Documenting a system that has no "page"

A parts counter runs on an AS/400 terminal. To add a new item, someone types 2 for the purchasing menu, then 32 for the item master, presses F6 to switch the screen into Add mode, and fills eleven fields in a fixed order — several of which are only correct if you already know what they mean.

Ask a browser-based SOP tool to capture that and you get nothing usable. There are no DOM elements to name, no clicks to intercept, no page titles to read. The tool has nothing to look at, so it produces a series of unlabelled screenshots and leaves the writing to you — which is the part that took the afternoon.

What Moneo does instead

Moneo watches the recording the way a trainer would. It hears the narration, picks the screens where something actually changed, and reads the terminal itself — the screen name in the header, the function keys along the bottom, the mode indicator in the corner, the field labels — then writes each step in the language your staff already use.

“From the main menu, type 2 for the Purchasing menu, then 32 for the Item Master File. Press F6 to switch to Add mode — the indicator in the top right will read Add.”

That sentence is the whole product. It contains three facts that appear nowhere in the narration and nowhere in any DOM: the menu numbers, the key, and the confirmation cue. They were on the screen, so Moneo used them.

Why teams reach for it

• The last person who knows the old system is often the closest to retiring.
• New hires can't Google your ERP. If it isn't written down, it's shoulder-taps forever.
• Auditors and insurers increasingly want written procedures for financial and safety-critical work.
• Replacing the system eventually means explaining what it currently does — to a vendor, in writing.