Automate Client Intake with Microsoft 365: A Step-by-Step Guide

Client intake is the gateway to your firm’s revenue, client satisfaction, and risk management. When intake is manual, you lose time, miss details, and introduce compliance risk. In this guide, you’ll learn how to design and launch a fully automated client intake process using Microsoft Forms and Power Automate—integrated with SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, and Word—so your attorneys get structured data, autogenerated documents, and timely notifications without administrative overhead.

Table of Contents

• Why Automate Client Intake with Microsoft 365
• Prerequisites, Governance, and Setup Checklist
• Design Your Intake Data Model
• Build the Microsoft Form
• Create SharePoint Structure for Matters
• Hands-On Tutorial: Power Automate Flow for Client Intake
• Automate Engagement Letters with Word Templates
• Testing, Validation, and Error Handling
• Security, Compliance, and Data Minimization Tips
• Enhancements: Approvals, Teams, Planner, and More
• Conclusion & Next Steps

Why Automate Client Intake with Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 offers secure, integrated tools well-suited to legal operations. By combining Microsoft Forms and Power Automate, firms can capture structured data securely, standardize follow-up tasks, and generate documents automatically. The result is faster onboarding, fewer errors, consistent compliance checks, and a seamless user experience for both clients and staff.

Best Practice: Treat intake as a data model, not just a form. Every field should map to a defined destination and purpose (e.g., conflicts check, document templates, billing setup). Build only what you can validate and automate downstream.

Prerequisites, Governance, and Setup Checklist

Before you build, ensure licensing, permissions, and governance are in place.

• Licensing: Microsoft 365 Business Standard/E3+ for Forms, SharePoint, Teams, and Power Automate. Some third-party e-sign connectors require premium licenses.
• Owners: Identify an intake process owner and at least one technical admin for Power Automate and SharePoint.
• Security: Use security groups to control matter library access. Align with your firm’s information barriers and ethical walls policies.
• Data retention: Coordinate with IT to apply Microsoft Purview retention labels/policies to intake records.
• Naming conventions: Decide on matter ID format (e.g., 2025-00123) and folder naming rules.

Design Your Intake Data Model

Clarify what you need to capture and why. Start small and iterate.

Build the Microsoft Form

Use Microsoft Forms to collect intake data from your website or send a secure link to prospective clients.

1. Open Microsoft Forms and create a new form titled “Client Intake.”
2. Add fields from your data model. Mark essential fields as required.
3. Use choice questions for “Matter Type” and “Jurisdiction” to normalize data.
4. Enable “Anyone can respond” if you’re embedding the form on your site; otherwise limit to “Only people in my organization” for internal submissions.
5. Turn on “Email receipt to responders” if appropriate and compliant with your policy.
6. Copy the form link for use in Power Automate.

[Client submits Form]
        |
        v
[Power Automate Trigger: New response]
        |
        +-- Get response details
        |
        +-- Create SharePoint Item & Matter Folder
        |
        +-- Generate Engagement Letter (Word) -> Save PDF
        |
        +-- Email/Teams Notify Attorneys
        |
        +-- Optional: Planner Task & Approval
  

Create SharePoint Structure for Matters

Organize intake data and matter files in SharePoint for security and searchability.

1. Create or identify a site (e.g., “Legal-Intake and Matters”).
2. Create a SharePoint list “Intake Submissions” with columns that match your data model.
3. Create a document library “Matters” with folders by Matter ID. Add columns for Client Name, Matter Type, and Status.
4. Set unique permissions on matter folders if needed for confidentiality or ethical walls.
5. Implement retention labels for intake submissions and engagement letters.

Hands-On Tutorial: Power Automate Flow for Client Intake

This tutorial builds an end-to-end intake automation triggered by a Microsoft Forms submission. It stores data in SharePoint, creates a matter folder, generates an engagement letter, and notifies attorneys.

Flow Overview

• Trigger: When a new response is submitted (Microsoft Forms)
• Actions: Get response details, generate Matter ID, create SharePoint item and folder, generate Word doc, convert to PDF, send notifications, and log errors.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. In Power Automate, create an Automated cloud flow. Choose “When a new response is submitted” (Microsoft Forms) as the trigger and select your Client Intake form.
2. Add “Get response details” and map it to the same Form.
3. Initialize variables:
   • varClientName (String) = Client Full Name
   • varMatterType (String) = Matter Type
   • varTimeStamp (String) = utcNow()
4. Compose a Matter ID:
   • Use an expression like: concat(formatDateTime(utcNow(),’yyyy’), ‘-‘, padLeft(string(add(1, int(last(split(variables(‘varClientName’), ‘ ‘)))))), 5))
   • Alternatively, maintain an auto-increment number in a SharePoint list and retrieve/update it in the flow for predictable IDs.
5. Create Item in SharePoint (“Intake Submissions” list):
   • Title = Matter ID
   • ClientName, ClientEmail, MatterType, Jurisdiction, Summary = map from Form fields
   • Status = “New”
6. Create Matter Folder in SharePoint (“Matters” library):
   • Folder path = /Matters/[Matter ID] – [Client Name]
   • Optional: Create subfolders like “01 – Engagement”, “02 – Evidence”, “03 – Pleadings”.
7. Update folder metadata:
   • Set Client Name, Matter Type, and Status to “Intake.”
8. Generate Engagement Letter (see next section for template setup) using “Populate a Microsoft Word template” action (Word Online (Business)):
   • Template file: /Templates/EngagementLetter.docx
   • Map content controls: cc_ClientName, cc_MatterType, cc_Jurisdiction, cc_Summary
   • Save output to: /Matters/[Matter ID] – [Client Name]/01 – Engagement/Engagement Letter – [Matter ID].docx
9. Convert to PDF (Word Online (Business) “Convert Word Document to PDF”):
   • Input: the generated DOCX
   • Output: same folder, same file name with .pdf
10. Notify the responsible attorney team:
    • Email (Outlook): Subject “New Intake: [Matter ID] – [Client Name]” with link to SharePoint folder and intake item.
    • Teams message: Post in a channel or chat with summary and quick links.
11. Optional routing:
    • Condition on Matter Type to assign the item to a practice group or create a Planner task.
    • Condition on Jurisdiction to add compliance notes.
12. Error handling:
    • Add a parallel “Scope – Failure” branch with “Run after” = has failed. Post an alert to IT/admin channel with the error details.
13. Save and test with sample data.

