How does intake work in Lift Right?

There are three front doors. All of them land in the same place: the org admin’s Review & assign queue.

3a. Staff-led intake (/intake)

A caseworker or admin runs the guided conversation, in person or over the phone.

1. Open Intake from the Dashboard. Create the client (first and last name; phone and email optional).

2. The branching engine presents one question at a time. It starts with the universal tree (story, needs, safety, eligibility) and then runs the service-specific trees the client’s answers call for.

3. Free-text answers pre-suggest need domains; the client or staff adjusts the checkboxes.

4. Staff metadata is hidden by default because the screen may face the client. Toggle it to see each question’s instrument, obligation level, evidence base, and safety-gate marker.

5. If a response trips a safety screen, a banner instructs staff to follow the org’s safety protocol now, with the crisis line that fits what was said: the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for a risk of self-harm, or the National Domestic Violence Hotline and 911 when the client is unsafe or being threatened. It does not stop the intake.

6. There is no separate submit step. Start intake creates the client right away, unassigned and in the Intake phase, and while the conversation is under way they sit under Intakes in progress on the org admin’s Dashboard. Answering the last question sends the intake for review, and the client appears in Review & assign.

3b. Self-serve intake: one-time invite links

For clients who complete intake on their own device.

1. All Clients page, Self-serve intake button. It opens the Self-serve intake invites panel.

2. Create a link, optionally labeled (staff-only label, e.g. “Maria G.”).

3. Copy it and deliver it through your own channel: text, email, in person. Links expire after 14 days and are revocable anytime.

4. The invite list shows each link’s state: Sent, Opened, In progress, Submitted, Expired, Revoked, plus a safety-flag marker when applicable.

What the client experiences: a welcoming, private, mobile-friendly flow branded with your org’s name. Progress autosaves, so they can leave and come back with the same link. Every question can be skipped unless it is required. Their answers go to your organization, and no other organization can see them.

3c. Standing intake link (the org’s durable front door)

One durable, token-gated URL for flyers, email signatures, and your website. Every visitor gets their own fresh intake that lands in Review & assign, with its own client record. Unlike a one-time invite, the standing link does not bring a visitor back to saved answers, so ask people to finish it in one sitting.

• Manage it from All Clients, Self-serve intake, the standing-link panel at the top. Create, copy, or revoke it there.

• There is never a bare open intake URL. Everything is org-tied and revocable.

The safety interstitial (self-serve)

If a self-serve answer trips a safety screen, the client immediately sees a full-screen safety message with one-tap crisis resources. There are two versions, matched to what was said. For a risk of self-harm the screen is headed “Please pause and call now”, with Call 988, Text 988, Text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line) and Call 911. When the person says they are unsafe or being threatened it is headed “Your safety comes first” and leads with Call 911 and the National Domestic Violence Hotline (Call 1-800-799-7233, Text START to 88788), followed by the Crisis Text Line and 988. The client chooses Stop here for now or Continue with the rest of the questions; either way their progress is saved, the intake is flagged urgent for staff review, and your organization’s administrators get an alert on the Dashboard and an email. It never hard-stops.

Can we change the intake questions?

Partly, and the line is worth understanding because it protects the reports you are paid to produce.

Intake questions fall into three groups.

Validated instruments cannot be changed. PHQ-2 (Patient Health Questionnaire, 2 items), C-SSRS (Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale), VI-SPDAT (Vulnerability Index and Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool) and similar tools are administered exactly as written. A PHQ-2 with a reworded item is no longer a PHQ-2, and a funder or an auditor is entitled to say so. The restriction is the reason the scores are worth citing.

Funder-required fields cannot be changed either. Fields required by ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement), WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act), HMIS (Homeless Management Information System) and similar funding streams are contractual. Changing them breaks the report your funding depends on.

Everything else is yours. Questions specific to your programs can be added alongside the standard set. Additions never replace a required field, so your reporting stays intact.