Is there a way to discover if a program supports automation and if it does how to identify the methods and procedures it supports? Say I wanted to send some data to a map rendering program and have it create a map based on the data I've sent. How can I find out if the program supports being automated?

The program in question is ESRI's ARCMAP but the question is more generic in nature. I have a sense that some of the fox tools will facilitate this but I don't know where to look.

Thanks for any help.