An important part of creating a custom geoprocessing tool is writing help documentation that will allow others to understand and use your tool efficiently.
You write help documentation for a custom tool by modifying its metadata, or item description, which contains the following components:
- A summary of the task your tool performs as well as brief use cases
- Graphics that illustrate your tool inputs and outputs or how your tool works, and a thumbnail that is displayed when the tool is added to the Analysis gallery
- General tips or instructions on how to correctly and efficiently use the tool
- Specific help for each tool parameter, including acceptable data types and values
- Search tags
- Credits
- Legal, access, and use constraints
To document your custom geoprocessing tool and toolbox, you can right-click the tool or toolbox and select Edit Metadata. Alternatively, you can right-click the tool or toolbox, select View Metadata, and click the Edit button on the Home tab. After you have fully documented your custom tool, anyone who is using the tool can get help the same way they get help for the geoprocessing tools included in ArcGIS.