The pocket gnome is a special bought extra that allows you to remotely administer your automations without having to physically go to the location of each automation.
Essentially you give orders to your pocket gnome who like a good gnome runs off and sets up the automations for you as per your instructions. You can use the automation to manage every aspect of an automation from first time placement, to harvesting and even deleting them.
The main screen lists all of the rooms you own that can have automations placed in them, clicking the button to the right of the name will open a new screen that lets you pick the automation you wish to place inside. (You must have the correct automation in your inventory i.e. a farm for a farm room).
When you pick an automation it is added to the room and if it was part of a pile the pile quantity goes down by one or if it was a single item it is deleted.
The main screen will now show the room in yellow text and have a different button, if you click on the button you will be given another screen that lets you pick the material you wish this automation to gather.
After picking a material the main screen will then show the progress of gathering that material and using the button on this screen you can then gather the resources as and when you want, like all automations when you remove some resources the capacity of the automation goes down and eventually you will have to replace it.
Tip: As some people may have hundreds of automations you can use the filter buttons on the left of the screen to filter the visible rooms by the type of room i.e. only show cloth mills. The default is to show all rooms that you own that can have automations.