Review a catering inquiry before quoting

A restaurant receives an inquiry for a 60-person office lunch. The organizer has a date and budget, but delivery access and dietary requirements still need confirmation. Use a reviewed intake process to decide the next action.

Before you start

Enable Form builder and Pipeline follow-up in Plugins in a workspace you control. Both start disabled. Choose the response reviewer and opportunity owner. Connect a mailbox only if you intend to send a message.

The fictional demo workspaces show the shared screens and simulated actions. Build this example configuration in your own workspace using fictional records first.

Work through this example

Capture. Record event date, guest count, delivery location, budget range and dietary requirements. Use fictional details for the first test.

Decide. Confirm menu feasibility and delivery access before offering a final quote. A person with responsibility for the service makes this decision.

Hand off. Confirm the agreed menu; verify dietary requirements with the organizer; assign delivery access confirmation. Keep incomplete confirmations visible rather than marking the whole request ready.

Complete the workflow

1. Open Forms and create a draft named Restaurants & Catering inquiry. Include name, usable email, event date, guest count, delivery location, budget range and dietary requirements. Keep sensitive records in the appropriate specialist system.

2. Preview and save the draft, then publish its share link. Submit a fictional response using the situation above before sharing it with customers.

3. Open Responses and inspect the submission. Accept the appropriate response into the pipeline and check the matched contact. Resolve an ambiguous match before proceeding.

4. Open the opportunity in Pipeline. Assign its owner and a next action: Confirm menu feasibility and delivery access before offering a final quote. Record a realistic follow-up date; confirm any booking or purchase separately.

5. Run Pipeline follow-up. Review the stale opportunities or overdue next actions it identifies and update the source record. Use the report to decide which source records need attention.

Check the result

The accepted response appears on the correct contact and opportunity. An owner can identify the pending decision and next action without reopening the original inquiry. Record the 60-person lunch as a quote request, with the organizer as the contact. Keep the dietary review and loading-access question visible until the organizer and restaurant have resolved them.

Adapt it for your business

POS orders, table reservations and kitchen production scheduling remain in your specialist tools unless a separate integration has been implemented and tested. Start with a link or reviewed reference to the source record.

Use Build an extension and the development brief when those systems need a connection. Specify the source of truth, permitted data, person who approves changes, duplicate handling and the receipt that proves completion.

What to check

If the contact match is incorrect or ambiguous, resolve it before updating the opportunity. If accepting a response has an uncertain result, inspect the response and linked opportunity before trying again. Pipeline follow-up is a read-only report; complete the chosen follow-up through the appropriate source screen and check its result.

Keep the approval required by the action policy. Restrict customer data to what the workflow needs. Enabled plugins use your workspace permissions; hosted infrastructure and connected providers may have costs, and AI conversations use your configured model. Verify the saved source record before relying on the result.