Automation Services is a very useful tool for automating certain Spotfire tasks. The license to use Automation Services can be given to any user, but it's most likely to be used by someone responsible for the maintenance of a set of analysis files. It's probably not a tool that an analyst would use in the course of analysis creation or design.

The Automation Services Job Builder is found under the Tools menu, and you use this job builder to create an Automation Services job. Out of the box, 14 tasks are available to add to a job. Custom tasks can be created using the software developer kit (SDK), but this is an advanced topic for Spotfire developers with programming skills.

You can see from the list that the job builder offers a diverse range of tasks. Some are more backend administration tasks, such as importing and exporting library items or setting data source credentials; others help to provide updates to people, such as e-mailing them with a...