KNIME Best Practices Guide

KNIME AG, Zurich, Switzerland

Version 5.4 (last updated on )
Table of Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What is KNIME? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
KNIME Analytics Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
KNIME Hub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Workflow Design Process: From KNIME Analytics Platform to KNIME Hub. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Project prerequisites: Before building a KNIME workflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Aims of best practices when working with KNIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Make your workflow reusable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Naming conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Use relative file paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Document your workflow with node labels and annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Structure your workflow with components and metanodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Share components on the KNIME Hub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Components for Data apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Capture and invoke workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Testing and data validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Make your workflow efficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Efficient file reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Efficient workflow design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Measure performance with KNIME nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Process in memory option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Streaming execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Columnar table backend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Parallelize branch execution with loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Efficient database usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Make your workflow secure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Handle credentials accordingly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Handling sensitive data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Data anonymization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Secrets: Secure information on the KNIME Hub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Workflow annotation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Node label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Workflow description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Hub spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
(Shared) Component. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Data app deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Schedule deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Service deployment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Workflow Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
KNIME Best Practices Guide

Introduction
This guide provides best practices to work efficiently with KNIME Analytics Platform and on
KNIME Hub. It shows you how to accelerate, reuse and secure your KNIME workflows. It also
provides best practices for updating and monitoring workflows that are shared with your end
users.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

What is KNIME?
KNIME is a platform for end to end data science. It offers two complementary products:
KNIME Analytics Platform and KNIME Hub.

KNIME Analytics Platform

KNIME Analytics Platform is an open source software with a visual interface, which is shown
below. It allows users to build data science analyses. Users can access, blend, analyze, and
visualize their data, and integrate third-party tools and libraries.

Figure 1. The KNIME Analytics Platform user interface

If you haven’t downloaded KNIME Analytics Platform yet, you can do so on the download
page.

KNIME Hub
KNIME Hub is the commercial software for collaborating and scaling data science, offered
online as KNIME Community Hub or installed into a company’s private infrastructure as
KNIME Business Hub.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

KNIME Community Hub

On KNIME Community Hub, users can browse working examples workflows of data science
solutions, or find nodes and components to use in their KNIME projects. On the Community
Hub, collections provide selected workflows, nodes, and links about a specific, common
topic. Open source extensions provide additional functionalities such as access to and
processing of complex data types, as well as the addition of advanced machine learning
algorithms.

Additionally, with Team plan paid services small groups or teams of users can share and
collaborate on solutions in private spaces, and run workflows ad hoc as data apps or
automate their execution.

KNIME Business Hub

KNIME Business Hub provides the same capabilities for collaboration and sharing – but
within a company’s dedicated infrastructure. Teams can share knowledge publicly across
their organization or privately with selected users. Additionally, data experts can deploy and
monitor their workflows, as well as share analytic models as data apps and services with
data consumers.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Workflow Design Process: From KNIME

Analytics Platform to KNIME Hub
As you start your data project with KNIME, you will create a workflow in the KNIME Analytics
Platform that can then be uploaded to KNIME Hub. The KNIME Analytics Platform is how
you’ll design your data process via a workflow. Once your workflow is ready, you can upload
it to your KNIME Hub instance. There, you can easily automate or deploy it.

Figure 2. The data science lifecycle

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Project prerequisites: Before building a KNIME

workflow
As with any project, prior to building your workflow, it’s important to understand the scope of
the project or use case you’re working with. This checklist can guide you:

☐ Define a goal. It should be measurable and achievable within a certain time limit. For
example: Reduce the churn rate by 15% in the upcoming quarter.

☐ Access your data: What sources are required? Which nodes are essential to access
them?

☐ Define your audience. A workflow is rarely just accessed by the person who built it. Ask
yourself who consumes the final results. What should their takeaway from your
insights? Define a method to share your insights. It should be suitable to convey the
data and your conclusions drawn from it. For example, a method could be:

◦ A scheduled workflow that regularly creates and sends a report

◦ A scheduled workflow that gets executed regularly to process new data or apply a
predictive model?

◦ A Data App that gets deployed to KNIME Hub

◦ A predictive model that is accessible via REST API
☐ Outline the structure of your workflow(s). Consider the following questions:
◦ What is the task of each individual workflow that you want to build? If you identify
multiple tasks, limit one workflow to one self-contained task.

◦ What is the input and output of each individual workflow?

◦ Do your workflows share some parts?
☐ Define the requirements for your workflows. Consider the following questions:
◦ How fast should the workflow be executed?
◦ How often should it be executed, etc.?
☐ Define the framework conditions. What hardware and software do you need to meet
your workflow’s requirements?

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Aims of best practices when working with

KNIME
Now that you have defined your project prerequisites, you want to find the best method to
handle your workflow.

You will learn what best practices are, why they matter, and how to implement them in your
projects using KNIME Analytics Platform and KNIME Hub. This guide will help you get an
intuition about what to consider when building, running, or sharing a workflow.

