Job Info variables

Job Infos contain information on any job file that comes out of the initial input task or any secondary input tasks. There are only 9 Job Infos available numbered from 1 to 9. They can be accessed directly anywhere where variable properties are accepted, by using the number of the variable preceded by a percent sign, for example, %2 or %9.

Not all available Job Infos will actually be used by input tasks. The number of Job Infos as well as their definition can be seen in the Other tab of any input task.

The value of a Job Info can also be set:

  • While the initial Job Infos are created by the input task, they can be overwritten by the Set Job Info and Variables Action task, by a Script, or by any secondary input task in the process. Whenever you use a job info in your process, make sure it contains the value that you want, and not one that has been overwritten by another task.
  • Job infos are limited in quantity and are slowly being deprecated when transferring data to your documents. You should probably consider using Metadata, or local variables (see Local variables).

Using Job Infos in a Connect template

Workflow variables can be passed to a Connect template via a data mapping configuration. Data mapping configurations are created with the DataMapper module (inside Connect Designer). They contain a data model and instructions on how to extract data from a job file and are used by the All in One task and the Execute Data Mapping task.
Job Infos are passed to the task so the trick is to transfer the value of the Job Info to a field in the data model. To do that, simply add a property-based field to the Data Model and select a Job Info from the list of properties; see Adding a property-based field.

Note that Job Infos don't change whilst the task executes. Consequently, the value of the field that contains the Job Info will be the same in each of the records in the resulting record set.

Using Job Infos in a PlanetPress Design document

Job Infos are transmitted, unless otherwise configured, directly to any PlanetPress Design document used within a process and can be directly accessed by that document, so they can be used to transfer complementary information to a document that is not contained within the data file.
Job Infos sent to the document are global to that document, meaning the values do not change between data files. This means that if your data file contains multiple data pages for different clients, your Job Infos cannot be used to send information to the document.

You can also access global and local variables from your document using the ExpandString() function. For more information, please see the PlanetPress Design User Guide.