Clients: People Who Come Back

Clients come back: a renewal, a new trip, a visa for their spouse or children. A client is the customer you deal with, one for each email address in the workspace. Their forms can be for them or for their family: a parent filing for themselves and three children is one client with four forms. Every form of theirs links to them, so one page shows their forms, filings and Application IDs. Use this guide to add clients, link forms to them and find forms that already belong together.

Before you start

Who can use clients: anyone in a business workspace. A personal account keeps its family together in My family instead.
What a client holds: a name you choose and an email, which every client must have. Everything else is on their forms, one for each person they file for.
One client per email address: no two clients in a workspace share an address, whatever its letter case. A team member’s own sign-in address is never a client’s.
One client per form: a form has at most one client. A client can have any number of forms.

Clients and groups

A client is one customer, followed over time. A group holds forms filed together for one trip, such as a family or a tour. They work side by side: a family’s group holds four forms, and when one parent deals with you for all of them, the four forms are linked to that parent as their client.

Adding clients

Open Clients in the sidebar, under Groups.
Click New client. Give them a name and an email, then Create. The client’s page opens. An address another client already has is refused, and the box says so: Ana Popescu already has this email. So is a team member’s address: This is a team member’s address, not a client’s.

You can also start from a form: on a form’s overview, click Link to a client, then choose A new client for this form (it starts with the form’s name and client email, and needs an email to be created) or Someone already in Clients. If the address under A new client for this form is already a client’s, the dialog says This is Ana Popescu’s email: the form joins them. and Link links the form to that client. On the New DS-160 form page, pick someone under Existing client in the Client section, or type a Client email (see below), and the new form is linked as soon as it is created.

Example: how this looks on the platform

Once a form is linked, its overview shows a line such as Client: Ana Popescu · Forms: 3, with Change and Remove. Removing the link leaves the form and the client as they were, except the form’s client email: it is the client’s, so it comes off with the link. The Forms list shows each form’s client under its name, and the Client filter shows one client’s forms.

A client’s page

A client’s page lists every form of theirs, newest first, with when each was started, when it was filed, the visa classes filed for and the CEAC Application ID.

Edit renames the client or changes their email; a client cannot be left without one, and the new address cannot be another client’s or a team member’s. Archive hides them from Clients and leaves their forms linked; Show archived finds them again and Bring back restores them.

One client for each email address

Each email address belongs to at most one client in the workspace, and a form’s client email is the email of the client it is linked to.

On a form without a client, typing an address on the Client card, or in Client email on the New DS-160 form page, links the form by that address:
- If a client already has it, the form joins them: This is Ana Popescu’s email: the form joins them.
- If no client has it, a Client name box appears with This adds a client with this address. On the Client card it starts with the form’s name. On the New DS-160 form page it starts empty, with the form’s name as a hint; left empty, the client is named after the form.
- If it is a team member’s own sign-in address (some agencies type their own when the applicant has none), the form keeps it with no client: This is a team member’s address: the form keeps it, with no client.
On a linked form, the Client card shows the address with From the client Ana Popescu. Changing it there changes the client’s email, and so the client email of all their forms: This is Ana Popescu’s email: changing it here changes it on all their forms. Another client’s address or a team member’s is refused. It cannot be cleared there; Remove on the form’s client line takes it off.
Edit on a client’s page changes the client email on all their forms, and Merge gives the moved forms the client’s email.
On the New DS-160 form page, picking someone under Existing client puts their email in Client email, where it cannot be changed. A copy of a form for the same client email is linked to the copied form’s client.

Finding people who already have forms

The first time you open Clients, DS160.io compares the workspace’s forms and lists those that seem to be for the same person, whatever their email addresses: the same passport number, or the same name and date of birth. Demo forms are left out.

Click Review on Forms that may belong to the same person.
For each suggestion, check the forms, then click Same person to link them all to one client (a new one, or the client some of them already have), or Not the same person. When none of the forms has a client yet, Same person opens A new client for these forms and asks for a name and an email, starting from the newest form’s name and the forms’ client email; then click Create and link forms. If that address is already a client’s, the dialog says This is Ana Popescu’s email: these forms join them. and the forms are linked to that client. A suggestion you turn down does not come back for the same forms.
Click Look again later to compare the forms again, after new ones are added.

A form’s overview also says when it looks like a client you already have, with Link to and the client’s name.

The comparison reads the answers when it runs and keeps only which forms belong together, never the passport number, name or date of birth that matched.

One customer added twice

A customer who wrote from two email addresses can end up as two clients. On one of the two clients’ pages, click Merge and choose the other under Client to merge. Its forms move to this client and take its email, and it is archived with a link to the one it was merged into.

Troubleshooting

There is no Clients item in the sidebar. Clients are for business workspaces. In a personal account, use My family.
The box says “Ana Popescu already has this email.” Each client has their own address. Open Ana Popescu in Clients and link the form to them, or, if the two are the same customer, Merge them.
The box says “This is a team member’s address, not a client’s.” Type the client’s own address. A form without a client can keep a team member’s address, but no client can have one.
Why did two of my clients merge? They shared an email address when one client per address began. Each such set was merged into its oldest client, forms included; the others are archived and marked merged, and Show archived finds them.
A suggestion names two different people. Click Not the same person. Twins who share a name and date of birth, or a passport number typed on the wrong form, can look the same.
A form is missing from a client’s page. It is linked to another client, or to none. On the form’s overview, click Change or Link to a client.