However, if you are taking your first steps with the KNIME Analytics Platform, please start by
following the Getting Started Guide.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Make your workflow reusable

Naming conventions
Workflows created in your local KNIME Analytics Platform installation are just like any other
file on your computer. You can uniquely identify them by their file name and sort them into
folders. Before you dive into the data, consider the following when saving your workflows:

• Use a clear naming convention for your workflows.The file name should describe the
task of the workflow. For example: "Read and Preprocess Customer Data" instead of
"Project_1". You can also introduce numbers as prefixes. A consistent naming is shown
in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Consistently named workflows

• Remember to limit one workflow to one coherent task. If your use case requires
multiple tasks to achieve the final result, group the respective workflows into folders.
Choose a folder name that indicates your final goal.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Use relative file paths

KNIME workflows are made to operate on data files. If such a file is saved on your local
computer, its absolute path uniquely identifies the location of your data file within your file
system, for example, C:\Users\username\Desktop on Windows or /home/user on Linux.
However, if you share your workflow with others, e.g. using the KNIME Hub as a repository
they will execute it in their local KNIME Analytics Platform installation.

Thus, the link with which KNIME Analytics Platform accesses the data file you provide along
with your workflow should be a relative path. This can mean that your path is relative to one
of the following:

• Your current workflow: The data is stored in the same folder as the workflow file, e.g.
/workflow_group/my_workflow.
• Your current workflow data area: The data is dedicated to and accessible by the
currently executing workflow. Thus, the data is stored in a folder that is located inside
the workflow folder. For example, a relative path could look as follows: <knime-
workspace>/workflow_group/my_workflow/data/. The data folder contains the files that
contain the data. e.g., a .csv file. For example, <knime-
workspace>/workflow_group/my_workflow/data/adult.csv.
• Your current Hub space (given that you are signed in to the respective Hub instance
from your space explorer).
• A connected file system that you can access with the respective connector node

Alternatively, you can provide a Custom URL along with your data for everyone that you share
your workflow with. For example,

https://example.com/mydata/datafile.csv

Using this option, you can read and write single files, but you cannot move or
 copy files or folders. However, listing files in a folder, i.e. browsing, is not
supported.

Find out more about the KNIME file handling infrastructure in the KNIME File Handling Guide.

Find out more about storing and sharing items on the KNIME Hub in the KNIME Community
Hub User Guide.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Document your workflow with node labels and annotations

To make your workflow reusable, you and your team need to be able to quickly comprehend
what each part and each node are doing. KNIME node names are self-explanatory. However,
to describe how each node operates on your specific data, you can change the node label.
Select a node in the workflow editor and double-click below the node to change its label.
Here, you can describe what operation it performs on your data.

To capture an operation performed by multiple nodes, use a workflow annotation. Right-click

anywhere in the workflow editor and select New workflow annotation. You can observe a
workflow with both workflow annotations, nodes with node labels, and one node which is
selected and does not carry a label yet, in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Node labels describe data operations performed by one node. Workflow annotations
do the same for multiple nodes.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Structure your workflow with components and metanodes

Workflow annotations subsume smaller sub-groups of nodes within a workflow. The more
nodes you add to your workflow, the less comprehensible it gets. In larger workflows, you
may want to compress nodes into groups represented by a single node. Those can either be
components or metanodes.

Metanodes are used solely to structure your workflows more clearly by subsuming many
nodes into one. You can take parts of a larger workflow and collapse them into a metanode,
hiding that part of the workflow’s functionality.

In addition to the functions of a metanode, a component can be reused on different data that
require the same operations performed on them. For example, if you often connect to a
particular database, you can create a connector component that contains all the settings
options.

To create a component or metanode select at least two nodes, right-click anywhere in the
workflow editor, and select either Create metanode or Create component, as explained in this
section of the KNIME Components Guide.

To make a component comprehensible to others, document it by adding a description for the

expected input and the different setting options (similar to a KNIME node), as explained in
this section of the KNIME Components Guide.

To properly exhaust the flexibility of a component, it should:

• Use a small set of consistent inputs and outputs.

• Never rely on sources specific to one data set.
• Not require its users to change any node settings on the inside when adopting it.

You can have your component adjust to different data by adding custom configuration
dialogs to access the flow variables inside the component. This allows you and other users
of your component to easily customize a component to take variable names from different
datasets as inputs. In this respect, components work just like regular KNIME nodes: You
provide them with data to which you adjust the node settings. Ultimately, components make
frequent data operations faster and easier.

Some components are executed repeatedly, e.g. because they are data apps.
 To accelerate their execution, perform heavy computations, like processing
large amounts of data, outside the component.

As node sub-groups, components and metanodes should be treated like small workflows
with respect to their scope. You should assign one single, self-contained and coherent

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

function to one component or metanode.

Learn more about components and metanodes in the KNIME Components Guide.

Share components on the KNIME Hub

After you create a component in a workflow, if you want to reuse it in another workflow, you
can copy and paste it into the new workflow. However, in this way, changes to the
component in one workflow are not picked up by the others. To make full use of a
component’s reusability potential, you can share it on the KNIME Hub. To share a component,
right-click it, select Component → Share. By doing so, you can let your collaborators access
your changes to a component and also see theirs.

Additionally, by linking a shared component, you can incorporate changes made by others in
your local installation. Whenever your collaborators update the component on the KNIME
Hub, your KNIME Analytics Platform installation prompts you to update the component. To
adapt the update policy, navigate to Preferences → KNIME. Under Component updates, you
can set the default update policy to Never, Always, or Prompt.

Find out more about sharing components in the KNIME Components Guide.

Please be aware that if input data are included, they will be accessible to
everyone who has access to the component itself. Thoroughly check which
 type of Hub space you save your components to and whether your data
contains sensitive information.

Find out how to handle workflows that involve confidential data, in the security section of this
guide.

