(1) Transmission of control indicators over a link when there is no user data available to send. This is often necessary during complex procedures, such as establishing syncpoints.
(2) The sequence that dictates the order in which steps of a business process are executed. The sequence can include branching based on decisions, iterating over a set of steps until a certain condition is reached, and so on. In a collaboration, control flow refers to the path that a scenario takes, which depends on the order of action nodes in an activity diagram. When an action node has multiple transition links, the path reflects the state of those links. This path is illustrated in a top-to-bottom direction. See also transition link.
(3) In DB2 data warehousing, a graphical model that sequences data flows and mining flows, integrates external commands, programs, and stored procedures, and provides conditional processing logic for a data warehouse application.