Automation basics

Why automate?

Take out your cell phone. Every app on that phone is automating something in your life, whether it is sending messages to friends, getting weather updates, or helping you find directions to a new restaurant. We use automation everyday. Automation is not some big scary word that only engineers know how to design or use. Automation helps simplify the mundane or complicated tasks to improve outcomes. For most of us, I dare say that data curation falls under the category of mundane.

How do we automate data curation in the Dataverse?

It is surprising that the Dataverse does not advertise this more, but automation with the Dataverse is like having your own assistant to carry out your orders. This assistant is fast, efficient, and free. Instead of you manually clicking through the Dataverse website to try and find an upload button, then browse your computer to find the file and then fill out form fields, there is a FREE assistant waiting to do your bidding. Why would you not use this assistant?

One of the reasons for the assistant being largely ignored is that it sits behind a wall of technical jargon. In the software world, this digital assistant is know as the API. Don't ask me what API stands for, I don't know and I don't care. The API is your assistant, to do your bidding, even at 2am in the morning while you are sleeping or on vacation.

So how do we tell this assistant to get to work? We simply have to provide it written instructions. Let's move the conversation over to a tool we can use put the Dataverse assistant to work - https://github.com/kuhlaid/dv-api-test.