How to output same field name from two steps?

Modeller tells me that:

“Output name “x” is already in use in the process. Please choose a unique name for this field”.

when I try to have 2 steps that output the same value.

The thing is, people must want to do this all the time. Lets imagine that the process branches at some point. At the end of the process the branches flow back into a single point where a document (result) is published. The input to that publish step are some fields to publish… so both the prior steps surely would want to output a field with that required name for the publish step???

So why don’t webMethods let me do this?

Are there any work arounds?

wm 6.1