Workflow Terminology

A workflow is a directed graph consisting of connected nodes. If N1 is connected to N2 then N1 is said to be a parent of N2 and N2 is a child of N1. Certain nodes are root nodes, that is, nodes that have no parents. In the example in the previous section, Table is the parent of Classification, Classification is a child of Table, and MINING_DATA_BUILD is a root node. All workflows have at least one root node; however, a workflow may have several root nodes. Note that a parent node is closer to a root node than its child. Parent nodes are upstream of child nodes.

If a node has several child nodes, the child nodes are referred to as siblings.

A node N2 is a descendent of N1 if there is a there is a workflow connection starting from N1 that eventually connects to N2. N1 is always closer to a root node than N2. N1 is said to be an ancestor of N2.

A parent node often provides information that the child node needs when it runs. For example, you must build a model before you can apply it to new data.