The intake form asks what a genealogist needs to know before quoting, in a structure the client can follow. You send it as a private link: your client needs no account and no password.

Sending it #

1. Open the engagement and its Intake tab.
2. Under Create an intake link, add a PIN if you want one (4 to 6 digits) and choose how many days the link lasts - 30 by default, 0 for no expiry.
3. Press Create link and copy the link straight away. It is stored scrambled, for your client's security, so it cannot be shown again.
4. Send the link to your client in your own email. If you set a PIN, give it to them separately - by phone, not in the same email.

To fill the form in with a client during a call, open the link yourself and complete it together.

What the form asks #

• About you - their name, email address and phone number, and their permission for you to hold their information.
• What you want to find out - in their own words, and which of these comes closest: identifying a particular ancestor, getting past a brick wall, taking one line back as far as possible, heir or probate research, making sense of a DNA result, or something else.
• The people you are researching - up to eight people: name, other spellings, when and where born and died, marriages, religion, military service, occupation, and anything else.
• What you already have - a family tree, certificates, photographs, DNA results, earlier research; a link to their tree, which DNA company and who manages the kit, and uploads.
• Where you have already looked - websites, archives, record offices and books they have tried, so you never charge them for a search they have done themselves.
• Practicalities - a budget band, when they need it by, how to contact them and how often they would like to hear from you.

Before the form can be sent, it needs their name, email address, permission and what they want to find out.

Save and finish later #

Clients can press Save and finish later and come back to the same link until they send it. While they are part-way through, the Intake tab tells you when they last saved; their answers appear once they send it.

When the client sends it #

• The answers are saved and the form is locked.
• Their consent is recorded on the client record, with the date.
• The engagement moves from Enquiry to Scoping.
• You are emailed. The email carries no client details - only a link to read them on your own site.
• Every intake link for that engagement stops working, so the form cannot be sent twice.

The answers appear on the Intake tab, section by section, with any uploads as links you can open.