If I create a ui… how do I get developer to pick up the data…? I created form with submit button and single field… and don’t see where this service is going… i would imagine there needs to be a subcription trigger to the document that i am submitting… is that accurate?

If I understand you - typically if you would like to start a process from a custom UI you need to create a service which publishes a document which is used to start the process. And from CAF UI you need to invoke this service

So if I was not to create this process with BPM designer - then I would have to manually create something like a subscription trigger which the BPM designer automatically does? This is a proof of concept that I am trying to do for my boss and he is trying to get away from doing it through BPM designer but it may not make sense even for the smallest process from what I understand