User Guides

Professional+

User Guides are AI-generated documentation for your model-driven apps. They produce comprehensive, end-user-ready guides that describe every area, form, view, and feature of an app.

What Are User Guides?

Model-driven apps often lack end-user documentation. Teams build apps, but nobody writes the manual. User Guides solve this by using AI to analyze the app's sitemap, forms, views, and dashboards, then generating a structured guide that explains how to use the application.

The generated guide is written in Markdown format and can be viewed directly in Cartographer, copied to a wiki, or exported as part of a PDF report.

How to Generate a User Guide

  1. 1

    Navigate to Solution Manager

    Open the Cartographer app and go to Solution Manager.

  2. 2

    Select a solution

    Click on the solution that contains the model-driven app you want to document.

  3. 3

    Click Generate User Guide

    In the solution detail view, click the Generate User Guide button. A dialog appears letting you select which model-driven app within the solution to document.

  4. 4

    Select the app

    Choose the model-driven app from the dropdown. Only model-driven apps in the crawled solution are listed.

  5. 5

    Wait for generation

    The AI analyzes the app's sitemap, forms, views, dashboards, and business rules. This can take 1-3 minutes depending on app complexity. A progress indicator shows the current step.

  6. 6

    View the guide

    Once complete, the guide is saved to the User Guide table and displayed in a formatted view. You can also access it later from the User Guides section in the sidebar.

Screenshot: User Guide generation dialog

What's Included in a Guide

A typical User Guide includes the following sections:

App Overview

High-level description of the app's purpose and target audience

Navigation Guide

Walkthrough of the sitemap areas, groups, and sub-areas

Forms Reference

For each table's main form: tabs, sections, key fields, and their purpose

Views Reference

Description of each view — what data it shows, columns, and default sort

Dashboards

Description of each dashboard, its charts, and the data they visualize

Business Rules

User-facing explanation of validations and auto-fill logic

Common Tasks

Step-by-step instructions for typical user workflows (create, edit, search, export)

Viewing and Copying

User Guides are stored in Markdown format and can be used in several ways:

  • View in Cartographer — the guide renders in a formatted preview pane directly in the app
  • Copy Markdown — copy the raw Markdown to your clipboard and paste it into a wiki (SharePoint, Confluence, Notion, GitHub), documentation site, or any Markdown editor
  • PDF Export — on Enterprise plans, export the guide as a formatted PDF document
The Markdown output is clean and well-structured, making it easy to integrate into your existing documentation workflows. Many teams paste it directly into their SharePoint or Confluence wiki.

Plan Limits

PlanUser GuidesNotes
FreeNot availableUpgrade to Professional or Enterprise
Professional1 guideCan be regenerated anytime
EnterpriseUnlimitedGenerate guides for every app
The guide limit applies to the total number of saved guides, not generation attempts. On Professional, you can regenerate your single guide as many times as needed — it overwrites the previous version.

Regenerating Guides

When your app changes — new forms, updated views, additional areas — you should regenerate the User Guide to keep it current. Simply navigate to the existing guide and click Regenerate. The AI will re-analyze the app and produce an updated guide.

We recommend regenerating guides after major solution updates, especially after adding new tables, forms, or sitemap areas to an app.