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]

Hi Paul, 

We have managed to successfully get them working now. It took a bit of creativity to begin with. Questionnaire is very helpful. What are you stuck on? I might be able to help.

[yaronguez]

Hi Paul,

I'm sorry to hear you've run into issues adopting Playbook and I empathize with the complexity challenges you face.

As a platform feature, Playbook's initial focus was to enable the multifaceted use cases of our app teams, leveraging other platform features wherever possible to avoid re-inventing the wheel. This is why creating a custom activity involves hopping between Flow Designer, UI Builder, Declarative Actions, Form Builder and other legacy admin forms.

As we have matured, we've started shifting our focus to usability to reduce the complexity you've experienced. Features like the Questionnaire activity, Form View and Field pickers, and process diagramming are some examples and there are other major usability initiatives underway. The introduction of Now Assist for Playbook Generation and incorporating AI Agents into Playbooks provides further opportunities to simplify the authoring experience.

I humbly ask for your patience and to to give Playbook another chance. Feel free to reach out with any specific questions.

Here are some resources that may help as well:

• Always ensure you have the latest store app installed. We put out monthly patch fixes and quarterly feature release for each supported family release.
• Take a look at our Playbook Essentials and Playbook Advanced courses.
• Engage with our outbound PM, @Lisa Holenstein .

Cheers!

Yaron