Set up lead intake and first follow-up in 6am

Build a traceable intake flow in 6am: receive a request, identify the contact, apply source tags, create an opportunity in the right pipeline, and give a named owner a first follow-up task.

• Outcome: each eligible new submission has its own opportunity and dated task, with the original request accessible from both records.
• Responsible: a company administrator configures the flow; a named intake owner reviews requests and exceptions every working day.
• Tools: 6am application, Lead forms, Form submissions, Contacts, Sales opportunities, and Follow-up tasks.
• Scope: native form intake and first-response handoff. Email delivery, newsletter permission and general-purpose workflows are separate concerns.

01. Define one intake route

1. Select the correct company in 6am. Confirm that the person configuring intake and the assigned responder can manage contacts in that company.
2. Write down the request type, destination pipeline, initial stage, owner, first action, and calendar deadline. Example: “Consulting inquiry → Consulting → New inquiry → assigned sales owner → Review the request → 1 calendar day.” Use your company's actual names.
3. Reuse an active pipeline and its appropriate initial stage. Do not place an unreviewed request in a stage meaning qualified, proposal sent, or won. If needed, prepare stages using SOP 005: Sales pipelines in 6am.
4. Use a separate form when a different request type needs another pipeline or owner. Each form has one configured destination; answers do not dynamically branch to different pipelines.
5. If the initial stage has a cadence, review its tasks before launch. Cadence activities are additional to the form's independent first-response task. Give them distinct purposes to avoid two people performing the same follow-up.

Ready to continue: the pipeline and stage are active, the owner is a current eligible company member, and someone is explicitly responsible for checking submissions that require review. The exception queue does not assign an owner or deadline automatically.

02. Prepare the form and source tags

1. Open Lead forms → Create form, or edit the appropriate existing form. Set its internal name, public language, title, introduction, privacy notice, HTTPS privacy-policy URL, and confirmation message. Use SOP 074 for the form setup.
2. Keep Email selected: it is required. Available optional fields are First name, Last name, Phone, Company, and Message. You may also select existing custom contact fields as described below. Only Email is required.
3. Ask the visitor to describe the requested service and useful timing in Message, without requesting unnecessary sensitive information. This message is retained with that submission, not copied into the contact's notes. A missing optional answer must be clarified by the owner.
4. Select up to ten existing company tags, such as “Source: consulting form”. Tags apply to future accepted submissions; they do not retroactively update old submissions. Existing contact fields and other tags are preserved. See SOP 088: Organize and segment contacts.
5. Make the confirmation factual: “We received your request; our team will review it.” It confirms receipt, not identity verification, qualification, or a guaranteed response time.

Permission boundary: submitting this form, displaying a privacy notice, or applying a tag does not subscribe the contact to marketing. Newsletter permission follows the separate process in SOP 109.

02a. Collect custom contact fields

1. Prepare the field definitions in Custom fields, with object Contact, following SOP 004. The form selects existing active definitions; it does not create fields or collect opportunity fields.
2. In the form editor, use Custom contact fields to select up to 10 fields. Their names, help text and choices will appear publicly. Review that wording before publishing and collect only information needed for the request. All custom questions are optional.
3. Supported controls are short text (500 characters), long text (5,000), number, date, yes/no, single choice and multiple choice. Use a decimal point without currency or grouping for numbers. Select the registered options; multiple choice accepts up to 30 distinct options. The number range is −999999999999 to 999999999999.
4. Save and publish. Saving takes the form offline until you publish again. If a selected definition changes or is archived, the public form stops accepting requests until an administrator reviews, saves and republishes it. An unavailable selection remains visible in the editor so it can be explicitly deselected.
5. A new contact receives valid nonempty answers. For an existing contact, only missing, null or empty custom values are filled. Previously saved values—including No, 0 and existing multiple-choice selections—are preserved. Blank or omitted answers never clear a saved value. The submission keeps the new answers even when they differ from the contact.
6. In Form submissions → View submission, compare Custom field answers (unverified) with Fields filled on the contact, then open the contact's Custom fields. History uses the labels at receipt. Treat answers as self-reported; neither the form nor field population verifies identity, grants marketing permission or approves a sales stage.

Tags and the form's configured pipeline/stage/owner remain the routing inputs. Custom answers do not choose a different pipeline or become Smart List/scoring rules automatically. Use a source-tag rule for an existing Smart List where appropriate, and verify membership separately.

