SP2010 offered a workflow action named Collect Data, allowing for easy data collection from users without having to create custom ASPX forms. Apparently, SP2013 no longer offers this feature.

I'm doing a SP2013 project now that absolutely inhibits me from doing any custom development, so I'm trying to find an easy way to collect data from users in a SP2013 without having to do custom coding. Are there alternatives?

Hi,

I understand that there is a big list of workflow actions that are not available in SharePoint 2013. However, SharePoint 2013 still allows users to create workflows on the SharePoint 2010 platform. If you need these legacy actions, make sure you select the "Platform Type" as SharePoint 2010 when you create the workflow. You cannot change the platform type once the workflow is created.

Source link:

What's new in workflow in SharePoint Server 2013

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219638.aspx

Thanks for the reply.

My reason for asking for SP2013 specific alternatives was actually the fact that I needed some of the things SP2013 workflows do well OOTB (loops, for example). Since posting this, I've discovered the Actions that make use of the interop functionality to start and wait for SP2010 workflows from within a SP2013 workflow, so that's the solution I'm using at the moment. It's not ideal, but it works.

Still, I'm quite disheartened by the lack in SP2013 of features that made SP2010 workflows so powerful and easy to use OOTB. It probably all fits into a bigger picture, but I wish Microsoft would share more details with partners about design decisions like this and the vision and roadmap it has for products such as Infopath. At the moment, due to numerous reasons, I feel like the only viable way to go is to advise my team to go for custom workflow development in Visual Studio for future projects.