Project intake: process, examples and best practices

Think of project intake as the gatekeeper for your organization‘s time and resources. It helps you collect the right information, evaluate each opportunity, and make informed decisions before the work officially begins. Whether you‘re a consulting firm juggling client work or an internal PMO fielding requests from different departments, having a strong intake process can mean the difference between success and chaos.

Let‘s walk through what project intake actually looks like, with examples, common pitfalls, and practical advice for making it work.

What is project intake?

Project intake is the series of steps you follow to evaluate, approve, and kick off a new project. It starts when someone submits a request–this could be a sales team closing a new deal, a department head pitching an internal initiative, or a client asking for a specific deliverable. From there, your team reviews the request to decide whether it should move forward, and if so, how.

The intake process is often confused with project initiation, but they‘re not quite the same. Intake happens before the project is formally launched. It‘s the decision-making phase: Should we do this? Do we have the resources? Is the scope clear? Do we understand the risks? Once those boxes are ticked, then you can move into project initiation.

Why project intake matters in professional services

In professional services, time and talent are limited resources. Every new project draws from the same team, which makes it crucial to evaluate work before diving in. A clear project intake process helps you focus on high-value work, avoid over commitment, and use your resources wisely.

When done right, intake becomes a strategic filter. It ensures that projects align with business goals, are backed by available capacity, and start with realistic expectations. Without it, teams risk taking on the wrong work, missing details, or misaligning with broader objectives.

A standardized intake process also improves visibility. Instead of handling informal requests through emails or chats, teams use consistent forms and workflows to collect all necessary details upfront–like scope, deadlines, and stakeholders. This reduces misunderstandings and helps project managers assign the right people at the right time.

Tools like Birdview PSA support this by making it easier to track requests, forecast resources, and evaluate capacity before saying yes. Intake also helps leadership see how new work fits into the big picture, keeping execution tied to strategy.

Ultimately, project intake is more than a checklist. It‘s the foundation for better planning, smoother delivery, and stronger client outcomes. It helps you say yes to the right projects–and confidently say no to the ones that don‘t fit.

A typical project intake process, step by step

Every successful service project starts with a clear and structured intake process. This early phase is part of the broader service project life cycle, beginning right after the sales conversation starts. It‘s where potential work turns into real opportunities–and where you determine whether a project is worth pursuing, and how to set it up for success.

Let‘s walk through what a strong project intake process typically looks like, along with best practices that help teams manage incoming requests more efficiently.

Step 1: Sales and opportunity identification

Before anything is officially submitted, there‘s usually some kind of client conversation happening–whether it‘s a proposal, a sales demo, or a needs assessment. This is the informal beginning of the project intake process. The goal here is to understand what the client needs and determine whether it‘s a good fit.

At this stage, your team is trying to answer three questions:

• Is this opportunity aligned with what we do?

• Do we have the right expertise and capacity?

• Is it worth pursuing based on value and feasibility?

If you’re using integrated tools like Birdview PSA connected to your CRM, new opportunities can automatically generate preliminary project records, saving time and reducing the risk of miscommunication between sales and delivery.

Step 2: Intake submission with standardized forms

Once there‘s agreement to move forward, the next step is to submit the project request using a structured intake form. This is where many teams benefit from automating their intake process.

Using digital project request forms helps ensure that every submission includes the essential details–scope, timelines, stakeholders, budget, and business goals. It also keeps requests consistent, searchable, and trackable. When requests are submitted through a centralized system like Birdview PSA, they all follow the same format and live in one location, making it easier to manage and audit over time.

This kind of automation doesn‘t just make life easier–it also prevents projects from slipping through the cracks or being approved based on incomplete information.

Step 3: Approval process and executive involvement

Once a request is submitted, it doesn‘t go straight into execution. It needs to be reviewed and approved–and that means involving the right people.

According to a study by PMI, one-third of failed projects lack adequate executive involvement. That‘s why including senior leadership in your approval process is a must. Executives have the strategic perspective needed to assess whether a project aligns with broader business goals, and their endorsement adds weight to the decision.

Your intake process should make it clear who approves what kinds of projects, based on size, scope, or department. This not only improves project success rates–it also builds trust and accountability across teams.

Step 4: Prioritization based on business impact

Not every request is urgent or high-value. As new submissions come in, one of the most important steps is prioritization.

