Variables

Variables are named data type instances that are accessible by all activities within a business process definition. Variables can have simple data types (string, integer, float, or boolean) or XSD complex data types.

Context variables are modeled as follows:

Variable with message type - Variable with a message format data type.
Message parameter - Message part of the message format. The message part can be of simple type or XSD type.
Context variable with simple type - Variable with simple type.
Context variable with complex type - Message format.

XSD schema files contain the definition of the complex data types used within the business process, and are used to define context variables that are accessible by the different activities. Each XSD file is a set of elements and complex types that can be used as a data type of a variable. You can associate XML elements to BPM variables or message parts.

To use XSD types in a BPM you have to import WSDL files as service providers into your model. The schema section of the WSDL file is imported as an XSD document (linked to an XML model) associated with a service provider. The input/output messages of the different operations are imported as message formats containing parts of XSD type, which are used as data types of context variables for receive or send messages. For context variables, the XSD definition file is extracted and generated from the service provider DataSchema attribute. When the DataSchema is empty the following extended attribute is available from the message format with message parts property sheet:

Name	Internal code	Description
XSD file location	XSDLocation	Location of the XSD file that contains the definition of the types used by the parts of the message.