Questionnaires & Client Tasking
Questionnaires are Athenty’s reusable interview and client-tasking engine. One engine powers many workflows — the estate interview is its first consumer, and the same building blocks let staff ask a client to “answer these questions and upload these documents” on any matter as part of a tasking workflow.
The model
Section titled “The model”A question library → assigned to a matter → filled by staff or the client → flows back into the matter as work.
1. A reusable question library
Section titled “1. A reusable question library”Athenty seeds workflow-specific question sets as system defaults (Estate Planning first; more workflows over time). Seeded questionnaires and questions behave like every other managed list: they are read-only defaults your firm can edit, delete, or extend with its own custom questions. Custom questions live only in your tenant.
Build your own questionnaires, or copy and change a default, under Settings ▸ Questionnaires.
2. Assign to a matter
Section titled “2. Assign to a matter”Attach a questionnaire to a matter and choose the audience — staff fill on the client’s behalf, the client fills it through the portal, or both. Each assignment can carry an “answers needed by” date that drives reminders and follow-ups until the answers are complete.
3. A guided interview
Section titled “3. A guided interview”The interview is not a flat form:
- Branching — questions and sections show or hide based on prior answers, so the respondent only ever sees what’s relevant.
- Participant-driven people questions — any question that names a person or entity defaults to a picker of the matter’s existing participants, never free text. This picker is reused across every workflow’s tasking questions. When a client answers through the client portal, the picker lists their own family relationships first (see Who a client can pick below).
- Document requests — a question can request a file upload that lands directly in the matter Drive, not just a typed answer.
- Repeatable structured groups — for lists like specific gifts or beneficiaries, each entry is a structured record with its own fields and conditional logic.
- Autosave & resume — answers save as they are entered, so a client can stop and continue later.
4. Back into the matter as work
Section titled “4. Back into the matter as work”On submit, the answers flow back into the matter: a structured summary is available for staff, people named in answers resolve to matter participants, requested documents land in Drive, and the interview shows as a completed task to review.
Who a client can pick
Section titled “Who a client can pick”When a client answers a people question in the client portal, the list has two parts, in this order:
- Your relationships — the people your firm has recorded as the client’s own family: a spouse or partner, a parent, a child, a sibling, or another family member. The closest relationship comes first (spouse or partner, then parents and children, then siblings, then other family), and names are in alphabetical order within each.
- People on this matter — the clients and other people already added to the matter.
A few rules keep the list safe:
- Only personal relationships are offered. Business relationships — director, officer, shareholder, business partner, employee, tenant, trustee, beneficiary — and general “related” links are never shown.
- Only the client’s own relationships. On a matter with two clients (for example, spouses with separate wills), each client sees only their own family, never the other client’s.
- Opposing parties are never offered. Anyone on the matter on the other side (a counterparty) does not appear, even if they are family.
- Each person appears once. A relative who is already on the matter is listed under Your relationships, not twice.
Picking a relative adds them to the matter. If the client picks a relative who is not on the matter yet, Athenty adds that person to the matter as a third party (with the question’s suggested role, when your firm’s role list has it) and links the answer to them. Picking the same person again does not add them twice. Because the client — not a staff member — added them, run your usual conflict check on anyone added this way; the automatic conflict screen that runs when staff add a person does not run for client-added people.
To make a relative available, record the relationship on the client’s participant profile (the Relationships tab) before sending the interview.
Lifecycle
Section titled “Lifecycle”| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Not started | Assigned, no answers yet |
| In progress | At least one answer captured (autosaving) |
| Submitted | Respondent submitted; answers locked for review |
| Reviewed | Staff confirmed the submission |
Staff can Reopen a submitted or reviewed assignment to allow further edits.
Scope & responsibility
Section titled “Scope & responsibility”Questionnaires collect information only. They do not give legal advice or produce legally executed documents. The firm (org/user) is responsible for the accuracy and legality of any documents produced from the answers, consistent with Athenty’s role as a processor of the firm’s data.