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Build an app with the Jitterbit App Builder AI Assistant

Introduction

Since version 4.45, the App Builder AI Assistant lets you design and build new applications, and modify existing ones, by interacting with an AI chatbot in English and many other supported languages.

Interactions are real-time chat sessions consisting of your inputs (or prompts) and the AI Assistant's responses to them. You can use text or images to explain what you want, or to find out what the AI Assistant can do.

The AI Assistant has many capabilities, but also some limitations.

Prerequisites

To use the Jitterbit App Builder AI Assistant, you must have the following:

  • The Jitterbit App Builder AI Assistant option included in your App Builder license.

    Important

    AI Assistant features are hidden unless your Harmony license includes the App Builder AI Assistant option. Contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to have the App Builder AI Assistant added to your Harmony license.

  • An OpenAI account and an API key for it.

Build an app using the AI Assistant

To build an app with the Jitterbit App Builder AI Assistant, follow these steps:

  1. You can open the AI Assistant using either of these options:

    • Select Action Drawer > AI Assistant.

    • On the Site Menu, click the AI Assistant button.

    The App Builder AI Assistant panel appears on the right side of the screen:

    AI Assistant API key prompt

  2. The first time you use the AI Assistant, it will prompt you to add an OpenAI API key. You only need to do this once. The AI Assistant will prompt you again in future sessions only if you don't already have an API key set.

    Enter your API key, then click the Save and Test API Key button to verify connectivity. (As an alternative you can set the OpenAI key through the UI.)

    If the API key test is successful, the AI Assistant lets you know and displays an introduction. This introduction will appear each time you open a chat session.

    AI Assistant welcome message

  3. Read the introduction, then begin typing prompts to design and build your app.

    To submit prompts, press Enter or click the Submit button.

    To include images in your prompt, click the Upload an image button.

  4. You can accept, correct, or refine the AI Assistant's suggestions, or ask for refinements or alternatives.

    Building an app this way an interactive and iterative process that usually needs several prompts and responses, possibly spread over more than one chat session.

  5. When you are happy with what the AI Assistant describes, tell it so.

    When it has built the app, it provides a link to it. Click the link to open the app.

After you have tested the app, you can ask the AI Assistant to modify it.

AI Assistant administration

When AI Assistant features are enabled, the IDE includes two additional buttons, under the Connect and Runtime sections:

IDE with AI

Set your OpenAI API key

When you open the AI Assistant without an API key configured yet, it will prompt you to add an API key through the chat window.

To set your OpenAI API key (and optionally which LLM the AI Assistant uses) through the UI, follow these steps:

  1. Select IDE > AI Chat Service. The AI Service dialog opens:

    AI Chat Service dialog

  2. Set values for the following:

    • Api Key: Enter your OpenAI API key.

    • Model: (Optional) Click to open the menu, then select the model for the AI Assistant to use.

      Important

      Currently, Jitterbit tests and supports only the default gpt-4.1 model.

  3. (Optional) Click the Test button to test your API key.

  4. Click the Save button.

Tip

You can also set the OpenAI API key in the AiServices section of the appsettings.json file, but the setting here takes precedence.

AI Dashboard

The AI Dashboard is a page to help you or Jitterbit Support debug chat sessions and inspect their performance:

AI Dashboard

The page consists of the following sections and tabs:

  • Chat Sessions section: Shows all AI Assistant chat sessions for all users. Each session box includes the date and time when the chat began, and how many LLM tokens were used for prompts and responses. Use the search bar to search chats by their ChatSessionId. When you click a session, messages related to it are loaded into the Messages tab.

    To load the chat session (all prompts and responses) into the AI Assistant chat window, click the Load Chat button. Once loaded, click the chat window Copy button to copy the text of the entire chat session to your system clipboard. To permanently delete a chat session, click the Delete button.

  • Messages tab: This shows the content of each individual user prompt and AI Assistant response for the selected chat session. AI Assistant messages include the duration in seconds, and the number of prompt and completion tokens used. Click the Filter icon to open a dialog where you can set various filters for messages.

  • Exceptions tab: This shows exceptions for debugging purposes.

  • Event Histories tab: This is a table showing App Builder events for debugging purposes.

Capabilities and limitations

Currently, the Jitterbit App Builder AI Assistant can do the following:

  • Create and configure applications.

  • Link and manage data sources.

  • Design schemas (define tables, columns, and relationships).

  • Generate and insert test or example data.

  • Create UI pages, panels, and fields.

  • Build business rules (queries, CRUD, validation, and defaults).

  • Set up events and actions (including notifications).

  • Select and preview themes.

The AI Assistant cannot do the following itself. You must do them manually using the App Builder UI:

  • Develop custom plugins, stored procedures, or external code.

  • Create or configure advanced API endpoints.

  • Configure database servers or advanced connections.

  • Manage advanced security, users, or roles.

  • Manipulate production or non-test data.

  • Develop custom UI widgets or components.

  • Configure IDE-only features (responses, plugin actions, system settings).

Additionally, there are the following known issues with the AI Assistant:

  • Although able to do so itself, the AI Assistant may ask you to delete a table manually.

  • The AI Assistant may appear to hang on a response if the App Builder instance is restarted during a chat session.

  • The AI Assistant may ask you to specify which page you wish to work on even if you are currently viewing the app page in question. (The AI Assistant cannot see which app page you are currently viewing.)

  • The AI Assistant puts all pages under the Home menu. It is not currently aware of other menu or location options for pages.

  • Pop-up pages do not render correctly next to the chat window.

  • The AI Assistant may have difficulty deleting objects that are referenced by other objects. (For example, it can't delete a table if there are rules and pages referencing it.)

Example prompts

The App Builder AI Assistant is an assistant in the broadest sense of the word. It can answer questions, give you ideas for apps, suggest improvements to existing apps, or outline its plan of approach, all before it starts building an app. These example prompts should give you an idea of what you can ask the AI Assistant.

Tell me which parts of an app you can build, and which parts you can't.

What current apps in the system have the most tables?

Give me an outline of how you would build an app for retrieving and storing foreign currency exchange (FX) rates.

Create an HR application called "My HR" handling all HR functionality at my global clog company. We have 18,000 employees. I need an enterprise level HR application with an enterprise level schema. Basically, You come up with the schema and the page design since I don't know anything about HR. Again, think of any large HR system, think of all of the functionality supported by those systems, think of the schema required to support that functionality, and build that for us. When planning the schema, include Lookup tables in your design, and do not limit yourself in any way.