Building an intake form

An intake form is the page a person fills in on the firm's website to tell it about their matter. What they send becomes an enquiry in the firm's intake, routed as the form says, with their answers filed on it as a PDF and any documents they uploaded.

Forms are under Settings, Intake settings, Forms.

Start a form

New form asks what the form is for (an intake form for the website, or a questionnaire to send to people the firm knows), its name and where to start. A template gives you the questions a firm usually asks for that kind of work, which you can then change: a general enquiry, litigation, property, family, business, employment, and for questionnaires, client details and identity checks. A blank form starts with one step and no questions.

Questions and steps

The Builder tab holds the form's draft. A form is a set of steps, and each step is one page of the form on a phone.

• Add a step names it and says, if you wish, when it shows. A step whose questions all stay hidden is left out.
• Add a question opens its editor in the step. Choose the kind of question (short or long answer, email, phone, number, an amount of money, a date, one or several choices, yes or no, a person's name, an organisation, an address, documents, a declaration, or words with no question), write the question, and mark whether it must be answered.
• Fills on the record puts the answer into the enquiry or the person's details, so nobody types it again. Only the fields that take that kind of answer are offered.
• Shown makes a question appear only when earlier answers say so, for example a suit number only when the person says they are already in court.
• A Documents question names each document it asks for. Where the form's pipeline has a checklist, each document can answer one of its items, so an upload marks it received.

Drag a row by its grip to move it, or use the arrows on a phone. Every change is saved as you make it. Removing a question that another question's condition reads is refused until that condition is changed.

Settings

The Settings tab says how the published form behaves.

• Where enquiries go: the pipeline, the office and the person given each new enquiry. Left to the pipeline, its assignment rules decide.
• Uploads: how many files, how large, and of which kinds.
• Consent: whether the person must agree to the firm's consent wording before sending. Each response keeps the exact version they agreed to. The wording is kept under Consent texts; a new version replaces the old one on every form at once.
• After sending: the thank-you words, a page on the firm's website to open instead, and the acknowledgement email the person receives.
• Check for a person: a short challenge before sending, which needs the Turnstile integration connected under Integrations. Even without it, a hidden field, a minimum time to fill and limits per network turn away most automated sending.

Publish and share

Publish in the form's menu makes the draft the version the public page asks. Once published, the Settings tab shows the form's link with Copy link, and a QR code to download as PNG or SVG for print. Changing the questions afterwards edits a new draft; nothing changes on the public page until you publish again. Every response is kept against the version it answered, under Versions and Responses.

Preview shows the draft as a person will see it, step by step; nothing is sent. Archive stops the link working and keeps every response.

What the person sees

The form opens one step at a time with how far they are. They can save and come back later from a link sent to their email. Answers are checked on each step and again when the form is sent. Sending it twice makes one enquiry, never two.