Global workflow variables (form and workflow population)
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There are many ways to specify values in the workflow that are to be reused. The workflow activities provide many menus for creation of workflow variables, but these variables cannot be accessed across flows (separate processes from start point to end point in the same workflow). Therefore, a great way of setting global workflow values is found in the Variables section in the workflow builder.
It does not matter which activities you use in your example workflow, as long as you have the possibility to populate data somewhere. For our example we have a workflow with a generic service activity and a form activity. In our case, both activities require an organization number prepopulated. Navigate to the Variables section and click the Create button to create a new workflow variable.
Give the variable a suitable name and click OK to save it. Double-click the variable in the list to access the variable settings.
As our example workflow is specific for one organization, we enter a organization number in the static value field and change the validation to integer. Parameter values can be used to extract values in the workflow URL and are described in full in the URL parameters user guide. Click OK to save the settings.
Head back to the Builder section and select an activity. We will use the variable as the request variable for a generic service call, so we will select the generic service activity and enter the Variables menu through the Map request variables button.
Select the activity variable you’d like to connect to the global workflow variable. As you can see, there is a possibility of entering the organization number (static value) directly here too. However, the Variables section provides a clearer overview of your workflow values instead of having to visit every activity. Select the Value from workflow option and click Browse in the Variable Details panel.
Expand the Workflow Variables activity to locate your global workflow variable(s) at the top. Select your variable of choice and click OK.
The global workflow variable is now connected to the activity and the name of the variable is displayed in the Value column of the variable table.
As displayed below, we also decided to prepopulate a question in the form activity with the same variable.
Remember to save the draft and create a new version of the workflow to see the population in action. If you’d like more information on these steps, visit the Build a simple workflow user guide.