Tip: Use environment variables or a SharePoint configuration list to store library URLs, template paths, practice group email addresses, and Teams channel IDs. This makes the flow portable across test and production.

Automate Engagement Letters with Word Templates

Document automation ensures accurate, branded engagement letters and reduces drafting time.

1. Open your engagement letter template in Word (desktop or web). Insert plain text content controls for each dynamic field (Developer tab > Controls). Name them to match your map (e.g., cc_ClientName).
2. Upload the template to a central SharePoint Templates folder with read-only access for staff and edit access for admins only.
3. In Power Automate, use “Populate a Microsoft Word template” and map your fields. If you need conditional clauses (e.g., hourly vs. fixed fee), add both sections in the template and wrap them with content controls you turn on/off with conditions in your flow by using multiple templates or merging content.
4. Convert to PDF and save both DOCX and PDF to the matter’s Engagement folder. Optionally email the PDF to the client after a conflicts/engagement approval step.

Template Variation Strategy

• By Matter Type: Maintain separate templates per practice group for custom terms.
• By Fee Arrangement: Hourly, Fixed Fee, Contingency—each as a discrete template.
• By Jurisdiction: Include required disclosures per jurisdiction in modular appendices.

Testing, Validation, and Error Handling

Quality assurance prevents downstream cleanup and compliance issues.

• Form validation: Ensure required fields are truly required and use choice fields for categorizations.
• Flow testing: Use test submissions for each Matter Type and Jurisdiction path. Validate folder names, metadata, and document content.
• Access checks: Confirm the responsible attorneys can access the matter folder and cannot access others if ethical walls apply.
• Error logging: Add a SharePoint “Flow Errors” list that records timestamp, response ID, error message, and status for monitoring.
• Versioning: Enable version history in SharePoint lists and libraries so changes can be audited.

Security, Compliance, and Data Minimization Tips

Legal intake often contains sensitive data. Harden your pipeline.

• Minimize data: Ask only what you need at intake. Defer confidential documents until after conflicts and engagement.
• Secure forms: If collecting sensitive data, avoid anonymous submissions. Use authenticated links and short-lived sharing where possible.
• Permissions: Use SharePoint security groups for each practice team. Apply unique permissions to matter folders when necessary.
• Retention: Apply Purview labels to intake items and engagement letters to meet regulatory and client requirements.
• Audit trails: Keep an immutable log of submissions and flow actions where appropriate.
• External sharing: Use guest access policies in Teams/SharePoint with expiration and limited permissions. Avoid broad link sharing.

Enhancements: Approvals, Teams, Planner, and More

Once the baseline intake works, add layers to improve visibility and throughput.

Attorney Approval and Conflicts Check

• Insert an “Start and wait for an approval” step after creating the intake item.
• Route to the conflicts team or responsible partner based on Matter Type.
• On approval, proceed to generate engagement letters; on rejection, mark the SharePoint item “Declined” and notify the requester.

Teams Integration

• Create a Team per matter or a channel per practice group to track new intakes.
• Post adaptive cards with intake details and quick actions (Approve/Decline, Assign Attorney).

Task Management with Planner or To Do

• Create a Planner task titled “Conflict Check – [Matter ID]” assigned to the conflicts analyst with due date = utcNow() + 1 day.
• Add checklist items: Public records check, internal database search, related parties review.

Data Hub in Excel or Dataverse

• Append a row to an Excel table in SharePoint for reporting, or use Dataverse if you need relational data and richer automations.

Client e-Signature

• Integrate with Adobe Acrobat Sign or DocuSign connectors to route the engagement letter for signature (note licensing). Save signed PDFs back to the matter folder.

Governance Reminder: Document your flow, fields, and routing logic. Maintain a change log. Use solution packaging in Power Platform to promote changes from dev to prod with approvals.

Conclusion & Next Steps

Automating client intake with Microsoft Forms and Power Automate creates a consistent, secure, and efficient onboarding experience. By standardizing fields, generating documents automatically, and routing tasks to the right people, your firm reduces risk and accelerates time-to-engagement. Start with a minimal viable intake, validate it, and iterate with approvals, Teams notifications, and e-signatures for maximum impact.

Want expert guidance on bringing Microsoft 365 automation into your firm’s legal workflows? Reach out to A.I. Solutions today for tailored support and training.