# Create a request

Ask clients or partners for documents or answers through an encrypted form they can fill in without an account.

A **request** turns "please send me your passport and last three payslips" into a secure form. The people you ask upload their files or answers through a link; everything is locked for you before it leaves their browser.

> **Security details**
>
> - A request has a group of its own. The sender's browser encrypts each answer and each uploaded file's key with ECIES to the request group's hybrid exchange public key (X25519 + ML-KEM-768). Only holders of the group's private key can open submissions: you, the readers you add and, for a group request, the group's members.
> - Senders are write-only: a guest holds no key that opens any submission, including their own after sending, and a sender with an account sees only their own.
> - Each sender gets a throw-away key pair in their browser, used to sign their audit entries and to prove ownership when retracting.
> - For **Open** requests the public key is served to anyone who has the link. Submissions are rate-limited per address and can require a CAPTCHA.

## Starting a request

Choose **New Request** from the **New** menu, or open **Exchange › Requests** and click **New request**.

### Who is involved

- **Title**: what you need, in a few words.
- **Ask**: who should send you something. Pick accounts from your contacts, or type a guest's email address.
- **Answers to**: who, besides you, may read the answers. Only accounts can be readers. In a group request, every group member can read the answers.

### What you need

Either list the **files you need** as named slots, such as "Passport" or "Proof of address", adding more with **Add another**. Or choose **Use a form instead** to build a form with text, text area, date, number, select, file, email and yes/no fields.

Add an optional **Message**; it is encrypted like everything else.

![The New request window with a title and two file slots](https://databeamer.eu/docs-screenshots/en/new-request-form.png '1: title, 2: the files you need, 3: create.')

### How it is fulfilled

- **Collaborative** (default): one submission completes the request for everyone you asked. Good for "someone on your team, please send me X".
- **Individual**: each person you asked submits separately. Good for collecting the same documents from several people.
- **Open**: anyone with the link can submit, as often as needed. Shown when your plan includes open requests. Good for intake forms you publish on a website.

### When it ends

- **Retention** decides how long submissions are kept: from 1 day up to a year, capped by your plan.
- **Deadline** closes the request to new submissions at a given date.

Click **Create**. Your plan limits how many requests can be active at once; closed and deleted requests do not count.

Next: [Manage submissions](https://databeamer.eu/en/docs/requests/manage-submissions).