If you’re just getting started with Task Flows in Microsoft Fabric, this guide will walk you through everything step-by-step in simple language, with examples and best practices to help you understand how task flows really work.
Task Flows are designed to help you organize, automate, and monitor data processes inside Microsoft Fabric. Whether you’re processing data, running notebooks, or executing pipelines, task flows give you a clear, visual way to manage it all.
Think of a task flow as a map of steps your data must follow.
- Each step is called a task
- Tasks work together to complete a larger workflow
- Some tasks depend on others (e.g., “don’t start step 2 until step 1 is finished”)
- You can monitor everything from start to end
Task flows help you:
- Plan your data processing easily
- Track progress visually
- Reduce errors
- Automate your data workflows
If you have ever wished your data processes were more organized and easier to manage, task flows are built exactly for that.
To understand how task flows work, you need to know two important building blocks:
This is like a folder that contains all your resources:
- Pipelines
- Notebooks
- Dataflows
- Data models
- Task flows
A workspace keeps everything neatly organized in one place.
A task is a single step in your overall workflow.
Examples of tasks:
- Run a notebook
- Execute a pipeline
- Refresh a semantic model
Each task:
- Can depend on other tasks
- Has its own settings
- Has its own run history and status
You can think of tasks like steps in a recipe—you must complete one before starting the next.
One of the most powerful features of task flows is task dependencies.
Imagine you want to:
- Load raw data
- Clean the data
- Run analysis
You can make the “clean data” task depend on “load data,” and “analysis” depend on “clean data.”
Microsoft Fabric will automatically manage this order for you.
Here’s the beginner-friendly step-by-step process:
- Go to your workspace
- Click New
- Select Task Flow
You’ll see a blank visual canvas where you can add your tasks.
You can add tasks using:
- Notebooks
- Data pipelines
- Dataflows
- Semantic model refreshes
Each added task becomes a little box in your task flow diagram.
Drag arrows between tasks to show what depends on what.
Example:
- Notebook → Pipeline
- Pipeline → Model Refresh
This gives your flow structure and ensures proper execution order.
Task flows currently support:
Run your data processing scripts.
Execute Data Factory–style pipelines.
Refresh Power Query–based dataflows.
Refresh your data models.
Note: The feature is still in preview, so more task types will likely be introduced later.
Microsoft Fabric gives you a built-in monitoring experience:
You can see:
- Which tasks are running
- Which tasks failed
- Execution duration
- Logs and error details
You get a visual view of the entire workflow run, so you can quickly spot what’s working and where issues happened.
Task Flows is a preview feature, so:
- Some features may change
- Occasional bugs may appear
Make sure your workspace has:
- Notebook execution enabled
- Pipeline execution rights
- Proper permissions for each asset
All resources used in a task flow must be within the same workspace.
To get the most out of task flows:
Good example: “Process_Sales_Data”
Bad example: “Task 1”
Start small, test, then expand.
Avoid circular dependencies—they cause errors.
Use the built-in monitoring to detect issues early.
Task flows help you:
- Organize your data operations
- Automate your workflows
- Visualize your processes
- Track progress and failures
- Simplify complex data tasks
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