Is there a way to create an activity automatically?

[EWA]

I was hoping I could create a custom button which add an activity for a different team on a request but I can't seem to find a way to do it?

[Steve Giller]

What are you trying to achieve that is not provided by the Add Task button on the Request?

[EWA]

Yes. the option is there but I would like to somehow automate the steps, e.g. as the activities will always be assigned to the same team.

[Steve Giller]

From the Documentation:

Quote

Auto Tasks provide the ability to execute automation from Custom Buttons on different entity views in apps on the Hornbill platform. Auto tasks are similar to workflows, however differ in that they do not contain stages, don’t use tasks or approvals, and can’t be suspended.

so I'm pretty certain this is not achievable.

[Berto2002]

@EWA two ideas:

1. Someone on the forum (maybe Jim?) had a custom field revealed in the request form design for a relevant request type that used a simplelist lookup which was populated with data needed to act as the input to an autotask. His agents were able to edit the details of a request, select a value and save it which would update the custom field. The autotask was configured to use that custom field as an input. Effectively this is a way of getting a variable into an autotask. If your tasks always go to a fixed team, you would have workflow add the teamId into (any) custom field in the background for that Request type (no need to reveal in the form if fixes) and then it is always available as the assigned team for that autotask. Could that work for you? I and others have repeatedly asked HB to allow a pop-up box for variable input to autotasks but it's not on their radar so this was the best way I could see yet of doing it
2. If the process allows these tasks to be spawned from a fixed point in the workflow then you can configure a "create new request" node to allocate to a fixed team (or variable team). We use this in Problem Management to 'spawn' multiple requests to selected teams:

Where the team is selected from the Group Picker:

[EWA]

Thank you for this.. Yes.. this might work

 

[Steve Giller]

33 minutes ago, Berto2002 said:

I and others have repeatedly asked HB to allow a pop-up box for variable input to autotasks

Just on this point - an Auto Task is a Workflow without any inputs (hence the "Auto")
A Workflow that requires you to capture information from a User before running is ... a Request. Even if it's only one question this is true - although if that functionality was offered it would be nanoseconds before someone asked for more questions and only days before a full Intelligent Capture was requested.
As described above, any value stored against the Request that's available to a Get Request Information node can be retrieved in the Auto Task, and you can test for their presence in the Auto Task and abort if they are not available should that be necessary.

All of what was posted above seems correct, however the original question was about creating an Activity (aka Task) against a Request and automatically populating the standard fields - you cannot have a Human Task node in an Auto Task.
You can easily raise a Request from an Auto Task, attached to a Custom Button if required, but you cannot raise an Activity in this way.
You may be able to use the Templating functionality for the Task, but from the initial description I'm not sure if that would meet the requirements.