I am  particularly interested in knowing the best option to share the user variables between various ftl template files/user task nodes.

Here is a sample scenario:

There are a few users that need to work on different task nodes and share common data. After a user looks at a 'ftl' form and modifies the content, this data needs to be available for the next user.

This can be done as follows:

1) Have a script node before each human task and populate a Map of all the required variables. This Map can then be mapped to Content and the variables can be accessed in each ftl template.

2.) After these variables are modified in a 'ftl' form, these variables can be passed using 'Result Mapping' option. Here the individual output variables are transferred using 'Result Mapping', i.e., not as a Map.

3.) We then need to construct a Map again from the output variables from the previous task node and send as a Content parameter so that they can be accessed in the new user 'ftl' form.

Is there any better option available (rather than converting variables to Map, before and after each user task node) while sharing the user variable data?