How to use help

HP Operations Manager for Windows provides help files to guide you through the tasks you want to perform. Help is available from several locations:

• Help drop-down menu
• Any shortcut menu
• Help buttons in dialog boxes

Help files consist of overview, conceptual, and procedural topics and interactive demonstrations.

• Overview topics are associated with the book level icon in the table of contents. Procedural topics may also contain some overview information, to explain concepts related to a particular task.
• Conceptual topics provide a high-level view of a task or a series of related tasks and are identified in the table of contents with an icon that resembles a document page.
• Procedures are step-by-step instructions that describe a particular user task. These are identified in the table of contents with an icon that illustrates numbered steps.
• Interactive demos illustrate complex concepts such as the flow of a process or the interrelationship of rules and parameters. In some cases you can change information in a help demonstration to test the results of an action before you implement the task. See the Basic Training for HP Operations interactive tutorial in the help system table of contents for an example of an interactive demonstration.

Links to more information

Blue underlined text is linked to related topics that appear in various ways, depending on the content of the linked information:

• Popup windows display acronym and glossary information.
• Links to other topics replace the existing text in the help window. Use the Back button to return to your starting place.
• Links to hidden text expand to provide additional information without requiring you to leave your current location. A small blue arrow indicates expandable information. When printing from help files, expand the hidden text to print it.

Cautions and notes

• Cautions show important information that may significantly affect your work.
• Notes present helpful information.

Printing help files

Print topics of interest by printing one topic page at a time or groups of topics by right-clicking the topic in the contents pane and selecting Print. If you want to print the entire help, start from the top-level topic (HP Operations Manager for Windows). Note that, depending on the number of SPIs installed, the help may contain more than 2500 printed pages.

You can also download the core help (which excludes help for SPIs) in PDF format from the HP Software Product Manuals web site.

Copying help files

You may want to copy the help files from your management server to your local computer. This enables to you to read HPOM documentation when you cannot access the management server. The help files are .chm files, and are located on your management server at %OvInstallDir%\help\en\. Copy all the .chm files into one directory on your local computer. Double-click console.chm to start the online help.