title: SharePoint Designer Workflow: Unruly 'Collect User Data' Action
body: <p>I'm a student in a SharePoint class online. This problem has riddled everyone I've discussed it with, including the teacher. There seems to be some sort of problem when I create a workflow with the collect data action. I can create workflows that send e-mails and use the other actions just fine. What could be causing this problem?</p>
  
  <p>My reproduction steps are simple:</p>
  
  <p>Create a new Site Collection with the Blank Site template.
  Create a new Custom List.
  In SharePoint Designer, start a new workflow on the Custom List.
  Add the collect data action to the workflow.
  Set the user to the one that created the task.
  Set the data to anything. A single check box, a string, Choice, doesn't matter.
  Leave the output variable as default.
  Mystery error appears!</p>
  
  <p>When the Check Workflow button is pressed, nothing happens. No message box appears at all. The warning icon in the Steps panel merely points out that there are some errors, it isn't specific as to what they are.</p>
  
  <p>Additionally, when I click on the data object again after it's been created, it doesn't populate the form with the old values. It goes back to the default name with no fields. So there's definitely something going wrong here. I've narrowed the problem down to the data object, but I don't know what to do about it.</p>
  
  <p>The workflow acts like normal for other activities. For example, delete the Collect Data action and add a Send Email one instead and it compiles and runs successfully.</p>