Variables: what they are and where to find them

A variable is a placeholder. You put it in a step once, and on every run it's swapped for the real value from that run, like the name of the contact who just signed up. Every step shows you what's available. The Input panel on the left lists every step that ran before this one. Open the trigger, and there's the person it created, with all of their fields. To use one, click the variable icon in any field and pick the field. If there are several earlier steps, you pick the step first. It drops in as a chip. You can also drag a field in from the Input panel. Switch a field to Expression, and you'll see what a variable really is: a path in double curly brackets. Related records are in there too. Open the person, go to their company, and you can use its name, its domain, even its own related records. Use the search box when the list is long. In the editor, every value reads null, because nothing has run yet. Once the workflow runs, open that run from Runs, and every variable shows the real data it used.