Task components perform various types of work. For example, the XML Generator Task can be configured to take data from a SQL database (upstream resource) and generate an XML document from it.
Task components have both an input and an output schema. The input schema is generally determined by the properties of the task. For example, an XML Generator Task component requires a template (DTD or schema) as one of its properties, and that template defines the task’s input schema (that is, the form of the input data that is acceptable to the task).