The ArcToolbox window is dockable in any ArcGIS Desktop application. It provides access to tools you have stored on disk.

Click the Show/Hide ArcToolbox Window button on the Standard toolbar to open the ArcToolbox window.

Toolboxes can contain system tools—tools installed by default—or they can contain custom tools that you have created, such as models or scripts, that might run a number of tools at one time. You’ll now review a model that has already been built using two system tools.

To add a toolbox, right-click the ArcToolbox folder in the ArcToolbox window and click Add Toolbox. Click the Look in dropdown arrow and click the connection to your local copy of the tutorial data—for example, C:\GP_Tutorial. Double-click Habitat_Analysis.gdb, then click the My_Analysis_Tools toolbox and click Open.

To view the contents of the model, expand the My_Analysis_Tools toolbox, right-click the Find Vegetation Near Roads model, and click Edit.

The model opens in the ModelBuilder window.

Input data elements represent existing data. They appear as blue ovals in the model. Tool elements represent geoprocessing tools. They appear as yellow rectangles. Derived data elements represent data that will be created when the model is run. They appear as green ovals.

To open the Buffer tool, right-click the Buffer tool element in the model and click Open to open.

You can change the inputs and outputs of Buffer tool, and control how it produces buffers, from this dialog box.

Tools have a Help pane that you can open by clicking the Show Help button. The Help pane shows an overview of how the tool works. If you click controls on the tool dialog box, the help gives you more information about them.

The Help button at the top of the Help pane links to more help about the tool.

In this model there are two processes, each consisting of a tool and its parameter values—one using the Buffer tool and the other using the Clip tool. The two processes are connected together to build the model.