Intakes allow organizations to receive, review, and process incoming legal requests before they become matters. Rather than creating a matter immediately, an Intake record serves as a staging area where requests can be triaged, validated, and approved - ensuring only qualified requests result in new matters.
Why should we use Intakes?
Without a formal intake process, legal requests may be created as matters prematurely, leading to incomplete information, missed conflict checks, and inconsistent data quality. Intakes address this by providing:
- A structured way to capture request details before matter creation.
- Automatic conflict checking for associated accounts and contacts.
- An approval workflow to ensure requests are reviewed and authorized.
- A clear audit trail from initial request through to matter creation.
Intakes Overview
An Intake is a standard data object within CaseCloud Matter Management. Organizations can customize Intake Forms to collect the specific information needed for their business processes. Once an Intake record is created - either through a form submission or manually - it follows a status-driven lifecycle: Requested → In Progress → Submitted → Approved (or Rejected). Approved Intakes can then be converted into new matters with a single action.
Before You Begin
Before creating Intake records, an administrator should verify that the following items are configured to match your organization's setup.
1. Matter Record Type Picklist
- The Matter Record Type picklist determines which Matter record type is assigned when an approved Intake is converted into a Matter. The package ships with a single default value of Standard. Each picklist value must exactly match the Developer Name of a corresponding Matter record type in your organization.
If your organization uses additional Matter record types, add their Developer Names to this picklist. The Convert to Matter flow relies on this value to look up the correct record type - if no match is found, the conversion will fail.
2. Type Picklist
- The Type field uses a Global Value Set shared with the Matter object's Type field. Verify that the values in this picklist reflect your organization's active Matter types so that the Type selected during intake carries over correctly when converting to a Matter.
If your organization has customized the Type picklist on the Matter object, ensure the same values are added to the Global Value Set used by the Intake object.
3. Approval Process
The Intake Module supports an approval workflow where Intake records can be submitted for review before conversion to a Matter. The CaseCloud Matter Management application includes all the building blocks needed to support this workflow - email templates, field updates, and email alerts - but the Approval Process itself must be configured separately by an administrator via Salesforce Setup.
Approval Processes cannot be included in managed packages. After installation, an administrator should create an Approval Process on the Intake object using the provided building blocks to enable the submit, approve, and reject workflow. Without this step, the approval-related features of the Intake Module will not be functional.
Below is an example configuration for a General Matter Intake approval process. This can be used as a starting point and adjusted to match your organization's requirements.
General Settings
- Object: Intake
- Process Name: General Matter Intake Approval
- Entry Criteria: Approver field is not blank
- Allowed Submitters: All internal users, record creator, and record owner
- Record Editability: Admin or Current Approver (record locks on submission)
- Show Approval History: Yes
Approval Page Fields
Display the following fields on the approval page so the approver has full context: Intake Request Name, Owner, Status, Type, Primary Account, Primary Contact, Start Date, and Description.
On Initial Submission
- Field Update: Set Status to Submitted
- Email Alert: Send confirmation to the submitter (uses Intake_Email_Submitted_Confirmation)
- Email Alert: Notify the approver (uses Intake_Email_Submitted_To_Approver)
Approval Step — Intake Approval Review
- Assigned Approver: The user specified in the Approver field on the Intake record (Related User Field)
- Allow Delegate: No
On Approval
- Field Update: Set Status to Approved
- Email Alert: Notify the record owner (uses Intake_Email_Approved_Owner)
- Record Lock: Record remains unlocked for editing
On Rejection
- Field Update: Set Status to Rejected
- Email Alert: Notify the submitter (uses Intake_Email_Rejected_Submitter)
- Record Lock: Record remains unlocked for editing
On Recall
- Field Update: Set Status back to Requested
Creating New Intakes
A new Intake can be created in the following ways:
- Via a customized Intake Form, which can be shared with requestors who may not have direct access to the CaseCloud application.
- Manually via the New button found on the Intake tab or Intake list view.
Reviewing Intakes
Intakes may be reviewed in the following contexts:
- From the Intake tab main list view.
- From the Intake record page, which includes the status path, detail fields, related conflict checks, approval history, and activities.
Converting an Intake to a Matter
Once an Intake has been approved, a Convert to Matter action is available on the record. This action creates a new matter with fields mapped from the Intake, links the original Intake to the new matter for traceability, and updates any related conflict checks to reference the new matter.
The Convert to Matter action uses a flow AdvoLogix Intake - Convert to Matter, which is shipped as a template. Administrators can open the flow in Flow Builder, save it as a new flow, and customize the field mappings, steps, or logic to match their organization's specific requirements. This allows each organization to tailor the conversion process without modifying the original template. For more details, follow this article.