Someone–usually a department head, project manager, or intake coordinator–should assess the expected impact of each request. Will the project drive revenue growth? Improve client satisfaction? Reduce internal costs? These kinds of questions help determine which projects should move forward first and which can wait.

This step prevents your team from overcommitting and ensures that energy goes toward the initiatives with the biggest return.

Step 5: Resource forecasting and availability check

Even if a project is valuable and aligned with company strategy, it can‘t succeed without the right people to do the work. That‘s why the next step in intake is resource forecasting.

This involves looking at your team‘s availability, existing commitments, and skills to determine whether you actually have the capacity to take on new work. PSA software like Birdview provides real-time views of your resource pool–so you can confidently say yes (or no) based on actual bandwidth, not guesswork.

Forecasting helps avoid overallocation, missed deadlines, and team burnout. And when a project is greenlit with realistic scheduling and resourcing in mind, it‘s far more likely to succeed.

Step 6: Decision: approve, reject, or defer

After reviewing the details, prioritizing, and checking capacity, it‘s time to make a decision: approve, reject, or defer.

Approved requests should flow directly into the planning stage. If you‘re using Birdview PSA, you can even automate the conversion from intake request to structured project, using templates that include pre-built tasks, timelines, and assignments.

If a request is declined, it‘s important to provide clear feedback–especially in internal contexts. Letting people know why a project wasn‘t approved helps them refine future requests and ensures transparency.

Step 7: Standardize and mandate the process

One final, often overlooked best practice: enforce the intake process consistently.

If you allow people to bypass the system–by emailing project requests directly to managers or starting work informally–you lose the structure that makes intake useful in the first place.

Make it a rule that only projects submitted through the official request form will be considered. This creates organizational discipline and ensures that all requests are properly logged, evaluated, and prioritized. It may take some time for everyone to adopt the habit, but once they do, it becomes second nature–and your project pipeline will be clearer and more manageable as a result.

A well-designed intake process doesn’t just help manage demand–it empowers your team to make better decisions. By combining structure, automation, executive input, and resource planning, you can set every project up for success from day one. Whether you’re using a PSA tool like Birdview or starting with simple shared forms, the most important thing is to treat intake as a strategic function, not just paperwork.

Common challenges in project intake

Even with the best intentions, project intake can go off the rails. One of the most frequent issues is incomplete or inconsistent information. If intake forms are vague–or worse, if people bypass the process entirely–you‘re left chasing down missing details after the fact. This delays decision-making, causes confusion, and increases the risk of mistakes down the line.

In reality, project managers often receive requests in all kinds of informal ways: a quick message on Slack, a hallway chat, a phone call, or even a passing comment in the elevator. By the time they sit back down to process the request, details may have been forgotten or misunderstood. And when key information is missing, everything from resource planning to budgeting suffers. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), 35% of projects fail due to inaccurate or missing information–a direct result of poor intake practices.

Another common challenge is over commitment. Without clear visibility into current workloads, it‘s easy to say yes to too many projects. This stretches your resources thin, leads to delays and burnout, and ultimately damages client satisfaction. Project managers may feel pressure to keep work moving, but without a reliable system to evaluate capacity, it’s a risky gamble.

Then there‘s a lack of strategic alignment. Sometimes, projects get approved simply because someone influential asked for them–even if they don’t support business goals or add measurable value. Without a standardized intake framework, it’s hard to push back on pet projects or explain why something doesn‘t make the cut.

The truth is, project intake can be messy if it‘s not formalized. That‘s why creating a clear, consistent process is so important. When requests are collected in a structured, centralized way–with complete information and proper visibility into resources–teams can make better decisions faster.

To support that effort, this article outlines five best practices for improving project intake and shows how professional services teams can increase efficiency by automating their request workflows. When done right, project intake becomes more than just a front-end process–it becomes the foundation for project success.

Best practices for a successful intake process

The good news is that a solid intake process isn‘t hard to build–you just need the right habits and tools.

Start with a clear intake form. Make it simple but structured. Ask for purpose, timeline, budget (if applicable), stakeholders, and business value. Avoid open-ended fields where possible–checkboxes and dropdowns help standardize responses.

