- Overview
- Quickstart
- Delegate
- Trust and compliance
- Governance
- Features
- Cartographer
- Cartographer overview
- The Cartographer interface
- Getting started with Cartographer
- Working with existing automations
- AS-IS (Current Process) documentation
- Providing documents to Cartographer
- Delegating a task
- TO-BE design and PDD generation
- Refining your PDD and the quality checklist
- Generating an SDD
- Sending SDDs to Automation Hub
- Delegate for Testing
- Reference
- Troubleshooting
- Backup and restore
Prepare for a Cartographer session, configure the recommended model and behavior settings, and start a business process.
Prerequisites
User License Management must be enabled for your organization — it's what makes the free GPT-5.6 Luna model available, the minimum model Cartographer needs. See User license management to enable it, and Cartographer recommended models for the full model guidance.
Before your first session
| What to have ready | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| A clear process name and one-sentence objective | Anchors the entire interview and prevents scope drift |
| Existing SOPs, process diagrams, or training materials | Upload during Discovery to accelerate documentation. See Providing documents to Cartographer. |
| Names of the systems and applications used | Required for the Systems section and the automation mode assessment |
| Any known decision points or business rules | Gives Cartographer a head start and reduces clarification questions. Business rules can be listed explicitly, such as a list, or implied, such as a decision point in an existing process diagram. |
| Current and target process metrics | Gives Cartographer an understanding of your business goals |
| Your organization's Process Design Document (PDD) template, if applicable | Upload at the start or end of a session to generate a custom-formatted output using template-creation skills |
Sessions persist, so you do not need to finish in one sitting. Pin your session in the sidebar immediately after you start it so you can resume later without losing context.
Business process versus business task
Before you start, choose the right project type — they use different skills and produce different documents:
| Business process | Business task | |
|---|---|---|
| Use it for | A cross-functional process — multiple people, systems, hand-offs | One linear task, one owner |
| Skill | Business Analysis | Task Design |
| Flow | A multi-session AS-IS (Current Process) → TO-BE (Future Design) interview, with confirmation checkpoints | A single session — describe the task, or record yourself doing it once |
| Output | A full PDD, and once approved, an SDD | A 5-section Task Design Document (TDD): Process Overview, Process Summary, Scope Boundaries, Exceptions & Edge Cases, Data & System Requirements |
If you start a business task and it turns out to be a genuine cross-functional process, Cartographer tells you and suggests starting a business process instead — it won't silently expand a TDD into a PDD.
The rest of this guide covers business processes. Business tasks follow the lighter flow described above and aren't covered further in this guide yet.
Choosing your scenario
Within a business process, Cartographer supports two starting points:
| Which am I? | Choose |
|---|---|
| New or heavily re-imagined process; no bots to preserve | Clean start — no extra setup; continue to AS-IS documentation |
| Trusted bots already running; I want to connect them and replace only the manual glue | Reuse existing automations — state your reuse intent first; see Working with existing automations |
| A mix — some reuse, some new | Start with Reusing existing automations; Cartographer adds new units only where existing assets can't reach |
Both scenarios use the same underlying stages and settings described below — the difference is where you begin.
Model and behavior settings
These all ship with useful, tested defaults — you don't have to change anything to get a good result. They're listed here for completeness, and because they're the first things to check if output quality or behavior seems off.
| Setting | Where | Recommended / default |
|---|---|---|
| Model provider & effort | Settings > Model | ChatGPT 5.6 Terra, Medium effort (recommended). GPT 5.6 Luna, High effort is a competent second choice |
| Model mode | Settings > Model | Extended Thinking — persists between sessions |
| Approval mode | Chat box, or Settings (gear icon) → Basics | Full access (default for a new project) — no approval prompts at all. Smart approves what the model judges safe, with the most risk of misjudging; Adaptive auto-approves known safe operations; Cautious asks before every operation. You can also choose to inherit your global approval mode instead of setting one per project |
| Guarded mode | Chat box | Off (default). Turn on to restrict Cartographer to the files and folders listed in Settings (gear icon) → Allowlist |
| Communication style | Settings > Behavior | Balanced or Detailed — controls verbosity |
Model mode and Approval mode are independent settings. Model mode controls which AI engine and effort level run. Approval mode controls how much Cartographer asks for confirmation before acting. Extended Thinking persists between sessions, so re-check it at the start of a new engagement — if settings ever seem to have "changed on their own," this persistence is usually why.
If you're on a model other than the recommended one, Cartographer shows a Model not recommended banner. It's a quality heads-up, not an error — switch models in Settings > Model if you want the recommended experience. All models are accessed exclusively through the UiPath AI Trust Layer.
Starting a business process
- Open the Cartographer tab.
- Select New business process at the top of the sidebar.
- Provide the name, description, and context, and add context files if you have them.
- Optional: review the skills enabled for the business process. By default, Business Analysis, project-checklist, and Knowledge Base are enabled.
- Select Create to launch the business process.
Result: A business process begins with no tasks. Input files, skills, and settings remain editable — find it under Business Processes in the sidebar, then select the options menu (⋮) next to its name:
Projects and sessions are bound to the tenant where you created them. If a project seems to "disappear," first confirm you're logged into the same organization and tenant you used before — switching either one hides projects created elsewhere. Moving, exporting, or handing a project to another account or machine isn't supported.
Starting a task
- Approve or reject requests as they appear. Generally, approve requests to read and write within the project space. Review requests to read outside the project space more carefully, and consider write requests outside the project space with particular care — rejecting or denying access only guides the agent to work within a smaller boundary.
Result: Cartographer begins executing the skill, which includes setting up a wiki for the business process and reading the files you provided for context. As it consumes those documents, it checks its process-skills database for a match to apply UiPath proprietary process context, and shows you when a match was found, as a Process Knowledge tool card:
It is normal for Cartographer to spend around 5 minutes extracting information. Stronger models run slower than smaller, faster ones — see Choosing the LLM model for the available options.
Result: Cartographer asks clarification questions to resolve ambiguities. You can respond by selecting one of the offered options, answering the question directly, or providing a document that answers the question — for example, an Excel table listing the business rules that apply at a step.
Next steps
Continue to AS-IS documentation to begin Discovery.