My workflow is set to run on item creation and manually. It retrieves people/group values, ID record fields and title fields and saves them as variables. I then run a query user profile action on the people fields to retrieve first and last names as separate fields, and their domain IDs. When an item is created and submitted, the workflow runs but the variables are not populated. See these results from the history log:

Work Group Var: ;
Work Grp ID from Svc Req List var: 3;
Wrk Grp Lead: ();
Wrk Grp Backup: ();

However, when I manually start the same workflow after the item had previously been created, these same variables are populated. See the results from the history log:

Work Group Var: Talent Insights Shared Services;
Work Grp ID from Svc Req List var: 3;
Wrk Grp Lead: Joe Smith (AB70717);
Wrk Grp Backup: Jane Brown (ZCH1176);

The Work Grp ID from Svc Req List var is gathered from a remote list, it in turn is used to reference the record ID in another remote list, Work Grp. From this second remote list the 'people' data is stored as a variable and used by the query user profile action to retrieve the information you see displayed above (names and IDs have been fictionalized). Any thoughts as to why data is retrieved upon manual start of the workflow, but not when the workflows starts automatically on creation of the item? I need this info to include in a notification email later in the workflow that is to be sent on item submission. Thanks.