Error "Could not cast from User to User."

Question

I have in my Record Types two fields, Created By and Modified By. Both of those data types are set to user. 
 
 They are also linked to the Appian User.

I have a Process Model kicked off by a Portal. I would like to get the initiator of the process to be saved into one of these two fields. I have used: 
 
 pp!initiator - From the Process Properties 
 pv!processUser - This is a process variable of User type that I created by saving the pp!initiator to pv!processUser 
 touser(pp!initiator) 
 touser{pv!processUser) 
 "PMSO_ServiceAccount) - the text value of the portal User Name for Service Account. I verified that the User Name does indeed exist and is the account that runs the portal. 
 touser("PMSO_ServiceAccount") 
 
 In all of these cases, I got the process error (Could not cast from User to User. Details: CastInvalid) (Data Outputs)!!! This works in all other areas of the application, just not in the process model kicked off by the Portal.

Stefan Helzle · Accepted Answer

That's a good solution. Instead of that cast and typeof construct, you can just do a tostring().

Chris.Gillespie · Answer

The process I am using can be kicked off by the Portal as well as by the office personnel from the speaker interface. I thought I would capture both. The service account has explicit security access to the process model and is in the administration group for the application. 
 You are probably right. I have the same logic other places in the process and it works if I initiate the process with my ID (i.e. from the administration interface).

Chris.Gillespie · Answer

So to get around the service account and still get the user from the administration screen, I used the following logic to load the pv!processUser. 
 if(
 cast(typeof("abc"), pp!initiator)="PMSO_ServiceAccount",
 null,
 pp!initiator
)

Mathieu Drouin · Answer

A workaround could be to wrap the startProcess in an API rather than calling it directly from the portal.

Error "Could not cast from User to User."

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