Queued tasks are an abstract concept that provide an indication to the user that there is still outstanding data that hasn't been processed by the analysis.

They roughly correspond to the files that are uploaded, but this is not always the case.

Some parts of the analysis are able to generate multiple "files/tasks" from a single "file/task", while others might merge multiple "files/tasks" into a single "file/task".

This explains why at any time there may be many more or fewer "files/tasks" than originally uploaded. The most important thing here is that:

- N TASKS QUEUED - means there are still data (reads/alignments/classifications/files) that are waiting to be processed by the analysis.

- N TASKS IN PROGRESS - The analysis step is currently processing N reads/alignments/classifications/files and the aggregation of the data necessary to generate reports can begin in the background.

- PREPARING REPORT - The step in the analysis is no currently processing any reads/alignments/classifications/files, but there is telemetry and the data aggregations necessary for the report are running in the background.

- STEP N - A complete analysis may be composed of a number of discrete steps (softwares/algorithms) that each process tasks and produce telemetry and data for the reports.

- AWAITING NEW TASKS - There are queued tasks that will be picked up and processed by the step in the analysis, but there aren't any (new) data available to prepare a report yet.