Forms are how Opbox collects structured information from the people who have it: a new client filling in an onboarding questionnaire, a staff member logging a request, an applicant uploading their documents. You design the form once, share it, and every answer comes back as a clean, typed record. When the right form comes in, it does not just sit in an inbox - it can open a matter and hand that matter its data, so the work starts already populated.
What it does
Design a form from typed fields. You build a form out of fields that each know what they hold - text, a number, a date, a choice from a list, a checkbox, a file upload. Because every field is typed, the answers are validated as they come in and arrive as real data, not free text you have to clean up later. You can lay the form out in sections and steps so a long intake becomes a guided, wizard-style flow rather than one daunting page.
Publish it as a version. A form is a draft until you publish it. Publishing mints a fixed, numbered version - a snapshot of the questions and rules exactly as they stood. Every submission records which version it answered, so the form can keep evolving without ever rewriting what a past respondent actually saw and agreed to. Drafts are validated at every save, so you cannot publish a broken form.
Collect submissions. Each completed form is a submission: a stable record holding the submitted values, any uploaded files, a field-level changelog, and its current status. You can list a form’s submissions to see what is incoming and how long each has been waiting, or open one to review the full answer set.
Move each submission through its lifecycle. A submission is not just stored, it is processed. It moves through clear states - submitted, under review, approved, rejected - with each disposition recorded against the reviewer who made it. Nothing changes silently: every status change is written to the audit trail, so you always know who decided what and when.
Turn a submission into a matter. This is the payback. An approved or incoming submission can open a matter and seed it with the data the form collected - no re-keying, no copy-paste. Names, dates, choices, and uploaded documents flow straight into the new piece of work. Uploaded files are pulled out and stored as encrypted blobs, not left sitting inside the submission body.
Generate a form with AI. Describe the intake you need in plain language and Opbox can draft a form schema for you. The draft is checked against a safety-and-quality lint before you ever see it, and it lands as a draft you review and publish - never auto-published, always yours to approve.
How you use it
Build the form. Open the builder, add your sections and fields, set each field’s type and rules (required, a value range, a format), and watch the live preview update as you go. When it looks right, publish it. You now have a versioned, ready-to-use form.
Share it - usually through the portal. Most forms go out to clients through the client portal: you assign the form as a task on a client’s portal, and they get a secure, token-protected link. No account to create, no software to install - they click, they fill, they submit. You can also surface a form to staff inside the app for internal data capture.
A client fills it in. The respondent works through the form at their own pace, uploading documents where asked. Typed fields and validation keep the answers clean, so what comes back is complete and correctly shaped.
It opens a matter, ready to go. When the submission arrives (or once you approve it), it can spin up a matter pre-loaded with everything the form gathered. The work begins with its data already in place, its documents already attached, and a full audit trail of where it all came from.
The kernel verbs behind it
Forms are built on the same foundation as everything else in Opbox: every action below goes through the one front door, where it is permission-checked and audited before it runs (see Security & permissions). These are the key verbs behind forms and submissions.
form.generate- AI-draft a form schema from a prompt or spec; lint-checked and draft-only, never auto-published.form.ingest- take a completed submission and turn it into a matter, extracting any uploaded files to encrypted storage.acroform.fill- merge collected field values into a PDF AcroForm to produce a filled, ready-to-use document.submission.get- open one submission: its answer snapshot, field-level changelog, and lifecycle status.submission.list- list a form’s submissions with their status and how long each has been waiting.steptype.register- declare a step type (the typed shape a form step or matter phase carries).steptype.list- browse the available step types when laying out a form.portal.task.assign- assign a form to a client as a portal to-do.portal.task.complete- the client submits the assigned form from the portal, which flows straight intoform.ingest.