Variable Picker

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Introduction The variable picker is available to use in most business process nodes and their fields, this includes: Human Tasks Custom Expressions following Decision nodes Integration Calls Automated Tasks Authorisations The variable picker allows for the injecting or overwriting of variable values into node fields.

Related Articles Service Manager Business Process Workflow Business Process Designer Request Variables

Using the Variable Picker

It is possible to manually insert variables into node fields and this is covered in the Request Variables section, here we are focusing on the use of the variable picker.

The Variable picker can be opened in one of two ways:

• In most fields in business process nodes the icon will be present and clicking on the icon will open the variable picker.
• Select ctrl or cmd and left mouse click, this will also open the variable picker if it is available and the icon is not displayed

The variables which are available to use will be governed by which nodes precede the node you want to use the variable picker on in your business process, and therefore what information (variables) are available to you.

If i wanted to use a request variable such as customer in a node field, then i would need to have preceded my process flow with an Automated Tasks > Requests > Get Request Information > Request Details node, the same would be true for variables from other entities related to a request:

• Request Customers Details
• Request Service Details
• Request Organisation Details

In each of the above examples i would need to have used the relevant Automated Task > Requests > Get Request Information nodes preceding where i wanted to use their variables.

You can use the variable picker to display any and all progressive capture questions and then use their answers as variable values in node fields. If you precede the node you want to use progressive capture answers as variables you would need to use the Automated Task > Requests > Get Request Information > Progressive Capture Answers. This will then display all Progressive Capture flows where custom forms are used and a tree structure under each flow will show each custom form by name in the flow and in turn each question on each custom form.

In addition it is also possible via the variable picker to use variables from tasks which precede another node in your business process, any tasks which are in the process will be listed with variables from each task available to use, including:

• Outcome
• Completion details
• Completed on
• Owner

Raw or Display Value

When choosing to inject or overwrite with a variable it is possible to choose to use either the raw value or the display value of the variable. A good example of this is when you are configuring your progressive capture custom questions you may define a possible answer with both a value and a display value - these may be the same or they may differ. If you are creating different language versions of the question, you may want the raw value to remain the same but the display value may be different depending on the different language versions you have created, and as such you may choose to inject or overwrite with the display value rather than the raw value. The raw value will still be important elsewhere, as you may make branching decisions in your process as this value will always remain constant regardless of if the display value changes depending on the users language settings or if you wish to edit how the display name is presented to the users.

Inject or Overwrite

With the variable picker open and having navigated to the variable you wish to insert, you have two options to choose from:

• Inject - Clicking this option will add the variable to any other content which is currently in the node field (other variables, and or manual added content etc)
• Overwrite - Clicking this option will remove any existing content in the node field and replace it with the variable you have chosen

The variable picker allows for the adding of one variable at a time and the above process would need to be repeated where multiple variables are required to be added to the same node field, using the inject rather than overwrite option.