Teamworks services define input and output variables that, much like a function takes arguments and returns values. One feature of both inputs and outputs is the ability to set default values. However, it can be tricky to determine when the default output value is first initialized. There are three logical choices:

1. When the service starts
2. When the service completes
3. Some nebulous time in between

The problem for output variables seems to be that the answer is none of the above. Although you can set a default value just as you can on an input, it has no effect that we have been able to find. This is not an isolated problem when using Teamworks either, as there appear to be many features that have been implemented differently in different places or that appear to have never been implemented at all. In addition, there are other features that should never be used as they make long-term maintenance and debugging very difficult. I will touch on some of these soon.