Don't type personal details, such as a client's name.

Emailing Clients Their Intake Link

Invite a client from the form's Client card: their secure intake link by email from your agency's address in their language, or a link to copy. Edit the template and review what was sent.

Each form has a Client card at the top of its overview. Type the client’s email there and click Invite client: the client gets their secure intake link in one email, from your own agency address if you’ve connected one, or from DS160.io on your behalf if not. The same card then shows whether they opened it and when the next reminder goes out. This guide also covers short links, the settings every new link starts with, the email’s wording and the log of what was sent.

Before you start

  • Who can do it: Owners and Admins of a Business workspace.
  • A client email: to email the link, the form needs one. Without it you can still copy a link and send it yourself.
  • Your own sending address (optional): White-label email (SMTP) sends the email from your own address instead of DS160.io’s.

Invite the client

  1. Open the form. The Client card sits under the form’s name.
  2. Enter the client’s address. If the form has no client email yet, the card has an email box: type the client’s address. If the form already has an address (you entered it when you created the form, say), the button names it: Invite maria.garcia@example.com.
  3. Click Invite client. The address is saved on the form and the link is emailed straight away. If you haven’t connected white-label email, a note under the button says the email goes out from DS160.io on your behalf.

You can also invite the client as you create the form: see Creating a Form.

To invite every applicant of a family or a tour group at once, use Invite all on the group’s page: see groups of forms. To send a family’s lead one link for every form they fill in, use the group’s Group link card, described on the same page.

Example: how this looks on the platform

Once the client is invited, the card shows where they stand: when you invited them, whether they’ve opened the link, the next reminder and when the link expires. Send again emails a fresh link; the earlier ones keep working. Click the pencil beside the address to change it. The forms list shows the same at a glance: each form is marked Not invited, Invited or Client opened link until the client says it’s ready for review. To see only the forms you haven’t sent yet, pick Not invited under the list’s Client filter.

The email your client gets

The email the client gets is:

  • From your agency — sent through your SMTP server if you’ve connected one, otherwise from DS160.io on your behalf. See white-label email for how each is sent, the daily limit without SMTP, and where clients’ replies go.
  • Headed with your logo and name from Workspace Settings → Branding, unless you turn that off (see the section on your logo below).
  • A short message containing a link of the form …/c/<code>. If you’ve set up a custom domain, the link uses it.
  • In your client’s language — the email and the intake form both use your workspace’s default client-link language, so the message matches the form your client sees.
Example: how this looks on the platform

The link expires after your workspace’s default number of days, 30 unless you change it. Once it has, the card says so and offers Send a new link.

If a client doesn’t open their link, you can have the platform chase them for you — see automatic inactivity reminders.

Every client link has a short form, like ds160.io/c/Ab3dE7gH9jKm (on your custom domain if you have one), that fits in a WhatsApp message or a text. The emails we send your client use it, and so does the copy button.

If you’d rather send the link yourself, click Or copy a link instead on the Client card: it makes a link and shows it there to copy. Without a client email, though, the client gets no reminders and no alerts about your messages, and the card says so.

Manage links on the card opens the form’s Client links page: every link made for the form, who it was emailed to, when it expires and when the client last opened it. Copy link copies a working link’s short form again, and Revoke stops a link from working. Show revoked and expired lists the links that no longer work. Once your client opens a link, Last accessed also says where they opened it from: the link email, a reminder, a message email, a copied link, or a link made with the API. Links created before short links existed have neither.

Three settings under Workspace Settings → Client intake decide how every new client link starts out:

  • Default Client Link Language — the language the client sees when they first open the link, and the language of the emails about it. The client can still switch languages inside the form.
  • Default Client Link Expiry — how many days a link lasts, from 1 to 365. New client links last 30 days unless you change it.
  • Allow any photo upload — accept any photo from the client and check it yourself, instead of holding them to the DS-160 photo rules. See Document Storage & Photo Automation.
Example: how this looks on the platform

The defaults apply wherever a link is made in the platform:

  • A link you invite the client with, or copy from the Client card, uses all three.
  • On the Client card and the New DS-160 form page, a line under the button sums up the link’s settings (for example “Link lasts 30 days · Español · Asks for consent”). Click Change to set Expires In (Days), Default Language, Hide agency branding, Allow any photo upload or the consent step for that one link.

