The Assign activity node

Assign node use (example)

Suppose you wanted to create a process that searches for employees whose salaries were more than $2000 per week and those making less than $2000 per week. As each matching result is found, it is stored in a Msg Builder node. When all the information has been gathered, an email is sent to a compensation manager listing all individuals whose salaries met the $2,000 per week criteria.

This example is highly theoretical but it is useful in showing how the Assign and Branch nodes can work together. The following table lists each node in the process sequentially and describes what it is doing.


Node	What it does in this example process
Start	At the start of the process, the Start node is set to "false." This was done by setting the "Boolean Found" variable to false.
Infor Lawson Query	The Infor Lawson Query node searches for records of those making more or less than $2,000 per week.
Branch	The Branch node makes a decision about how to handle query results. If a record with matching salary criteria is found, see Msg Builder to Assign below. If a record does not match the salary criteria, continue looping through the recordset with Infor Lawson Transaction.
Msg Builder to Assign	Record found. Store the data in a Msg Builder node and, in the Assign node, store "found=true" for the Boolean Found variable.
Infor Lawson Query	Continue looping through the record set.
Branch	All records have been queried. Is an email to the compensation manager needed? If an email is needed...See Email node below. If an email is not needed, end the process.
Email	Send an email to the compensation manager.
End	End the process.

Variables

The Assign node can make use of any variable from a node that precedes it in the process.

Properties

In addition to the standard properties that all nodes have, from the Assign node Properties dialog box Assignments tab, you can make is for make specifications for process variables. These variables must already exist (declared in the Start node).

Information about how to specify variables is in another section.

Designing an Assign node

The variables from preceding nodes must already be specified in order for them to be available for selection in the Assign node. For example, if you are planning to configure variables for a Branch node but have not yet done so, you cannot configure the Assign node to make use of those variables.