Task calculation explained
A Task is the exchange of a data entity between two systems (either internal systems such as storage or external systems such as an ERP, PIM, or e-commerce system).
When translated to Alumio terminology, a Task is defined as a task within Alumio regardless if the task has succeeded, failed, or was skipped.
Every created task counts towards the Task metric.
The calculation of the Task metric may differ in certain scenarios, such as bulk processing.
Sometimes a data object needs to be enriched before it’s ready to be exported to another system.
Executing such an enrichment to a data object, as long as this is part of the initial task, does not count as an extra transaction.
The figure below shows two separate scenarios that would both count as a single Task.
Figure1: Two scenarios that both count as a single Task
Tasks within Alumio hold a data object, such as an order, shipment, or product.
A task’s sole purpose is to move this data object from one system to another.
The figure below shows the visualization of possible tasks of an Alumio integration environment.
Figure 2: Example of a data object sitting in the Task queue
Depending on the requirements, an integrator may choose to split up the integration into multiple routes. Usually, a system requires a certain entity to be available before it can be referred to by another entity.
A perfect example of such integration would be an end-to-end product integration.
Products usually exist out of various data objects such as (but not limited to): categories, attributes, images, relationships (such as up-sells, cross-sells, or related products), and nally the product data itself.
A product can not be assigned to a category that does not exist yet, so that creates the requirement to synchronize categories separately from the product itself.
The usage of webhooks and HTTP proxies also count towards the Task metric.
Each time a webhook or HTTP proxy is consumed, a Task will be created.
Alumio offers the ability to purchase extra Tasks on top of the complementary Task offered by your subscription.
Preventing unnecessary tasks
Alumio offers filtering that can be set-up to check whether a task needs to be created or not.
When filtering out the data in an ‘incoming’ no task will be created.
Note, when filtering data in a later state the task will get the ‘skipped’ status.
A task with the ‘skipped’ status will count towards your total task count.
This filtering usually happens with the use of conditional transformers or storages.
Also read ‘How to caclulate the number of routes required’.