Changing a default affects only links created afterwards: a link already sent keeps the settings it was made with. Links created through the API state their own expiresInDays and defaultLanguage, so those defaults do not apply to them.

If you use inactivity reminders, keep the last one on or before the default expiry. A reminder set after it is marked in the settings and only reaches clients whose link was set to last longer.

Your logo and name in client emails

The emails your clients get about their form start with your agency’s logo and name: the intake link, the inactivity reminders and the notices of new messages. Both come from Workspace Settings → Branding, the same ones your clients see on their intake page. If you haven’t added a logo, the email shows your name alone.

The header sits above your template, custom templates included, and the template editor’s preview shows it. If your templates already start with your agency’s name, untick Show your logo and name at the top of client emails under Branding and save.

The logo travels inside the email, so your clients see it without having to allow images from the web.

Customize the email template

By default we write the intake email for you. To send your own wording instead:

  1. Open Workspace Settings → Communication → Client email templates (Owner/Admin, Business workspaces).
  2. Pick a language. Templates are per language.
  3. Write the subject and body. You can edit both the subject and the body, with the variables below. Write the body in Rich text, or switch to Markdown to edit its source.
  4. Save.

When you send a link, we use your template for your workspace’s default client-link language. If you haven’t written a template in that language, we fall back to our built-in default for that same language — never your template from another language.

Drop these variables into the subject or body and we replace them when the email is sent:

  • {{clientLink}} — the secure intake link. Required in the body; you can’t save a template without it.
  • {{expiryDate}} — the date the link expires, in numbers in the client’s language: 30.06.2026 in Romanian, 06/30/2026 in English. No month name, so nothing is left untranslated.
  • {{agencyName}} — your agency name.
  • {{formName}} — the form’s name.
  • {{customerEmail}} — the client’s email address.

The editor shows a live preview with sample values as you type. Use Reset to default to remove your template for the selected language and go back to our built-in wording.

Review what was sent

Open Emails from the form’s overview to see the form’s email history at …/forms/<form>/emails. You’ll get a chronological list of every email sent for that form — recipient, type, subject, and when it went out — and you can click any entry to read the message body.

This log includes the client intake links you send, plus the platform’s form notifications (such as “ready for review” and client-activity updates). It’s Owner/Admin only and scoped to your workspace and form — it never exposes other workspaces’ or platform emails.

Example: how this looks on the platform

Expected result

The client gets one email with their short link, from your agency’s address or from DS160.io on your behalf, in your default client-link language. The Client card shows when you invited them and, once they open the link, when they did; the forms list marks the form Invited, then Client opened link. The email is listed on the form’s Emails page.

Troubleshooting

ProblemWhat to do
The card says “Only workspace owners and admins can invite the client.”Ask an Owner or Admin of the workspace to send the invite.
“Enter a valid email address.”Check the address in the card’s email box for a typing mistake, then click Invite client again.
The card says the client’s link expiredClick Send a new link. To give future links longer, change Default Client Link Expiry under client link defaults.
The client sees “This link no longer works”The link expired or was revoked. Check it under Manage links, then click Send again (or Send a new link) on the Client card.
The client gets no reminders or message alertsReminders follow only links that were emailed, and message alerts need a client email. Add the client’s email on the Client card and email them the link.
“The body must include the {{clientLink}} variable.”Put {{clientLink}} in the template’s body, then save.
The email did not use your templateThe template is per language: write one in your workspace’s default client-link language. A language without one uses our built-in default for that language.
Clients’ replies don’t reach your inboxReplies to our client emails go to the form’s Communication thread. See Communicating With Clients.