Public Intake Forms

What is Public Intake?

Public intake is a feature that lets anyone submit an incident report through a simple web form, without needing a Steward account. This is useful for:

• Anonymous reporting: Allow people to report concerns without identifying themselves
• Visitor reports: Let guests report incidents without staff involvement
• Community tips: Accept safety concerns from the broader community
• After-hours reporting: Capture reports when staff aren't available

How It Works

The Intake URL

Each organization has a unique public intake URL:

stewardchurch.com/intake/your-organization-slug

You can share this URL on your website, in printed materials, or anywhere you want to collect reports.

The Submission Process

1. Visitor navigates to your intake URL
2. They fill out a simplified incident form
3. CAPTCHA verification prevents spam submissions
4. The submission goes to your triage queue
5. Your team reviews and processes the submission

What Submitters Can Provide

The public intake form collects:

• Contact information (optional): Name, email, phone
• Incident details: What happened, when, where
• Description: Full narrative of the incident
• Attachments: Photos or documents (optional)

All fields except the description are optional, allowing truly anonymous submissions.

Managing Intake Submissions

Reviewers, Privileged Reviewers, Administrators, and Owners can manage intake submissions. Reporters do not have access to the triage queue.

The Triage Queue

Intake submissions appear in a separate triage queue, not mixed with regular incidents. This separation lets you:

• Review submissions before they become official incidents
• Filter out spam or irrelevant submissions
• Add information before converting to a full incident

Processing Submissions

When you receive an intake submission, you have several options:

Convert to Incident

If the submission is a valid incident report:

1. Review the submission details
2. Add any additional information you have
3. Click Convert to Incident
4. The submission becomes a full incident in your system

The original submission is preserved, and the incident is attributed to the intake form (or to the person if they provided contact info).

Request More Information

If the submitter provided contact information, you can reach out for clarification before converting.

Dismiss

If the submission is spam, a duplicate, or not actionable, you can dismiss it. Dismissed submissions are archived but not deleted, maintaining your audit trail.

Security and Spam Prevention

CAPTCHA Protection

Public intake forms are protected by Cloudflare Turnstile, a privacy-friendly CAPTCHA that prevents automated spam submissions while remaining accessible to legitimate users.

Rate Limiting

Steward applies rate limits to prevent abuse. Excessive submissions from the same source will be temporarily blocked.

Review Before Publishing

Intake submissions don't automatically become incidents. Your team reviews each one, ensuring spam or malicious content never enters your incident system.

Setting Up Public Intake

To enable public intake for your organization:

1. Go to Settings → Organization
2. Find the Public Intake section
3. Toggle intake on or off
4. Copy your intake URL to share

You can disable public intake at any time if you no longer want to accept anonymous reports.

Best Practices

• Promote your intake URL: Put it on your website, in bulletins, and on signage
• Check the queue regularly: Don't let submissions sit unreviewed
• Respond to submitters: If they provided contact info, let them know their report was received
• Train your team: Ensure reviewers know how to triage and convert submissions
• Set expectations: Your intake page can explain what types of reports you're looking for

Privacy Considerations

When accepting public submissions:

• You may receive reports about people who don't know they're being reported
• Anonymous reports may be harder to verify
• Consider how you'll handle unverified allegations
• Your privacy policy should cover how you handle intake submissions

Work with your leadership to establish policies for handling anonymous reports.