Some components allow Streaming Execution. Read more about how this feature makes
your workflows more efficient in the Streaming Execution section of this guide.

Components for Data apps

You can use components and their composite views to define pages in web application
workflows. Once uploaded to KNIME Hub, they can be deployed as Data Apps.

To directly interact with the Data App UI in the browser, you need to implement components
with widgets. Widgets allow consumers of your Data App to navigate between its pages.
Each page corresponds to a component at the root level of the workflow, containing Widget
nodes and View nodes. This means that when you inspect the composite view in KNIME
Analytics Platform, you can adjust the parameters in the window that opens.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

A component that constitutes a data app is meant to be executed repeatedly.

 To accelerate its execution and to avoid undesirable consequences, perform
heavy computations outside of the component.

Find out more about data apps in the respective section of the KNIME Components Guide, or
learn how to create a data app step-by-step in the KNIME Data Apps Beginners Guide.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Capture and invoke workflows

Capture workflow segments

Having many sub-processes in one workflow makes it slow and difficult to maintain and test.
In the Structure your workflow with components and metanodes section the advantages of
reusable workflow segments are described. Another option for automatically capturing a
selection of nodes from a workflow is the KNIME Integrated Deployment Extension.

This feature allows you to:

• Capture core segments of your workflow for reuse

• Save captured segments automatically as workflows with all the relevant settings and
transformations included As a consequence, captured segments do not require manual
work or changes to be reused. This facilitates deploying and testing relevant parts of a
workflow, e.g. custom data preprocessing.

You can use the KNIME Integrated Deployment Extension for variety of use cases, such as:

• Data pipeline deployment

• Model deployment
• Ad-hoc testing
• Workflow summary extraction

In general, you will benefit from:

• Saving time
• Reducing errors
• Increasing compliance
• Optimizing processes

If you want to learn more ways to optimize workflow performance, please refer to the
Efficiency section.

To capture a workflow segment, i.e. a selection of nodes, place a Capture Workflow Start
node before the first node, and a Capture Workflow End after the last node is to be captured,
as shown in Figure 5.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Figure 5. A workflow segment encapsulated by Capture Workflow Start and Capture Workflow
End nodes.

The entire workflow segment within the scope of these two nodes is then available at the
workflow output port of the Capture Workflow End node. In the configuration dialog of the
Capture Workflow End node, you can store input data that will be used by default when
running the captured workflow segment unless you provide a different input. You can also
propagate variables defined within the captured segment.

Nodes that have out-going connections to a node that is part of the scope but
 are not part of the scope themselves are represented as static inputs but not
captured.

Finally, to save a captured workflow, you have the following options:

1. Write the workflow to a local folder with the Workflow Writer node, as described in the
respective section in the KNIME Integrated Deployment Guide.
2. Write the workflow to a connected file system by adding a database connector node.
See the respective section in the KNIME Integrated Deployment Guide for details.
3. Read the workflow inside another workflow with the Workflow Reader node. It reads a
single workflow into a workflow port object. Since the workflow will not be executed by
this node, add a Workflow Executor node to do so. See the respective section of the
KNIME Integrated Deployment Guide for details.

The Workflow Reader node allows you to read a workflow object, even if you do not want to
execute it right away. This is useful to analyze the workflow, e.g. with the Workflow Summary
Extractor node or, if you want to provide said workflow object to a subsequent node or
component as input. The treatment of the workflow object is delegated to the node or
component. However, the Workflow Reader cannot access the data area of the workflow that
is read, nor does it read partially executed workflows. The whole workflow will be reset. The
Workflow Executor node can be useful to execute a workflow object that is the output of a
node or component. For example, you could connect the output port of the Workflow

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Combiner node, which facilitates configuring input/output port connections between

workflow segments, to the Workflow Executor. However, the Workflow Executor can only
execute a workflow that is captured from the same workflow that the Workflow Executor
node is part of.

 It is not possible to read KNIME components with the Workflow Reader node.

Finally, if you want to use captured workflows immediately after reading them into another
workflow, consider using the Call Workflow Services nodes instead. See the Workflow
Services section for details.

Learn more about capturing segments of a workflow in the KNIME Integrated Deployment
Guide.

Workflow Services: Invoke workflows within each other

Workflow Services provide nodes that allow a caller workflow to invoke other workflows.
Those workflows being called are callee workflows.

Since an ideal workflow performs only one task, this feature allows you to modularize your
workflows. Ultimately, it makes workflows faster to execute and easier to understand and
maintain. You can use Workflow Services for:

• Sharing data tables, text, models, and other objects between workflows
• Create modular workflows, each of which creates a chart for a report, that are
orchestrated by a caller workflow that generates a report that includes all of them

Rather than invoking standardized (but limiting) JSON-based APIs, it is possible to create and
connect directly to KNIME native API endpoints. This means that it is possible to share more
KNIME data types, beyond what is possible with JSON, e.g., text documents, decision trees,
deep learning models, and many more. This is especially useful in workflow orchestration.

To call workflows from external REST clients, please use Container Input/Output
 nodes. See the respective section in the KNIME Workflow Invocation Guide for
details.

The most important nodes regarding Workflow Services are the following from the KNIME
Personal Productivity Tools Extension:

• Workflow Service Input node: It receives a table or any port object from a workflow that
calls this workflow, i.e. a caller workflow. Various port types are available.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

• Workflow Service Output node: It sends an object to a caller workflow. Various port
types are available.
• Call Workflow Service node: It calls other local and remote workflows. Multiple ports
and various ports are available.

