Job file

Whichever source it may come from, a serial port, an e-mail message, or an LPR request, for instance, and whatever its format, data entering a PlanetPress Workflow process via an Input task is always referred to as a data file. When a data file enters a process, it becomes the job file.
'Job file' however is a more general term, that can refer to data files as well as other types of files traveling through a process. Image files, for example, can be passed from task to task in order to be downloaded to a printer. So files traveling within a process are referred to as job files.

A single job file can be the source of multiple job files. This is the case, for example, when a process includes multiple branches, as each branch is given a duplicate copy of the job file (see About branches and conditions). This is also the case when a job file is split into multiple smaller files by a Splitter Action task, for instance (see Data splitters).

It is important to note that job files may be used as a helpful debugging resource (see Debugging and error handling).

Job file names are generated automatically and stored in the %f system variable (see Job file names and output file names).

Actual data and sample data

The actual data is the dynamic data captured by PlanetPress Workflow at run-time. The sample data file is a static sampling of the run-time data (see Sample Data).
In the PlanetPress Workflow Configuration program, you use sample data files to create, edit and debug PlanetPress Workflow configurations (see Debugging your PlanetPress Workflow process).