What is a variable?

A variable is a name that represents a value. A variable can represent both numeric data (which can be used in calculations) and alphanumeric (letters and numbers that are not used in calculations).

Here are some examples of variables:

• ITMgr_Email: The email address of the person who performs the role of IT Manager.

  Suppose you want to create a process that, as a step in its execution, sends a message to your company's IT Manager. If the process sends an email to the role that performs a job instead of to the actual person currently performing the job, it will always be able to deliver the message, even if one IT Manager leaves the company and is replaced by someone else. Using variables in this case means that you as a process designer would not need to update your process each time a new IT Manager was hired.

• <!appProdline>: This is an example of a variable that is delivered with Infor Process Automation (IPA). You might use this particular variable (and other similar system variables) when you want to create a query that needs to know the name of the application product line associated with a workunit.

• Who_Is_Supervisor: If you need to send a task or message to the Inbasket of a worker and his or her supervisor, you could create a variable Who_Is_Supervisor that would store the information obtained from a query to locate the supervisor.