External Lookup field Multi Select with only 1 selection

[Kelly_StarzEnt]

Hello,

I'm using an External Lookup field set as a multi select.

When the data comes into Fusion it sees multiple selected items as an Array as one would expect.

The problem is when 1 item is selected it doesn't come in as an Array. It comes in as Text.
When processing downstream, how do you deal with these type differences?  For example, adding the items to an existing array?  You can't use merge....
Does anyone have a solution?
thanks,

Kelly

[HarishDe]

This was already answered 

https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/workfront-fusion-2-0-questions/how-to-check-if-a-pa...

[Ryan_T]

Hi @Kelly_StarzEnt - I've run into some similar challenges recently.

In Workfront Fusion, I find there is different behavior depending on how you access the data stored in the field:

1. If you're using Workfront Watch modules, you will see the values always returned as an Array for multi select fields based on Adobe's event subscription change: "As part of our upgrade from Event Subscription v1 to v2, multi-select fields now consistently return values as arrays – even when only one option is selected".
2. If you're accessing multi select fields using Workfront "Read a Record" module for example, the values will be returned as either an Array or a String value. Typically, I create a new variable (using Set variable or Set multiple variables module) to force the values to be in an array so that I can take advantage of other array functions like merge and arrayDifference. 
   
   

"Flatten" is used for when the multiselect field is an array and we want to avoid nested arrays:

flatten(add({{emptyarray}};multiselectField))

"Remove" can be used to remove null or empty values from the array when you are attempting to use other array functions:

remove(merge(array1;arrayVariable);{{null}})

[ChrisStephens]

The way I typically check if something is an array or a string is by running it thru this command.

if(length(get({test variable};1))>1;array;string)

Then if it's a array you can move on, if it's a string then you can do

add({{emptystring}};{test variable})

Note that there is a requirement for this to work where a value in the array will never be 1 character long. Maybe some day Fusion will have an isArray function.