Jobs are workflow-like models for coordinating resources, execution, and dependencies of ETL activities.
Jobs aggregate individual pieces of functionality to implement an entire process. Examples of common tasks performed in a job include getting FTP files, checking conditions such as existence of a necessary target database table, running a transformation that populates that table, and e-mailing an error log if a transformation fails. The final job outcome might be a nightly warehouse update, for example.
Job entries are the individual configured pieces as shown in the example above; they are the primary building blocks of a job. In data transformations these individual pieces are called steps. Job entries can provide you with a wide range of functionality ranging from executing transformations to getting files from a Web server. A single job entry can be placed multiple times on the canvas; for example, you can take a single job entry such as a transformation run and place it on the canvas multiple times using different configurations. Job settings are the options that control the behavior of a job and the method of logging a job’s actions. Job file names have a .kjb extension. See PDI job entries for details about the features and ETL functions of the various job entries available in PDI.
Job hops specify the execution order and the condition on which the next job entry will be executed. You can specify the Evaluation mode by right clicking on the job hop. A job hop is just a flow of control. Hops link to job entries and, based on the results of the previous job entry, determine what happens next.
Job hop conditions are specified in the following table:
| Condition | Description |
|---|---|
| Unconditional | Specifies that the next job entry will be executed regardless of the result of the originating job entry |
| Follow when result is true | Specifies that the next job entry will be executed only when the result of the originating job entry is true; this means a successful execution such as, file found, table found, without error, and so on |
| Follow when result is false | Specifies that the next job entry will only be executed when the result of the originating job entry was false, meaning unsuccessful execution, file not found, table not found, error(s) occurred, and so on |