In conclusion, the Workflow Input and Output nodes are used to build workflows intended to
be called from within another workflow (i.e., using the Call Workflow Service node).

The Call Workflow Service node, in turn, obtains the results for further processing in the
workflow. It can be used any time we want a caller workflow to invoke a callee workflow. The
workflow will be able to receive inputs via Workflow Service Input nodes and return outputs
which the Workflow Service Output nodes then collect. The ports of the Call Workflow Service
node are adjusted automatically in accordance with the callee workflow selected in the
configuration dialog.

The advantages of Workflow Services are:

• They can adequately access the workflow data area of the callee workflow, which
distinguishes them from the Workflow Reader node.
• They leverage the infrastructure of KNIME Business Hub, leading to better scalability.
• They are more efficient than using Workflow Reader and Workflow Executor nodes,
when direct workflow execution is the main goal. If you want to learn more ways to
optimize workflow performance, please refer to the Efficiency section.

Find out more about Workflow Services in the KNIME Workflow Invocation Guide.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Testing and data validation

Get started with why and how to test

To guarantee that a KNIME workflow, component or workflow segment performs as

expected, you should test your workflows regularly. Ultimately, this makes your workflows
less error-prone and easier to maintain. This section explains how to leverage KNIME as a
testing framework.

Your workflows will not always be faced with the ideal input, nor will they be configured in the
right way. Because of that, your workflows should be robust to inputs deviating from norm by
breaking in a controllable way. This helps ensure that any future changes continue to pass all
of the same tests.

Before testing, you should clearly define your goals. In the case of workflow testing, you can
formulate test cases, which state any given situation encountered by your workflow, i.e., what
happens when valid data is injected into the workflow, and what errors will be raised, when
invalid data is provided.

Possible issues that may occur while testing include:

• Failing for unexpected reasons

• Unexpected error messages
• Wrong output

The reasons could be:

• Invalid inputs, e.g. provided by end users

• Configuration changes
• Changes caused by an update
• Changes in external services

Test and validate in KNIME Analytics Platform

In KNIME Analytics Platform you can create and automate a testing framework for future re-
deployments. You can create so-called testflows, which are KNIME workflows that provide
controlled test inputs and outputs to a workflow, component, or workflow segment. Test in-
and outputs are gold standard data, i.e., they represent small samples of the inputs and
results that you expect your workflow to handle.

When test outputs are provided, the testflows then check whether the outputs align with the

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expected results generated from the test inputs. If they do not, the testflows should raise an
alert, which is a response to deviating inputs or unexpected cases. You have already defined
those cases as your error test cases, e.g., missing or invalid inputs, unexpected failure, etc.

As a best practice you should never:

• Process the golden data outside your test flow as if it were regular data. This may lead
to more unknown errors that you need to identify.
• Make any changes to the golden data.

It is best to keep golden data in a separate folder and to restrict permissions if possible.
KNIME Analytics Platform provides nodes that allow you to test the output of your testflows.
Although there exist many more, the most commonly used nodes are listed below.

• Table Validator

Ensures a certain table structure and table content (schema). As a result, the output table
structure should be identical to the specification defined by the user in the configuration
dialog. This node forms part of the KNIME Base nodes.

• JSON Schema Validator

Validates JSON values based on a specified schema. It collects mismatching values so that
you can inspect them.

• Table Difference Checker

Determines if there is a difference between two tables. It compares the table created by your
testflow with a reference table, e.g., a golden table.

• Table Difference Finder

Identifies and returns domain and value differences for each row and column in the tables.
As opposed to the Table Difference Checker, the node does not immediately fail if the tables
differ, but the configuration dialog provides an option to enable failing, too.

• File Difference Checker

The node will compare two files given by flow variable and fails with an exception if the files
are not equal. Many similar nodes exist for other types of files, too, e.g., the Image Difference
Checker. You can find them on the KNIME Community Hub by searching for the keywords
"difference checker".

In the following, you will read about two approaches to create testflows in KNIME Analytics
Platform. The nodes listed above can be used in both of them.

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In KNIME Analytics Platform you can either use the KNIME Integrated Deployment Extension
or the KNIME Testing Framework UI Extension. Both approaches are described in the
following. You can choose which one fits best your use case.

KNIME Integrated Deployment

The first option is to create testflows by capturing workflow segments and executing them
using the KNIME Integrated Deployment Extension, which is described in the Capture and
invoke workflows section.

This option is useful for ad-hoc testing, i.e., executing the captured workflow segments in the
same workflow while testing against new data. For execution, you may use the Workflow
Executor. First, enclose the segment you want to test into the Capture Workflow Start and
Capture Workflow End nodes, as described in the Capture and invoke workflows section of
this guide. Then, in the same workflow create multiple workflow branches. Each of them
represents a different test case by injecting different data inputs into the captured workflow
segments to be tested, as shown in Figure 6.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Figure 6. A workflow containing workflow segments representing different test cases.

If you only want to test whether your workflow is executing or not, you may
 insert a Workflow Executor node without any additional input but the captured
workflow segment.

To perform an application test, i.e. to test an entire workflow we recommend using the
Workflow Services nodes instead.

KNIME Testing Framework UI

The second option for testing your workflows is the KNIME Testing Framework UI Extension.
It is a more complex method of creating and executing testflows. You can generate reports
which you can view inside of KNIME Analytics Platform.

