HCL Clara, Your Automation Virtual Assistant

HCL Clara is an automation bot that enables users to quickly learn how to use and troubleshoot products. Clara can access the company's automation knowledge base, provides recommendations and performs tasks for the end-user. Register for the upcoming HCL Clara and HERO webinar to learn more about Clara!
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When users need some help, they can chat with Clara just like chatting with a colleague. Clara has been created to assist users with specific products. In the first version, she is integrated with Workload Automation but will soon be integrated with other products.
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​HCL Workload Automation enables enterprises to respond quickly to real-time business needs. Workload Automation activities are critical for the business and need to be monitored all the time. IT Operators must ensure Workload Automation operation continuity 24x7, avoiding involvement of support team. Application support teams want to quickly solve issues in their applications to ensure business continuity. In this context, Clara provides a first level support, by giving assistance in a short time. When IT operators need help with the product, Clara can answer to common questions and run actions on the product. Also, Administrators can easily find information about the Workload Automation environment or the latest product features. Register for the HCL Clara and HERO webinar to learn more about Clara!

Clara saves IT operations time, frees up schedulers, manages how-to questions, and initiates the troubleshooting of Workload Automation conveniently through voice commands or simple text chat. By offering a conversational interface to scheduling users, Clara can access the company's automation knowledge base, provide recommendations and perform tasks for the end-users. 

Clara can be contacted on a dedicated web application, or can be configured in the Dynamic Workload Console. Also, she’s currently integrated with Skype but can be extended to work with other messaging tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. 

Here she is, Clara, at startup time:

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Unlock the knowledge 
Sometimes, finding the right information can be frustrating like finding the needle in the haystack. With Clara, you can unlock the knowledge. With a rich and specialized knowledge base, Clara acts as a bridge between: 

• Operators and Administrators. Clara resolves Operator’s doubts about how to complete some basic actions on the product, with no need to involve Administrators. 
• Administrators and the product. Clara provides Administrators with information about their product environment and how to set it up. 
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Clara’s knowledge base contains also a plenty of links to external documentation, videos, and blogs. Clara’s knowledge base can also be customized by adding specific customer’s questions.   

Let’s see an example of questions you can ask to Clara. You can ask:  <What is a job stream?>. Clara explains what a job stream is and, if you want, she shows how to create a new job stream. She also gives you hints to prevent common problems. 

Clara does the dirty work for you 
Clara can run any Workload Automation action because is integrated with the product Rest APIs.  For example, she can run different actions on the jobs in the plan, such as:  

• Rerun a job 
• Release a job 

• Cancel a job 
• Submit a job 
• Place a job in HOLD status 
• Status of a job 

Also, she can: 

• Open the Dynamic Workload Console 
• Open a ticket

Clara can open tickets through ServiceNow but can be integrated with any other ticketing tool.   
As shown in the following example, you can ask Clara about the status of a job. Clara shows the actual status of the asked job, and furthermore, if you want, she can provide the direct link to Dynamic Workload Console where is present the status of the job. 

When you need Clara, she is there 
Clara can help you with some troubleshooting scenarios.  For example, you can ask Clara why a job doesn’t start. Clara can tell you why the job is not starting and can provide some recovery actions to resolve the issue: she can recognize if a job doesn’t start because the agent is unlinked, stopped, if there are unsolved dependencies, or if the job priority is set to zero. In all these situations, Clara asks if she can run an action for you, such as change the priority, increase the limit, and so on… 

Why choose Clara 
Clara works both on premises and on cloud. You don’t have to worry about your data security: information you exchange with Clara remain secure also if you install Clara on premises. 

​In summary, Clara offers a human-like, personalized, round-the-clock experience to Workload Automation users, which will: 

• Minimize the FAQ-type calls  

• Reduce common-issue repetitive incidents 
• Speed up learning curve on new features  
• Promote use of industry-standard best practices ​​​

​If you want to see Clara in action, watch this video and register for the HCL Clara and HERO webinar to learn more!

Daniele Capri
Software Engineer
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Daniele works as a software engineer for HCL Technologies Products&Platforms, in the Rome Software Development Hub. He obtained a master degree in IT Engineering from Tor Vergata University of Rome. Always a positive person, he is enthusiastic about technology and loves to live in close contact with nature.