Many organisations store rich metadata in external systems such as CMS platforms, collection databases, PIM systems, or rights management tools. However, this data often cannot be copied directly into Fotoware metadata. It may need to be transformed, combined, or evaluated in accordance with business rules before it can be applied to assets.

The Dynamic variables node enables Flow to calculate and transform data inside a workflow before applying it to asset metadata. It allows you to define business rules, perform conditional logic, and generate new values based on:

• Metadata from the input node
• Results from an API Request node
• Dynamic tags or other runtime values
• Previously evaluated dynamic variables

You can place the Dynamic variables node in the workflow when values need to be processed or derived before being used elsewhere. When the workflow reaches the node, it evaluates all configured rules and produces calculated variables. These variables can then be reused in downstream nodes (for example, Edit metadata), allowing you to apply consistent, rule-based logic across your workflow.

Flow administrators can use the Dynamic variables node to:

• Create variable groups (logical containers such as Rights or Ownership)
• Define variables within those groups
• Assign rules to each variable using:
  • IF/ELSE conditions
  • Logical operators (AND, OR, NOT)
  • Comparison operators (<, >, ==, !=)
  • Contains checks
  • Empty/not empty checks
  • String concatenation (in output)
• Make calculated values available to downstream nodes. The Dynamic variables node does not update metadata directly. To write calculated values to assets, reference the variables in a downstream node, such as Metadata macros.

When to use this node

Use the Dynamic variables node when:

• You need conditional metadata logic (IF / ELSE rules)
• You need to transform external API data before applying it
• You want to compute a value once and reuse it multiple times
• You want to replace external scripts with configurable rules inside Flow

Do not use this node when:

• You only need simple field-to-field mapping (use Metadata macros directly)
• No transformation or evaluation logic is required

For more information, see Using the Dynamic variables node.