archibus.htm.
Archibus System Management Help	https://help.archibus.com/system/sysman.htm

So that you can have the latest and most up-to-date information, these help systems are updated with the latest information between official product releases.

The default installation calls for the Help commands to access the help systems from the Archibus web site. However, if your site prefers to have you access a locally-installed help systems, your system administrator can locally install the help systems. See Installation / Installing the Help Systems Locally on the Contents of System Management Help.

Usage Notes

• Google Chrome. Web Central Help command. If you call Archibus Help from Web Central's Help command or from the Navigator, be aware of the following issues. As a workaround, create a bookmark for the help system's URL and use this bookmark to access Archibus Help rather than using the Help command. These issues apply only to Chrome browsers.

  • Navigation buttons. The Back and Forward Chrome navigation buttons do not display; thus, as you jump to various topics, you cannot use the browser's Back button to go to a previously-viewed topic. As a work-around, you can use the right-click Back and Forward commands. .

  • Links outside of User Help . When you choose a link in Archibus User Help that links to System Management Help or to a different URL (such as the Suggest a Feature URL or a URL to another website), the Help system correctly moves you to this link. However, it also closes the current session of Archibus User Help. The correct behavior would be to retain your User Help tab and open the link in a new tab.

• Trouble accessing topics from Contents or Search . The online help systems are continually updated with late-breaking additions, clarifications, and fixes. After Archibus uploads a new version of the help systems, users might have trouble drilling down into the Table of Contents or accessing topics from the search results. Deleting the browser's cached information resolves this issue.

• Archibus SaaS . When running Smart Client or the Smart Client Extensions on Archibus SaaS, you may find that accessing the Help command loads Archibus Help but does not display a topic. Refreshing your browser will display the topic

• Running Help in browsers with debug settings turned on. You may encounter error messages when running Archibus Help and System Management Help if your browser is set to debug mode.