Your testflow can be as simple or complex as you choose to. The test itself is performed by a
validator node such as the Table Validator, which compares the output generated by your
workflow against a gold standard. To establish which conditions must be met for the

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workflow to fail or to succeed execution, you can use the Testflow Configuration node.

Testflow automation

To execute multiple testflows automatically, you can execute a Call Workflow Service node in
a loop. You simply iterate over the testflow names, concatenate the results of the reported
errors and write them into a report, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. A workflow executing testflow files in a loop and writing their execution time to a
report.

Find out more about creating reports in the KNIME Reporting Guide.

This is necessary, because identifying errors with testflows does not automatically mean that
the people responsible are informed. The testflow could either fail silently, or the process
would even be successfully completed whilst having processed faulty input data.

To be made aware of these errors, you can embed failing nodes in a try-catch framework to
catch all the errors. It captures information about failing nodes which can then be stated in
the report. On the KNIME Community Hub you can find various nodes to implement this
framework.

Try nodes simply indicate the beginning of the try-catch framework. Place them in front of
the first node you want to include and connect them to its input port. The Catch Errors node,
on the other hand, will be placed after the last node you want to include in your try-catch
structure. By connecting the last node to the input port of the Catch Errors node, it will
forward the input from the first port if the execution was successful. If execution on the top
branch failed (and a matching try node was connected before the failing node) then the input
from the second port of the Catch Errors port will be forwarded, and the second variable
outport will contain information about the observed error.

After having collected the errors, you can choose from a variety of KNIME nodes to message
the responsible people about the issues you identified.

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Make your workflow efficient

Efficient file reading

To speed-up your workflow, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Avoid reading the same file multiple times, i.e., do not use a Reader node each time you
need the same file for different data operations. You can use multiple connections to
connect the same Reader node to more than one subsequent node, as shown in Figure
8.

Figure 8. One node reading a file can have multiple connections at its output port

• Read multiple files with the same structure with one Reader node. Open the
configuration of a Reader node and select the “Files in folder” option in the Settings tab.
• Remove unnecessary data. KNIME Source nodes, like the Reader nodes, offer an option
for removing unused or redundant columns. Open the configuration of a Reader node
and select the Transformation tab.

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Efficient workflow design

When designing a workflow, there are only a few mistakes to absolutely avoid, but many
convenient practices that facilitate its usage. Both will be introduced in the following.

An efficient workflow never contains:

• Disconnected nodes or components. Especially, if you want to run that workflow on a

KNIME Hub instance, or if you want to call it from another workflow.
• Workflow branches that are not actively needed.
• Large, unused files in the form of components, nodes, or metanodes. They slow down
loading, executing, and saving the workflow. In some cases, they even cause the
workflow to fail.

To make your workflow run faster, keep the following in mind:

• Some data manipulation operations are more computationally expensive than others.
KNIME Analytics Platform offers nodes to avoid unnecessarily expensive operations.
For example:

◦ Joins: Joining two tables with the Joiner node to then filter for criteria is slow.
Instead, replace a few rows with the Value Lookup node, that compares and
matches your data to a dictionary containing your criteria.

◦ Loops: Depending on your data and iterations, loops may slow down your
workflow. Thus, use loops only when absolutely needed. Instead, try Multi Column
nodes to operate on strings in multiple columns at once.
• Some data types use more memory space on your computer than others. For example,
strings occupy more space than integers. Check for columns with the wrong data type,
e.g., where numbers are saved as strings.
• Redundant data serves no purpose in your data operations. Filter out columns that
contain constant values or any information that you will not be using later.
• The fastest way to run recurring processes, is to capture, save them and replicate your
workflow on (new) data. To learn how, refer to the Capture and invoke workflows
section of this guide section of this guide.

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Measure performance with KNIME nodes

Like any good project, a good workflow is scalable.

To measure which nodes take the longest to execute in your workflow you can use the Timer
Info node. It reports individual and aggregate timing and execution information for all nodes.
This allows you to identify weak points in your workflow and track your progress over time.

The Timer Info node is included in the KNIME base installation. Simply drag it anywhere into
the workflow that you want to evaluate, and execute it.

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Process in memory option

In KNIME Analytics Platform, the GroupBy and Pivot nodes offer the "Process in memory"
option. While it does use significant memory, it also brings a notable performance
improvement by reducing disk swaps when these nodes are executed. To activate the
"Process in memory" option, open the configuration dialog of the GroupBy or Pivot node.
Under the tabs Settings > Groups navigate to Advanced settings and select the checkbox
Process in memory.

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Streaming execution
Some KNIME nodes and components allow streaming execution. You can implement it with
the KNIME Streaming Execution (Beta) extension on KNIME Hub.

While the default execution operates node-by-node, in streaming execution nodes are
executed concurrently. Each node passes data to the next as soon as it is available, i.e.,
before the node is fully executed. In particular, all data are divided into a number of batches
which are streamed one by one. Especially, when reading or preprocessing data, streaming
execution accelerates runtime.

In Streaming Execution intermediate results are not available because no data

 is cached.

To switch from default to streaming execution, create a component and open its
configuration dialog. Open the Job Manager Selection tab in the component configuration
dialog. If the streaming execution option is not available for the node you will only see the
default option in the menu. In components that allow streaming execution, select the
"Simple Streaming" option. The streamable component is now marked with an arrow in its
lower left corner.

