To use ecFLow you need to carry out a few steps

• Write a Suite definition. This shows how your various tasks run and interact. Tasks are placed into families which themselves may be placed into families and/or suites. All these entities are called nodes
• Write your scripts (.ecf files); these will correspond with Task's in the suite definition. The script defines the main work that is to be carried out. The script includes child commands and special comments and manual sections that provide information for operators.

The child commands are a restricted set of client commands that communicate with the server. They inform the server when the job has started, completed, or set an event.
Once these activities are done, the ecFlow server is started and the suite definition is loaded into the server.

• The user then initiates task scheduling in the server
• Task scheduling will check dependencies in the suite definition every minute. If these dependencies are free, the server will submit the task. This process is called job creation.

The process of job creation includes:

• Locating '.ecf' the script, corresponding to the Task in the suite definition
• Pre-processing the '.ecf' file. This involves expanding any includes files, removing comments and manual sections, and performing variable substitution.
• The steps above transform a '.ecf' script to a job file that can be submitted.

The running jobs will communicate back to the server using child commands. This causes status changes on the nodes in the server and flags can be set to indicate various events.
ecFLow has a specialised GUI client, called ecflow_ui. This is used to visualise and monitor:

• The hierarchical structure of the suite definition (Suite, Family, Task's i.e. nodes)
• state changes in the nodes and the server
• Attributes of the nodes and any dependencies
• Script file '.ecf' and the expanded job file
• The log file

In addition, it provides a rich set of client commands that can interact with the server.
The following sections will provide more detail on the overall process.