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Process Designer
Getting Started
Workflow Properties
  General properties
  Advanced properties
  Attachments
    Define an attachment
  Participants
    Assign Trackers
    Define a workflow group
  Data fields
    Define a data field
  Milestones
    Define a milestone
    Milestone usage
  Submaps
    Create and manage submaps
    Submap usage
  Specify field usage in steps
  Select existing fields
  Field merge types
  Expression builder
Steps
Routes
Validate & Launch
   

Merge types

As you define each data field in the workflow properties, you specify how the data in the field should be handled in the following circumstances:

  • When there are multiple participants for a step and all can change the value of one or more data fields, what are the values of the fields at the next step in the workflow.
  • When a split occurs in the workflow and participants at the child steps can change the value of one or more data fields, what are the values of the fields at the join step.

The tables below describe the behavior for the different merge types.

For simple data types

Merge Type Description

Default

No change. The value of this field remains as it was set at the split.

Override

The values entered in the last step to be completed before the collector step override any previous values.

Add

Adds entries that are different from the value of the field at the split.

  • For string data, the strings are concatenated.
  • For integer or float data, the values are added.

TIP This field might be used in a step to accumulate values entered by each participant. In this case, the initial value of the field should be 0 (or 0.0) to ensure that all entries are added.

NOTE The system compares each entry with the original value of the field at the split. Any value that matches the original value is ignored.

See Merge examples for additional information about merging simple data types.

For arrays

Merge Type Description

Default

No change. The value of this field remains as it was set at the split.

Override

The values entered in the last step to be completed before the collector step override the complete array, even if only a single entry has changed.

Override entry

The values entered in the last step to be completed before the collector step override only the values that are changed.

Append

Appends entries that are different from the value of the array element at the split to the end of the original array.

Add

Adds entries that are different from the value of the array element at the split.

  • For string data, the strings are concatenated.
  • For integer or float data, the values are added.

AppendNoDup

Appends the modified entry at the end of the array if the entry in not already in the array.

See Merge integer array example and Merge string array example for additional information about merging arrays.