Databricks-DE-Assoc Working with Lakeflow Jobs Practice Question
A data engineer needs to configure a Databricks Job containing three distinct tasks: ingest, transform, and report. The transform task must only execute if the ingest task completes successfully, but the report task should execute regardless of whether the transform task succeeds or fails. How should the task dependencies be configured?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume that a failure in an upstream task automatically blocks all subsequent tasks, not realizing they can define independent dependency paths for reporting or monitoring tasks.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure transform to depend on ingest, and do not include transform as a dependency for report.
Task dependencies in Databricks Jobs are managed by defining upstream parent tasks using the depends_on field. To make transform run after ingest, transform depends on ingest. To make report run regardless of transform's outcome, report must not depend on transform, or should be configured independently. Correctly structuring task dependencies ensures downstream consumers do not ingest corrupt data while maintaining resilience for reporting tasks.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure transform to depend on ingest, and configure report to depend on transform.
Why it's wrong here
Configuring report to depend on transform would cause report to skip execution if the transform task fails, violating the requirement that reporting must execute regardless of the transformation outcome. Task dependencies propagate failure statuses downstream automatically unless explicitly handled.
- ✗
Configure ingest to depend on transform, and configure report to depend on ingest.
Why it's wrong here
Setting ingest to depend on transform reverses the logical data flow of the pipeline, as ingestion must precede transformation. Databricks Jobs will throw a validation error or cause cyclic dependency issues if the logical execution order is inverted.
- ✓
Configure transform to depend on ingest, and do not include transform as a dependency for report.
Why this is correct
Setting transform to depend on ingest ensures the data is loaded before transformation begins. Omitting transform from report's dependencies allows the reporting workflow to run independently of the transformation task's success or failure state.
- ✗
Configure both transform and report to depend on ingest simultaneously.
Why it's wrong here
Having both transform and report depend only on ingest would cause them to run in parallel once ingestion finishes. This violates the requirement that transformation must complete before reporting begins, leading to race conditions.
About these practice questions
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Databricks exam blueprint
This Databricks-DE-Assoc practice question is part of Courseiva's free Databricks certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the Databricks-DE-Assoc exam.