Figure 9. A component with Simple Streaming execution enabled

Streaming execution is not yet optimized to operate with the Columnar

 Backend. You can adjust your default table backend as described in the
Columnar Table Backend section of this guide.

For further reading on Streaming Execution, please consult the respective section in the
KNIME Components Guide.

Find out more about how to structure your workflow with components in the section on
reusability of this guide.

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Columnar table backend

You can use the KNIME Columnar Table Backend extension to accelerate workflow
execution. It optimizes the use of main memory in KNIME Analytics Platform by reviewing the
underlying data representation, where cell elements in a table are represented by Java
objects. Its now different underlying data layer is backed by Apache Arrow which is based on
a columnar representation.

The advantages are:

• Simplicity: Simple cell elements (e.g. integers) are not represented as memory-
intensive objects.
• Compactness: The data is kept in a more compact form. Thus, more data fits into main
memory.
• Controllability: Smaller chunks of data are held (“cached”) in-memory, making the
memory footprint of KNIME much more stable. Also, the data lives "off-heap" (a region
of memory) where, for you as the user, it is more controllable.
• Compatibility: It is a first step in enabling shared memory with other programming
languages such as Python, leading to more performance improvements.and thus, more
performance improvements.

You can activate the Columnar Backend by navigating to Preferences > Table Backend.

Setting your table backend to columnar in Preferences will only affect

workflows created after making the adjustment. Existing workflows, including
 the workflow(s) currently opened in your KNIME Analytics Platform, will need to
be manually updated.

To adjust the table backend for one specific workflow, e.g., a workflow created before
changing your default table backend, navigate to the node description tab in the side panel
navigation. Click on the icon. In the window that opens, in the Table Backend tab, select
Columnar Backend from the dropdown menu. The parameters relative to memory usage of
the Columnar Backend can be configured under Preferences > Table Backend > Columnar
Backend.

The Columnar Backend is not yet optimized to operate with streaming

 execution. You can adjust your default table backend as described in the
Streaming execution section of this guide.

For more details, please refer to the Preferences section of the KNIME Analytics Platform
User Guide.

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Parallelize branch execution with loops

Another way to speed up workflow execution is parallel computing. You can implement this
with loops. They iterate over a certain part of the workflow, e.g. over a workflow branch. Each
iteration, a repeated procedure, has different input. Among others, this input can consist of
chunks of the data you want to process in KNIME Analytics Platform. These chunks will each
be processed in parallel on separate workflow branches.

To get started, you need to have the KNIME Parallel Chunk Loop Nodes Extension installed.

To make use of workflow execution parallelization, you need to first execute

 your workflow on the KNIME Hub.

After reading the data, and before your first data manipulation, you can add the Chunk Loop
Start node. It splits data into equally sized chunks for each iteration. Then it executes the
manipulations in the loop body on each chunk in parallel. You can configure either the
number of chunks or the number of rows per chunk. At the end of a parallel chunked block,
add the Parallel Chunk End node. It collects and concatenates the results from the parallel
workflow branches. If the data segment in the loop generates tables with repeated RowIDs,
the Parallel Chunk End node adds a chunk index to the RowID.

For more details about loops, please refer to the Loops section of the KNIME Flow Control
Guide.

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Efficient database usage

KNIME Analytics Platform allows you to access, manipulate and share large amounts of
data. The most secure and effective way to store this data is in a (relational) database.

With the KNIME Database Extension, which is already part of every KNIME Analytics Platform
installation, you can use the full functionality of any JDBC-compliant database within KNIME.
This includes the following database operations:

• Connecting to the database

• Reading from the database
• Generating queries in the database
• Manipulating the database structure, i.e. creating and deleting tables in the database
• Manipulating elements contained in a database table, e.g. deleting or updating values
• Type Mapping, i.e. defining rules for mapping database types to KNIME types and vice
versa. Read more about this in the respective section of the KNIME Database Extension
Guide.

To connect to the database of your choice, KNIME provides Connector nodes that can be
found in different extensions. There are three ways to connect to a database in KNIME:

1. Connect to a predefined database that has its own dedicated node in the KNIME
Database Extension. Among others, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, or
SQLite have dedicated nodes.
2. Connect to a predefined database that has its own dedicated node in another dedicated
KNIME extension, which is the case for e.g. the KNIME Amazon Athena
Connector[Amazon Athena Connector Extension] or the KNIME Snowflake Integration
3. Connect to any other JBDC-compliant database using the generic DB Connector node.

The database-specific connector nodes already contain the necessary JDBC

drivers and provide a configuration dialog that is tailored to the specific
 database. It is recommended to use these nodes instead of the generic DB
Connector node, if possible.Find out more about database connectivity in the
respective section of the KNIME Extension Guide.

Once connected, you can select relations with the DB Table Selector node and read from the
database using the DB Reader node.

In addition to reading from the database, you can perform in-database processing, i.e. data
manipulation directly on the database, using the KNIME Database nodes, e.g. DB Joiner or DB
GroupBy and formulating your query.

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Their configuration is similar to the KNIME manipulation nodes. The DB Query Nodes require
no SQL coding, since the nodes themselves construct and output a SQL query.

Finally, Database Writing Nodes let you create, update and delete data on the database of
your choice. The DB Connection Table Writer node is useful for efficiency and data lineage
maintenance, because it creates a new database table based on the input on the SQL query.
As a result, there is no need to actually read the data into KNIME Analytics Platform itself.
Additionally, the DB Loader node lets you insert rows into an existing DB table, although this
is not supported by all databases.