03. Connect the opportunity and first task

1. Enable Create opportunity and task on submission. In the sales follow-up section select the pipeline, one of its stages, and the named owner.
2. Set a specific first-task title, such as “Review consulting inquiry and record next action”. Configure Calendar days until due (0 = today) and the time zone used to calculate the date.
3. The allowed delay is 0–30 calendar days. This task has a date, not a promised response hour, and does not skip weekends. The overdue filter compares the date with today in UTC. Do not describe this setting as “next business day at 10:00”. Cadences have their own scheduling rules.
4. Save, review, and Publish from the form list. Saving an edit takes a published form offline; publish it again after checking changes. Configuration affects future submissions only.
5. Use Share / embed to open the public link. Before sharing it with customers, complete the checks below. See SOP 075: Opportunities and tasks from forms for the detailed configuration.

No separate automation workflow is needed for this native route. The intake flow creates records and tasks; it does not automatically send an email, SMS, or reminder.

04. Validate a first and a repeated request

Use a dedicated QA form and synthetic contact details, or an explicitly authorized controlled address. Do not test with a customer's identity. Label every test clearly and record the resulting IDs.

1. Open the published form and submit a first request, for example “QA request A — consulting diagnosis”. Confirm the public receipt page.
2. Open Form submissions, filter by the form, and choose View submission. Verify the submitted values, status, applied tags, form version, and privacy notice.
3. Follow its contact link. For a new identity expect Contact created. Check the email and selected source tags.
4. Follow the opportunity and task links from the submission. They filter to that exact submission. Confirm the opportunity's pipeline, stage, owner, and open status; confirm the task's title, owner, due date, and pending status. Use Original submission to read the request, rather than assuming it was copied into editable notes.
5. Reopen the public form to make a genuinely new submission with the same QA email. Change the name and message to “QA request B — a separate project”. Expect Existing contact, the original contact fields preserved, and a second submission, opportunity, and initial task. Request A must still show A; request B must show B.
6. Distinguish a new submission from a technical retry: replaying the same valid submission ticket does not duplicate records. Reopening the form produces a new ticket and can create another opportunity even when the first remains open. Do not repeatedly submit after uncertainty; first inspect the history.
7. If a cadence is configured, check its additional activities separately. Changing an opportunity owner does not automatically reassign its independent intake task; check both owners.

Include custom-field checks: submit No and the numeric option 0, reopen the contact and confirm both. On a fresh request, submit different answers and leave another answer blank: existing values must remain, missing values may be filled, and both submissions must retain their own answers. Try an invalid number/date and confirm no contact, tag, opportunity or task was partially written. Check both supported form languages in separate QA forms.

Pass criteria: two distinct requests, one matched contact, two correctly linked opportunities and initial tasks, preserved original answers, correct tags and deadlines, and no unintended customer communication. For a route with no cadence, do not expect cadence activities.

05. Triage exceptions before contacting anyone

For a review-required submission, verify identity in Contacts before correcting or consolidating records. The submissions screen currently has no resolve, relink, or reprocess action: correcting a contact does not automatically change the historical submission or create its sales records. If the request is legitimate and needs follow-up, create an opportunity and task manually, record the original submission ID in internal notes, and document the reviewer and decision in the team's exception log. Do not claim an automatic source link or mark the historical status as resolved when the interface cannot do that.

The public confirmation deliberately does not reveal whether an existing contact or identity conflict was found. Review the private history before concluding that the full sales route succeeded.

06. Run the daily handoff

1. At the agreed start of each working day, the intake owner checks Form submissions for new records and Review required exceptions. Include unresolved items from the team's exception log.
2. In Follow-up tasks, filter by responsible person, pipeline, and pending/overdue work. Open the exact opportunity and its original request; do not match requests solely by a person's name.
3. Record what was actually done and the next action in the opportunity's internal notes. Complete a task only after its action is performed. If delayed, keep it pending, set a realistic date, and record why; reassign explicitly when needed.
4. Review open opportunities without a valid owner or next task using SOP 105. Respect the stage's cadence and acceptance rules when advancing; use SOP 106.
5. Closing an opportunity cancels pending cadence activities but preserves independent tasks. Explicitly complete or cancel any remaining intake task; closing the deal is not sufficient cleanup.

Completion evidence

Keep the form name/version and public link, destination/owner/deadline, first and repeat submission IDs, contact/opportunity/task IDs, and the QA result. Archive the dedicated QA form when finished, and close/cancel only its synthetic work while preserving history. Publish the real intake form only after its route and daily reviewer are ready.

This procedure covers the current native 6am flow. It does not promise arbitrary field creation inside forms, response-based routing, automatic exception resolution, or verified marketing consent. The last-reviewed date above records this editorial review; validate each company's configuration before launch.