Single Variable

. Select a variable if no input preparation is desired via an assign activity. Select an existing process variable or select New Variable. The variable must be of the operation's input message type, or, if the operation requires only one part, the variable's type can be the element type of the one part.

XPaths

. Select XPaths if you want to use a table to map from data within existing variables or a literal to the contents of the input message. The table uses XPath expressions that allow you to select nodes from a variable to assign to the input variable as well as compute values (strings, numbers, or Boolean values) from the content of variable. See

Adding XPaths

below.

XQuery

. Select XQuery if you want to fill each input message part with a single query written in the XQuery expression language. This language allows you to create a query that looks like an XML document, but where pieces of the document are constructed using a superset of the XPath expression syntax. It supplements XPath with a SQL-like "FLWOR expression" (FOR, LET, WHERE, ORDER BY, and RETURN) for performing joins. See

Adding XQuery

below.