Process Automation Designer - Don't Understand How to use Collect User Data Activity

[Marc D]

I have been playing with Playbooks and Process Automation Designer to demonstrate its capabilities, and for the most part, I'm satisfied with what is possible. However, there is one major issue. I have been trying to use the Collect User Data activity, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how it works. No matter which selection I use for the "User form for data collection" field, the Collect User Data activity within any test or actual playbook will always display no input variables, and the only option on the playbook will be to skip the activity.

The official documentation is no help - it is very bare-bones for this specific activity and covers nothing about how to display anything or actually collect inputs.

I would appreciate any explanation on how "Collect User Data" for Process Automation Designer works, with a specific example/screen shot of it working.

[Jennifer Dallim]

Do you mean Washington?

[yaronguez]

Nope! Dot walking to flow data variables in the Collect User Data activity was added in Utah. 

[Jennifer Dallim]

I might be doing this incorrectly. I am trying to use the choice option selected in the data definition that I have created in a decision. What particular option would I use in the dot walk?

[yaronguez]

No, you're doing it correctly. Unfortunately the dot-walking isn't supported in condition fields as they are evaluated in a different way than inputs and experience properties. This will be resolved in our upcoming Xanadu release. The only work around is to create a custom activity definition that parses these variables and outputs them explicitly.

In Xanadu you'll be able to define your questions directly in the activity side panel, including re-ordering. The questions will be versioned along with your process so that you can change questions without impacting running processes. And you'll be able to reference those outputs anywhere including conditions. We appreciate your patience!

[Community Alums]

I cannot stress enough how happy this update makes me to hear that these features are being added in Xanadu!