Keyword values not initially available in system work on new unity document

[#1]

I have a Unity form that I populate from a custom built form in our company portal.  I use the API to set the field values and keyword values.  The forms are automatically added to a workflow and everything works fine except when I try to access keywords in the initial system work area.  All of the keywords that I'm trying to evaluate have null values.  When I look at the document, all of the keywords are there but none of the logic that depends on them in system work is firing and keywords used in notifications for new items have blank values. Any idea why those keyword values are not available as soon as the document hits the lifecycle?

[Nate_Anderson1]

Hi Patrick-

Have you tried moving the actions to a timer instead of system work? If you leave the form in the same queue and manually run the System Work, what happens? 

[#3]

If I manually run System Work then I see the keywords properly.  If I run the timer manually I also see the keywords.  I was a little off on my initial question.  The documents hit the Initial queue where they are immediately transitioned to the next queue where the system work is taking place.  It's in this queue's system work where the keywords don't seem to be available.