Intake Forms Overview
Intake forms collect information from clients, your team and — if you choose — the public, then turn the answers into real portal records. A new-client onboarding form can create the client, a request form can open a ticket, and a site survey can add an asset, all from one submission.
What Intake Forms Do
- Collect answers on a single page or across several steps, with conditional logic, file uploads and a review step before submitting.
- Create or update records — clients, projects, tickets, assets, resources, locations, tasks and users — through automations attached to the form.
- Hold submissions for approval when you want a person to check the answers before anything changes.
- Report on the results with a Summary tab, per-question charts, a filterable submissions table, PDFs, share links and email digests.
Forms are managed in the Intake Manager. The forms list shows each form's type, the kind of record it creates (Maps into), its automations and its submission count, and you can filter by form type and by the record a form creates.
The Form Builder
Open a form to edit it. The builder has these tabs:
| Tab | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Build | Add, arrange and configure fields |
| Steps | Step order and step logic (multistep forms only) |
| Automations | What happens when the form is submitted or approved |
| Preview | Try the form at desktop, tablet and phone widths, or as the real embed |
| Summary | Reports for the form (appears once the form is saved) |
| Embed | Hosted link and embed codes (public forms only) |
| Settings | Who can fill the form, approvals, after-submit behaviour, notifications, availability, save and resume, and more |
Every field and step gets a name from the moment you add it — new fields start with their type name and new steps are "Step 1", "Step 2" and so on. A form with an unnamed field can't be saved; the builder points you to the field that needs a label.
Who Can See and Fill a Form
In Settings, Who can see & fill this form has three options:
| Option | Who can fill it |
|---|---|
| All clients | Portal users |
| A specific client | Users of the client you pick |
| Public / Embeddable | Anyone with the link, including people without a portal account |
Existing forms keep the setting they already had. Public forms have extra protection and their own workflow — see Public & Embedded Forms.
Single Page or Steps
A form is either a single page (Form) or a multistep wizard (Steps). You can switch at any time:
- Form to Steps keeps every field and every automation mapping.
- Steps to Form puts all fields on one page. If step logic or branches would be lost, the builder asks before it switches.
Sections still work on a single-page form, as dividers between groups of fields.
Starting Templates
New forms can start from a template. Alongside the existing ones, there are now templates for a Project, a Support Ticket and a Client Contact. A template is only a starting point — change anything you like.
Automations and Mapping Checks
Automations on the Automations tab map answers onto the record a form creates or updates. The builder checks your mappings and warns you when:
- a required field on the record isn't mapped to any answer, or
- an answer's type doesn't fit the field it's mapped to — for example, a text answer mapped into an image field.
The Create client from submission automation makes a new client from the answers — useful on public lead forms.
Submissions and Statuses
Every submission has one of four statuses:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Started but not submitted yet |
| Awaiting review | Submitted and waiting for approval (shown as Submitted on forms without approvals) |
| Approved | Approved; any after-approval automations have run |
| Rejected | Rejected; nothing was created or changed |
Submission counts mean finished submissions everywhere — the forms list, the builder and the submissions page all agree. Drafts are shown separately (for example "+2 drafts"). Autosave keeps a draft up to date but never changes a submission's status, and opening a form in the builder doesn't create a draft for you.
Uploaded images show as thumbnails with a download link, and empty answers show as a dash.
Approving a Submission
When approvals are on, the submission page shows Approving will… before you decide. It lists:
- each automation that will run,
- the record an update will change, and
- each changed value, now and after.
It's a preview only. Nothing changes until you press Approve. Automations that conditions would skip are flagged, so you know what won't happen too.
On the submissions table you can also approve or reject several submissions at once — each one goes through the same automations and emails as approving it individually.
Form Versions
Every save that changes a form's questions keeps a read-only version (the Versions card in Settings). Each submission remembers the version it answered and always shows those questions, so you can rename, reorder or delete fields without breaking older submissions or sending their answers to the wrong field.
Deleting a Form
A form that still has submissions can't be permanently deleted — it stays in the trash so its submissions keep their context. Submissions whose form has been deleted still show the form's name, marked as deleted or in the trash.
Where to Go Next
- Public & Embedded Forms — put a form on your website, with bot and spam protection
- Form Settings — after-submit messages, notifications, open and close dates, save and resume
- Field Types — every field you can add, including ratings, NPS, consent and calculated fields
- Default Create Forms — make a form the portal's New client, New ticket or other New form
- Reports & Sharing — charts, the submissions table, PDFs, share links, digests and the dashboard widget