Requesting information from a client can be difficult. Email is tedious and recording conversations after the fact may be inaccurate. Often a client contact has limited time and thus the information requested through correspondence should be as efficient as possible.
Our Requests feature allows users to compile questions and requests for information and then share them all at the same time on one page when ready. This reduces time spent corresponding with contacts.
- The feature may be used to get information from the client at any point in the job.
- The request and client's responses stay in the job after they are completed and will be part of the audit file.
- A good way to think of requests is as "Follow-ups for client contacts".
- Every request is connected to a contact, so be sure to set up required contacts early on the job before creating requests.
Sending Draft Requests
- Create draft requests on any items by using the drop-down arrow on the right. Select the "Request" tab, a contact to assign the request too and enter your request description.
In the screenshot below we are assigning a new request to John Common and asking for more details for the step above. When entering the request, be aware that the client will only see the request, so any information they need to respond should be part of the request. You are able to optionally add attachments to the request for the client to look at.
- Draft requests are not sent to the client automatically. This allows for many requests to be built up throughout the job and sent in bulk. To send requests click either the "Review and send draft requests" button under draft requests or the draft requests tab in the sidebar (circled red in the screenshot below)
- On the draft requests page, click "Review and send" for the contact you want to send requests to. If the contact does not have a working email address, this step will not work.
- In the dialog that appears after clicking "review and send", enter an extra message you would like to send. After clicking send, the draft requests are sent to the assigned contact and no longer in a draft state.
Finalising Completed Requests
- After the contact responds to a request, a button appears on the request item to mark them as resolved.
- After a request is resolved, the styles change and it looks like a part of the job and the item gets a green tick.
- All requests ready to be resolved can be found by clicking "Requests to resolve" in the sidebar (circled red)
- From the sidebar on the home page you can also filter clients down by weather or not they have unresolved requests. The filter "Has unresolved requests" is listed under the "Job Status" drop down
Notes
- If a request on a page is not resolved, the page cannot be completed. Delete requests if you no longer need them
- To review the requests sent to a particular contact, go to the contacts page and click "Review published requests". From there you can see all published requests for that contact and a button to copy the access link again if you need to re-share it for any reason.
- Contacts will see the requests as shown in the screenshot below. The contact may make as many responses as they like and the text box will expand as they write more (so in-depth responses are possible).