KNIME Analytics Platform also supports NoSQL and non-relational databases like
MongoDB(document-oriented), DynamoDB (document-oriented and key-value-based) and
Neo4j (graph-based).

To speed-up your workflow with respect to databases, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Avoid using the DB Connector node more than once when connecting to the same
database. Unless you need to open up parallel connections to speed up execution of
parallel branches, this practice consumes more computing resources.
• Do not process your data locally. Do it directly on the database whenever possible.
• Always use the DB Connection Closer node at the end of your database processing. It
closes a DB Session during workflow execution and will free up database resources as
soon as they are no longer needed by the workflow.

The KNIME Database Extension includes nodes for simulating database transactions, such
as DB Transaction Start and DB Transaction End. These nodes help group multiple database
operations into a single unit, ensuring that either all operations execute or none do. If the
transaction is successful, it ends with a commit to the database. If it is not successful, it is
rolled back, returning the database to its state at the beginning of the transaction.

This enhances efficiency by:

1. Enabling reliable recovery from failures, maintaining database consistency even if

execution halts prematurely, avoiding incomplete operations and unclear statuses.
2. Ensuring isolation between concurrent programs accessing the database, preventing
potential errors in program outcomes.

Find out more about database capabilities with KNIME and what to consider for different
database providers in the KNIME Database Extension Guide.

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Make your workflow secure

Handle credentials accordingly

When working with confidential data, it’s critical to have the best security measures in place
to protect it from breaches and misuse. Protecting sensitive information is essential for
regulatory compliance and maintaining the trust of customers and stakeholders.

KNIME Analytics Platform helps by providing various security features. It includes tools to
encrypt data, manage user access, and ensure data integrity so you can handle sensitive
information.

Credential nodes

To make sure confidential data are not accidentally saved or shared, make sure that you do
not save any hard coded information in your nodes and workflows. In detail, this means the
following:

• Do not save passwords in plaintext as they are easy to copy.

• Do not hardcode your credentials into nodes.
• Reset your workflow before sharing it anywhere.

You can avoid storing passwords as a part of your workflow on disk by default. Navigate to
the knime.ini file in the root of your local KNIME installation, and set
Dknime.settings.passwords.forbidden=true.

Another option to secure credentials is to encrypt them. The Credentials Configuration or

Credentials Widget nodes allow the user to specify credentials at runtime.

Configuration nodes provide input parameters to other nodes in the workflow. They do this
through flow variables. This means that if the flow variable output of the Configuration node
is connected to another node, that node can access the input parameters set in the
Configuration node.

Widget nodes, on the other hand, are displayed as widgets only in the composite views. This
means that when you inspect the composite view in KNIME Analytics Platform, you can
adjust the parameters in the window that opens.

Using Widget and Configuration nodes to handle credentials means that the user does not
need to access the node that performs the action for which the credentials are needed.
Instead, the user can access the necessary settings from the outside, without having to

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change the configuration of the node itself.

You can use Configuration and Widget nodes to securely use database connector,
authenticator, and REST nodes. Below, is an example of how a database connector node
accesses credentials encrypted in a Credentials Configuration node.

Figure 10. Handling credentials with the Credentials Configuration node

Find out more about Configuration nodes in the respective section in the KNIME Components
Guide. The same guide also provides a section on Widget nodes, too.

Cloud credentials

To make your workflows flexible, you can access remote file systems. When connecting to a
cloud service such as Microsoft, Google, etc., you should use appropriate connector nodes to
securely authenticate. In the configuration dialog of an authenticator node, you can limit the
scopes of access that will be granted for this connection. You should select the scopes
based on the level of access that you need. The Add scope button allows you to add
additional scopes within the cloud service. In addition to the Standard list of scopes, you can
add several custom scopes.

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In order to see the corresponding Scope under the Standard list of scopes, you
 need to have installed the extension first.

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Handling sensitive data

When you share a workflow, you can choose to save data that was processed along with it.
Intermediate results of data manipulation operations are then available even after the
workflow is closed. Particularly, when processing confidential data inside your workflows,
you should make sure not to include any information that you do not want to share. When
working with sensitive data, keep the following in mind:

• Do not save confidential data within your workflow

• Reset your workflow before sharing it unless you have a specific reason not to. That is
described in the respective section of the KNIME Community Hub User Guide.

Items that you upload to a space on the KNIME Hub will be available to anyone
 with access to that space. Therefore, be very careful with the data you share.

Data anonymization
Sensitive data needs to be handled with caution. GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
stipulates that only anonymized data may be used extensively. As a consequence, you may
want to anonymize your confidential data while later being able to re-identify the individual
data points in the dataset. This is referred to as pseudo-anonymization. To additionally
assess the risks of de-anonymization, you can use the Redfield Privacy Nodes extension for
KNIME which uses different algorithms for anonymization and the assessment of re-
identification risks.

For basic anonymization (pseudo-anonymization) you can use the Anonymization node. In
the configuration dialog, simply choose the identifying attributes, i.e. the columns in your
table that contain sensitive information. The Anonymization node hashes the values in the
columns using SHA-1. You can also choose between different salting strategies. An
advantage of this rather uncomplicated approach is that you can go back to the original data,
since the translation table is available at the second output port.