Centralize the process. Don‘t let requests live in scattered emails or spreadsheets. Use a centralized platform (like Birdview PSA or your project management system) where every request is logged, tracked, and visible to the right people.

Create a review cadence. Set up weekly or biweekly intake review meetings, where a committee or manager evaluates new submissions. This creates a rhythm and avoids bottlenecks.

Establish clear criteria. Decide in advance what makes a request “intake-worthy.” For example: Is there budget? Does it align with our goals? Can we deliver it with current resources? Scoring frameworks or prioritization matrices can help.

Give feedback on rejections. If a request is declined, explain why. This builds trust and helps requesters improve future submissions.

Track intake metrics. Over time, measure how many requests you get, how many are approved, average time to review, and common reasons for rejection. This data helps refine the process.

How software can help without overcomplicating things

You don‘t need to over-engineer your intake process, but the right software can significantly reduce manual work and support better decision-making. For example, Birdview PSA enables teams to create custom intake forms, automate task creation upon approval, and visualize team capacity before taking on new work. With integrated dashboards, it‘s easier to spot trends and prevent resource conflicts before they arise.

The key, however, isn‘t just technology–it‘s consistency. Intake should be a regular part of how your organization evaluates and accepts work, not something that gets skipped when things get hectic. Whether you use Birdview or another tool, software should support your process–not replace sound judgment or team collaboration.

Final thoughts

Project intake isn‘t just a formality–it‘s a strategic tool for managing time, resources, and expectations. When done right, it helps your team focus on high-value work, confidently decline misaligned requests, and deliver better outcomes across the board.

You don‘t need to start big. Begin with a clear intake form, a simple approval process, and regular review sessions. Over time, your intake workflow will evolve into a reliable foundation for smarter, more proactive project delivery.

And if you‘re using PSA software like Birdview, lean into the features that make intake smoother–like automation, templates, and real-time resource visibility. The goal isn‘t to add complexity–it‘s to bring clarity, so your team can operate with confidence and purpose from day one.

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Frequently asked questions

1. What is a project intake process?

The project intake process is the structured method a team uses to collect, evaluate, and approve new project requests before they begin. It ensures that each potential project is reviewed for value, feasibility, resource availability, and alignment with business goals–before it‘s added to the active project pipeline.

2. How is project intake different from project initiation?

Project intake comes before project initiation. Intake focuses on deciding whether a project should move forward by gathering essential information and evaluating fit. Initiation, on the other hand, happens after a project is approved and involves planning, assigning resources, and launching work.

3. Why is project intake important in professional services?

In service-based organizations, resources are limited and often shared across clients or departments. A strong intake process helps teams avoid over commitment, improve project success rates, align work with strategic priorities, and use people‘s time more effectively.

4. What are the most common challenges with project intake?

The biggest issues include missing or incomplete information, lack of visibility into team capacity, ad hoc or informal requests (e.g. via email or chat), and approving projects that don‘t align with strategic goals. These problems lead to confusion, delays, and resource strain.

5. What should a good project intake form include?

A good intake form should capture all key project details, such as:

• Project name and objective

• Requester and stakeholders

• Desired timeline

• Budget (if applicable)

• Business impact or strategic value

• Required resources or departments involved

6. How can we prioritize incoming project requests?

Prioritization should be based on business impact, urgency, resource availability, and strategic alignment. Many teams use scoring models or intake review meetings to evaluate requests consistently and decide which ones to move forward first.

7. Can we automate the intake process?

Yes. Tools like Birdview PSA allow you to automate intake using custom forms, approval workflows, and project templates. Automation ensures consistency, reduces manual work, and speeds up the process from request to project creation.

8. Who should be involved in the approval process?

Ideally, a combination of project managers, department leads, and senior stakeholders. Including executive decision-makers–especially for larger or cross-functional projects–helps ensure alignment with company strategy and available resources.

9. How do we make sure our team follows the intake process?

Standardization is key. Make it a policy that all project requests must go through the official intake form or platform. Reinforce it with training, automation, and leadership support so informal requests aren‘t allowed to bypass the system.

10. How does software like Birdview PSA support project intake?

Birdview PSA helps centralize and streamline the entire intake process. Teams can:

• Build custom request forms

• Automatically create projects from approved submissions

• Visualize resource availability

• Track intake metrics

• Align intake with sales and CRM workflows