1. Gather Data with HITL

Build a procurement intake assistant that collects missing details, confirms the final request, and sends it by email.

Challenge overview

Build a chat assistant for procurement requests.

Users describe what they need in plain language. The assistant extracts the required fields, asks follow-up questions for anything missing, confirms the final summary, and sends the completed request by email.

Scenario

Our operations team spends too much time handling procurement requests manually.

Employees usually describe what they need in Slack using plain language, but someone then has to rewrite that request into a structured format for the procurement team.

This back-and-forth is slow, and important details are often missing or inaccurate by the time the request is forwarded.

We want a chat assistant that lets an employee submit a procurement request in plain language.

The assistant should extract the relevant details, identify any missing critical information, and ask follow-up questions until the request is complete.

Once the employee reviews and confirms the final structured summary, the assistant should send the completed request directly to the procurement contact by email.

Required fields

Every procurement request must include:

• Vendor name

• Product name

• Quantity

• Deadline

• Special specifications

Missing information rules

Use these rules when a field is missing:

• Vendor name

  • Ask the user to choose one of these pre-approved vendors:

    • Apple

    • Lenovo

    • Dell

    • HP

• Product name

  • Ask the user to specify the product.

• Quantity

  • Ask the user to specify the quantity.

• Deadline

  • Default to 7 days.

  • Ask the user to confirm or change it.

• Special specifications

  • Default to none.

  • Ask the user to confirm or add details.

Sample inputs

• Hello! I need a laptop for the new sales hire starting Monday

• Can you order 3 laptops for the engineering team. I want all Macbook Neo in pink.

What to build

Your assistant should:

1. Accept a plain-language request in chat.

2. Extract the required procurement fields.

3. Detect missing information.

4. Ask follow-up questions until the request is complete.

5. Present a structured summary for review.

6. Let the user confirm or correct the summary.

7. Send the final request to the procurement contact by email.

Key considerations

• Use Ask Human in Chat Interface when required information is missing.

• Use the tool inside the LLM node when possible.

• Run this workflow in a Chat Assistant interface.

• Choose the right response type for each follow-up:

  • choice for vendor selection

  • approval for default confirmations

  • text for open-ended corrections

• Design a clear correction path after the summary step.

Helpful docs

• Human in the Loop

• Chat Assistant

• Tools

• Outlook

• Gmail