For advanced anonymization, you should rely on hierarchies. You can build them by defining
complex binning rules, which convert the unmodified data to completely suppressed data.
You can create different types of hierarchies with the Create Hierarchy node. Multiple
hierarchies may be applied to the data subsequently. To read more about the hierarchy types,
please refer to the Building hierarchies section of the following article: Remain Anonymous
with Redfield’s Privacy Extension.

To now apply the rules set to the original data, you need to combine them in the Hierarchical
Anonymization node.

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To finally assess which risks are posed by your anonymization techniques, add the
Anonymity Assessment node. To find out more about the types of risks that the node
identifies, please refer to the node page of the Anonymity Assessment node on the KNIME
Community Hub.

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KNIME Best Practices Guide

Secrets: Secure information on the KNIME Hub

Manage and use secrets

Secrets provide a way to centrally store and manage logins to other systems. For example, a
secret could be credentials to log into an external database, file system or service. Secrets
are owned and managed by a user or team. User secrets are intended for managing personal
logins, e.g., john.smith. Team secrets on the other hand are intended for shared logins
sometimes referred to as technical or service users, e.g., hr_read_only, that are shared with
multiple users.

To manage your personal secrets navigate to your account page and select Secrets from the
menu on the left. On your Secrets page you can create, edit and delete your personal secrets.
Similarly, to manage your team’s secrets, navigate to the team’s page and select Secrets
from the menu on the left. On your Secrets page you can create, edit and delete your personal
secrets, as shown in the respective section of the KNIME Secrets User Guide.

 Team secrets can only be created by team admins.

Secrets allow you to manage sensitive information like passwords and API keys. Each secret
has a unique name, optional description, secret type, and authentication type. Editing a secret
allows changes to its values but not its secret nor authentication type; to change the type, a
new secret must be created. Deleting a secret requires confirming the secret’s name to avoid
accidental deletions. Some secret types, such as OAuth2, require you to log into your account
to acquire a session and refresh token. If you are not logged in, these secrets are marked in
the secrets table as Not consumable in the status column. Team secrets can be shared with
others by managing access rights, which can be set to "Use" or "Edit." These access rights
control whether users can only use the secret in workflows or also modify and delete it.
Personal secrets, however, cannot be shared with others for security reasons.

Find out more about Secrets in the KNIME Secrets User Guide.

You can access Secrets in your KNIME workflows through the Secrets Retriever node, part of
the KNIME Hub Additional Connectivity (Labs) extension.

 The Secrets Retriever node requires a connection to a KNIME Business Hub.

The node allows selection of multiple secrets, adjusting its output ports based on the secret
types. For security, secrets are not saved with the workflow and must be re-executed each
time. The node retrieves secrets using the executing user’s permissions, and if the user lacks
rights, an error occurs. Secrets are referenced by internal identifiers, ensuring name changes
do not disrupt connections.

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Secret types

Secret types in KNIME cater to diverse authentication needs, enhancing workflow security
and flexibility. Credentials can be of various types like usernames, passwords or password-
only. Thus, secrets accommodate different authentication scenarios such as database
logins, etc. The Box secret type facilitates connection to Box for file management, supporting
OAuth2-based user authentication. Similarly, the Google secret type enables connection to
Google services like Drive or BigQuery. Microsoft secret types extend compatibility to
Microsoft/Azure cloud platforms, empowering users to access Office 365, SharePoint, Azure
services, and more. Each secret type offers specific authentication methods specific to
different use cases. Make sure to choose the suitable secret type for interactive logins or
automated workflows. Additionally, the flexibility to specify scopes of access ensures fine-
grained control over resource permissions, enhancing security.

Find out more about leveraging Secrets on the KNIME Hub in the KNIME Secrets User Guide.
It offers diverse how-to guides which provide systematic procedures to incorporate
authentication and access permissions in Microsoft Azure services into KNIME workflows.

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Glossary

Workflow annotation
A box with colored borders and optional text that can be placed in a workflow to highlight an
area and provide additional information. Right-click on an empty spot in a workflow and
select “New workflow annotation” to create a new workflow annotation at that position.

Node label
The text underneath a node. Select the node and click on the text. Then you can edit it and
add a description of what the node does.

Workflow description
The description of a workflow that can be edited by the user. Click on the at the top-right
to edit it. The workflow description is also shown in the KNIME Hub when a user opens the
workflow’s page.

Hub spaces
The place on the KNIME Hub where workflows, components, and data files are stored. Find
out more in the Community Hub User Guide.

Job
Every time a workflow is executed ad hoc or a deployment is executed a job is created on
KNIME Hub. More information about jobs can be found here.

(Shared) Component
A workflow snippet wrapped into a single node. A component can have its own configuration
dialog and can also be assigned a view. Components enable you to bundle functionality for a
particular part of the workflow and allow sharing and reusing. For more information refer to
KNIME Components Guide.

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Data app deployment

A workflow comprising one or more components that contain view and widget nodes a user
can interact with in the browser. A Data App is deployed on KNIME Business Hub. A guide on
building Data Apps can be found here.

Schedule deployment
A schedule allows you to set up a workflow to run automatically at selected times. More
information is available:

• Here for KNIME Business Hub, or

• here for Team plan on KNIME Community Hub.

Service deployment
A service deployment allows you to use the workflow as an API endpoint. For more
information refer to KNIME Business Hub User Guide.

Workflow Service
A workflow with Workflow Service Input and Workflow Service Output nodes that can be
called from other workflows using the Call Workflow Service node.

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KNIME AG
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