Thanks @peeyush . I was able to use global property section to create a global variable and reference it in different actions in workflow. But it didn't work in the same workflow, I had to pass it to a sub workflow as a configuration property from another workflow. <global> <configuration> <property> <name>run_ts</name> <value>${replaceAll((replaceAll((replaceAll((timestamp()),"-","")),"T","_")),":","")}</value> </property> </configuration> </global> <action name="coaching-tbl-subwf"> <sub-workflow> <app-path>/data/app/subwf.xml</app-path> <propagate-configuration/> </configuration> </sub-workflow> <ok to="join-node"/> <error to="fail"/> </action> ... View more