Create a project folder for every new client
A folder named after the client appears in Drive the moment intake is submitted, with the brief already inside it.
New client onboarding form submitted in formformform
Create a Google Drive folder named after the client
One-directional. A submission triggers the action — nothing is written back into your form.
The first hour of a new engagement is spent making somewhere to put things. This flow does that part on submission: the intake form arrives, a folder named after the client's company appears under your Clients folder, and the answers they gave are already written into a brief inside it.
Small consultancies and agencies use it because the folder exists before the kickoff call is booked. Nobody has to remember the naming convention, and the account manager who joins in month three finds the original brief where every other client's brief is.
Setting it up
- 1
Publish the Consulting Client Intake Form template and make Company Name required — it becomes the folder name, and a blank one produces a folder called nothing.
- 2
In Drive, create the Clients parent folder that all of these will sit under, on a shared drive if more than one person delivers the work.
- 3
In Zapier, choose formformform as the trigger app with New Submission, select the intake form, and pull a test submission through.
- 4
Add the Google Drive Create Folder action, set Folder Name to Company Name, and set the parent to your Clients folder.
- 5
Add a second Google Drive action, Create File from Text, and point its Folder field at the folder ID the previous step returned rather than at Clients.
- 6
Name that file something predictable like Brief, and fill its body with Client Name, Industry, Current Business Challenge, Desired Outcomes and Budget Range so the folder is never empty.
- 7
Decide who gets access. The folder is created by the connected Google account, so share it with the delivery team — or rely on shared drive membership — before the first real client arrives.
- 8
Submit a test intake, confirm the folder and the brief both appear in the right place, then switch the Zap on.
What maps where
Using the Consulting Client Intake Form as the starting point. These are its real fields — swap in your own and the mapping works the same way.
| Form field | Google Drive |
|---|---|
| Company Name | Name of the new Drive folder |
| Client Name | Contact line in the brief inside the folder |
| Industry | Context line in the brief |
| Current Business Challenge | Main body of the brief |
| Desired Outcomes | Outcomes section of the brief |
| Budget Range | Commercials line in the brief |
Variations worth knowing
Drive's Copy File action copies files, not folder trees. To get a standard structure, chain three more Create Folder steps after the first — Contracts, Assets, Notes — each using the new client folder's ID as its parent. Every engagement then starts with the same shelves in the same order.
Prefix Folder Name with the submission date formatted as year and month by a Zapier Formatter step. The Clients folder then lists in the order accounts were won rather than alphabetically, which suits a team that mostly wants to see what arrived recently.
If something isn't arriving
Create Folder makes a folder every time it runs and never checks for one with that name. Swap it for the Find or Create Folder action, which reuses a match when the company name is identical, and keep company names consistent by offering a select list where you can.
The action's Drive field defaults to the connected account's My Drive, and the parent picker only lists folders from whichever drive is selected. Choose the shared drive in that first dropdown, then reselect Clients as the parent and re-test.
Frequently asked questions
Does the client get access to the folder automatically?
No. The folder is created inside your Drive with your team's existing permissions, and nothing is shared outward until you share it. That is usually what you want, since the brief contains budget answers you may not intend the client to reread.
What happens when someone leaves Company Name blank?
The action fails or creates an unnamed folder, depending on the Drive response. Make the field required on the form, and add a Zapier Formatter step with a default value so an empty answer falls back to the client's own name instead.
Can the new folder link be shown to the client after they submit?
No. The Zap runs after the submission is complete and only ever sends outward, so the form has no way to display the folder link. Email it from Drive once you have added the contract, which is usually the moment it becomes useful anyway.
Related automations
- Archive every submission as a dated text file
Each submission becomes a dated text file in one shared Drive folder, readable by anyone with access to it.
- Collect speaker details into a per-session folder
Every speaker submission opens a folder for that session in Drive, with the bio, topic and AV needs already filed.
- Log customer suggestions as files the team can browse
Every suggestion becomes a file in a shared Drive folder, grouped by type so the whole team can browse the archive.
- Save every candidate registration to a hiring folder
Every registration becomes a candidate file in one shared hiring folder, named so a recruiter can scan the roster.
- Turn a quote request into a draft agreement
Each quote request copies your master agreement in Drive and fills in the client, the service and the scope.
- Append every support request to a running log
Every help desk submission appends a line to one shared Dropbox text file, so the team reads the day's requests in order.
Build the form first
The automation needs somewhere to fire from. Publish a form, connect it once, and every submission from then on runs this flow.
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