The intake
The intake is the first step of an engagement: the agreements up front. The Intake button in the phase bar (Intake › Canvas › Handover) opens a page of its own. It holds what the question is and what has been agreed, before the analysis starts. The phase bar also shows the Handover as the last step.
What is in it
Next to the organisation details — organisation, industry, size, country, scope, type of transformation and lead — three sections:
- Why now? — the central question, the occasion, the urgency and what has been tried before.
- What do we agree? — the intended result, the criteria for «successful when», what is in and out of scope, the horizon, the starting points, the running programmes and a rough budget frame.
- With whom and how? — client, approval by, core team, who provides input, the decision moments, the sources, confidentiality and whether the use of AI has been discussed.
The page has a reading view with Edit → per section, and a form. At the top are the status (Draft, Submitted for approval or Approved), a counter «N of 17 filled in» and when the intake was last changed. The seventeen are the organisation details (seven), the fields of section 1 (four) and the main fields of section 2 (six). The canvas itself does not show the approval status: it appears only on the intake page and on the engagement confirmation.
Under Type of transformation (at most three) you can also choose Funding round, for an organisation that is raising money.
The approval
The approval is a registration on behalf of the client, not a signature; the engagement confirmation says so too. Anyone with write access to the canvas can record it. A snapshot of the intake is kept with the approval, so it can later be seen what was agreed to.
The approval lapses as soon as the organisation details or section 1 or 2 are changed, any field of them. A change in section 3 (names, planning) leaves the approval standing. It can only be recorded once the required fields are filled in and, with the approval, who approved and on which date.
The engagement confirmation
The Export engagement confirmation button makes a PDF, complete from the filled-in fields and without AI. The document contains only what the consultant filled in, with the registration of the approval or the notice that there is no approval or that it has lapsed. Commercial agreements are in the contract and not in the confirmation.
A proposal from the dossier
For most fields in section 1 and 2 the AI can make a proposal from the dossier: occasion, tried before, intended result, in and out of scope, starting points and running programmes, not the central question. The proposal names the source (file and, where known, page). You accept it or reject it; nothing enters the field unless you accept it. For section 3 (names and planning) the AI makes no proposal. See AI support.
What the AI knows from the intake
The organisation details (except the organisation name and the lead) and the fields of section 1 and 2 (except the budget frame) go along as context in the generation tasks, the One-pagers and the AI chapters of the reports; the names, the planning, the budget frame and the working agreements do not. See What the AI knows about your project.
After that comes the canvas with the worksheets.