Use case · Client & external intake
Turn “can you just…” into tracked work.
Requests from outside your company arrive as emails, calls, and messages to whoever the client happens to know. Give them one link instead: a structured form that becomes a routed, tracked, auditable request the moment they hit submit.
Free plan, no card required. Submitters are always free.
CS-771
External · maria@northwind.example
Change request — reporting dashboard
- Organisation
- Northwind Logistics
- Request type
- Change request
- Priority
- High — blocking month-end close
- Description
- Add cost centre breakdown to the export
- Approved budgetbillable work
- Up to 12 hours at agreed rate
Submitted via a public link. No account created, no seat consumed, full attribution retained.
Whoever the client emails becomes the process
External requests don't arrive at a queue. They arrive at a person — usually the one who gave out their direct line first.
Requests by whichever channel they remember
- Three clients, three different account managers, three different intake formats.
- Scope arrives incomplete, so the first two days are clarifying questions.
- The client emails “any update?” on Friday afternoon, every Friday afternoon.
- When a dispute happens, the record of what was agreed is a mail thread.
One public intake link
- Every external request arrives in the same shape, with the same required fields.
- It routes to a team, not to whoever happened to be cc'd.
- The client watches a read-only status page instead of asking for updates.
- What was requested, approved, and delivered is one auditable record.
Outside in, then straight into your normal process
The point of external intake isn't a separate system for clients — it's that a client request becomes an ordinary request the instant it lands.
Client intake — execution
intake:external-link
Client submits
Tokenized public URL. Rate limited, revocable, no account created.
ai:summary
Summarised on arrival
A plain-English précis so the triaging team reads a sentence, not a form.
approval:team
Account team triage
Routed to a team, so cover is automatic when someone's away.
condition
billable == true
Billable work picks up a commercial approval step; support requests don't.
approval:select-users
Account director
Confirms scope and rate before any work is committed.
share:status-link
Status page issued
The client follows progress on a read-only tracker instead of emailing.
In a group chat
2 days
Spent clarifying what was actually being asked for, before any work could be scoped.
On Requester
Immediate
The form required the scope, the priority, and the budget position upfront.
Illustrative. External intake pays for itself in the clarification round trips it removes — the client answers the questions once, at the moment they're motivated to.
They can still just email you
Email intake creates requests from inbound mail, so a client who ignores the link entirely still ends up in the same queue. Adoption you have to enforce isn’t adoption.
What an outsider can see is a design decision, not a setting
Every external surface in Requester exposes a deliberately narrow projection. That's what makes it safe to hand a link to someone who doesn't work for you.
A status page shows
- The reference
- The title
- The current status
- Milestones reached
And structurally cannot show
- Who the reviewers are
- Any comment on the request
- The answers on the form
- Anything about your workspace
Invalid, revoked, and expired tokens render identically. A public page never confirms that something exists.
A front door you can put on a contract
Every request in one queue
No matter which account manager the client knows, the work lands in the same place in the same shape.
No accounts to provision
Clients submit and track without ever registering, and never consume a seat.
Tokens you control
Hashed at rest, revocable at any time, rate limited, and with expiry where the flow calls for it.
Linked to the work it becomes
Typed relations connect the client's request to the internal requests spawned from it.
What this process leans on
External intake links
A tokenized public URL per template, with no account required to submit.
Learn moreShareable status pages
Read-only, branded, revocable, view-counted trackers for the submitter's own stakeholders.
Learn moreEmail intake
For the clients who will never use the link, no matter how many times you send it.
Learn moreTokenized surfaces
Hashed storage, single-use consumption, expiry, revocation, and rate limiting.
Learn moreOn external intake
- Does the client need an account?
- No. An external intake link is a tokenized public URL for one template. Anyone with the link submits without registering, and the submission carries external submitter attribution so you always know it came from outside.
- How does a client check on progress without logging in?
- A shareable status page — a read-only public tracker link, like package tracking. It shows the reference, title, status, and milestones, and deliberately nothing else: never reviewers, comments, or the answers on the form.
- What stops someone guessing a link and reading our data?
- Tokens are stored hashed, are single-use where the flow demands it, and support expiry and revocation. Public pages never leak existence either — an invalid, revoked, or expired token renders exactly the same as one that never existed. Public endpoints are also rate limited.
- Do external submitters cost us money?
- Not a seat. Submitters are unlimited and free on every plan, including external ones. Their submissions do count against your workspace request meter, which is the volume you're paying for.
- Can we brand it as ours rather than as Requester?
- Public pages and emails carry your workspace logo and name on all plans. Removing the Requester mark entirely from external-facing pages is a Business plan feature.
Other processes teams start with
Purchase approvals
Spend requests routed by amount, approved with the numbers attached.
IT access requests
Tool and permission requests with an auditable grant history.
Time off & HR requests
Leave, equipment, and people requests that stop living in DMs.
Vendor onboarding
Collect vendor detail, route legal and finance sign-off, keep the file.
Expense approvals
Receipts, amounts, and cost centers captured before anyone decides.
Give your clients a link, not your personal email address.
Publish one external intake form this week and watch the clarification round trips disappear. External submitters are free — you pay for approvers and volume.