Interaction Request Forms

The Interaction Request Form enables you to create an interface that can be used during the execution of a process to interact with a user in a structured manner. The form is accessed in a web browser by a user who either administers processes within CA Process Automation or performs some other business objective.

Typical use cases for Interaction Request Forms include:

Getting approval before you continue with a process or a path within a process.
Letting a user select a course of action.
Retrieving information that is only available from a person at runtime.
Requesting manual actions (for example, physically connecting a server to a switch) to be performed and marked as completed before proceeding with a process.

The Interaction Request Form object defines the pages, parameters, and other characteristics of the form. Parameters can be configured to display edit boxes, drop-down lists, list boxes, and check box lists on form pages. You can have multiple pages in the form, letting you group related parameters on separate pages. Users click the Next and Back buttons to step through the pages in an Interaction Request Form. You can add any number of pages to an Interaction Request Form to gather all the information required during the execution of a process that uses the form.

Interaction Request Forms are saved as separate objects in the automation library. After creating and checking in an Interaction Request Form, it can then be added to any process using the Assign User Task operator.

When a process executes the Assign User Task operator, the Interaction Request Form is listed as a pending user prompt in CA Process Automation. The User Interaction operator does not complete until an authorized user responds to the prompt by filling in and submitting the Interaction Request Form, or the timeout specified in the Assign User Task operator is reached.