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Your First Engagement

This is the full walkthrough: from a cold prospect to a client-ready deliverable, following the Diagnose → Deliver lifecycle. Allow 30–60 minutes including evidence upload and an assessment run.

Before you start​

  • You should be signed in. If you're setting up the firm for the first time, complete the Org Admin steps in the Quick Start first (invite team, enable practices).
  • Have a few of the client's documents handy (PDF, Word, Excel/CSV) to upload as evidence.

Step 1 — Create the client​

  1. Open Prospects and add the company you're pursuing, or go straight to Accounts and create the client company.
  2. Convert the prospect to an Account when they become a client.

See Prospects and Accounts.

Step 2 — Create the engagement​

  1. Go to Engagements → New.
  2. Fill in the engagement details: name, objective, industry, and the practices it draws on. The industry selection seeds the engagement's ontology and KPI tree.
  3. Optionally pre-seed from the prospect/account you just created.

You'll land on the engagement Overview — the home screen with the lifecycle rail, objectives, team, and quick actions.

Engagement Overview

Step 3 — Build the team​

Open Team, add the colleagues working this engagement, assign their roles, and set the engagement lead. See Team.

Step 4 — Collect evidence​

Open Data & sources:

  1. Upload documents — drag in the client's files. Each is indexed so the AI can retrieve and cite from it. Watch the indexing status reach ready.
  2. Connect sources (optional) — link a database, CRM, or document store. Your firm's org-level defaults are inherited and can be overridden per engagement.
  3. Collect data (optional) — launch a topic-based AI interview to capture evidence conversationally from a stakeholder.

See Data & sources and Evidence Collection.

Step 5 — Diagnose​

Open Diagnose and pick a method — Assessment or AI baseline. (Causal & impact and Financial model live in the Analysis workspace.) To score against a framework, use Assessment:

  1. Pick a practice (Step 1 of 2) — diagnoses are organised by consulting practice.
  2. Pick a framework (Step 2 of 2) — choose a framework from that practice. Runs are versioned, so you can re-run as evidence improves.
  3. Generate answers — click Run Assessment; AI drafts an answer for each question from your evidence, streaming in as each completes.
  4. Review determinations — check each answer's confidence and cited evidence; a sign-off counter tracks your progress.
  5. Accept answers — accept to unlock analysis and carry the resulting gaps into Deliver.

Diagnose — method switcher and practice selection

See Diagnose and Running Assessments.

Step 6 — Work the gaps​

Turning gaps into committed workstreams and a roadmap, and tracking their delivery, now happen within Diagnose and Deliver — the former /plan and /execute routes redirect there. Accept the AI-suggested workstreams, sequence them with owners and timing, and each workstream stays linked back to its source gap so delivery never loses its "why".

Step 7 — Deliver​

Open Deliver and produce a client artifact:

  • a narrative report,
  • a deck built in Deck Studio,
  • or a KPI dashboard.

Every artifact is grounded in your evidence and registers as a deliverable on the engagement (and rolls up into the firm-wide Knowledge Vault).

Deliverables

You're done​

You've run a complete engagement. From here: