Key Concepts
Understand the core building blocks of Servantium -- engagements, quotes, resources, and the lifecycle that connects them.
The engagement
The engagement is the core unit of work in Servantium. It represents every client project from the first conversation through delivery and close-out.
An engagement captures:
- Client and stakeholder information — via linked accounts and contacts
- Scope and deliverables — via quotes with sections and line items
- Resource assignments and capacity — via resource plans
- Notes and context — from every client interaction
- Documents — generated from your scoped work
- Custom data — via configurable template fields
- Learning data — what actually happened vs. what you estimated
Think of an engagement as a living record that gets richer over time. It starts as a lead and evolves into your organization’s memory of that project.
The engagement lifecycle
Every engagement flows through six phases:
| Phase | What happens |
|---|---|
| Discovery | Understand client needs, capture context in notes |
| Estimation | Build structured scope and pricing in quotes |
| Proposal | Generate documents from your estimate |
| Activation | Win the deal, assign the team via resource plans |
| Delivery | Execute with real-time visibility into resources and capacity |
| Learning | Capture outcomes; feed back into future estimates via the Service Catalog |
The key insight: learning feeds back into discovery. Each completed engagement makes your next estimate more accurate through better similar matching, a richer Service Catalog, and stronger AI-generated quotes.
Quotes
A quote is a structured pricing breakdown within an engagement. Quotes are built from:
- Sections — Logical groupings like “Discovery & Requirements” or “Implementation”
- Line items — Individual resources (people/roles) or materials within each section
- Markup — Applied per item to reach your target margin
- Discounts — Quantity-based tiers applied automatically
Quotes calculate cost, markup, discount, and total automatically at the item, section, and quote level. See the Quotes & Pricing guide for full details.
Resources
Resources are your team members and contractors. Each resource has:
- A name and organizational tags
- Resource plans — assignments across engagements with hour allocations per time period
- Capacity records — available hours, target utilization, and projected utilization
Resource planning operates at three intervals — daily, weekly, or monthly — configured at the organization level and overridable per plan. See the Resource Planning guide for full details.
Accounts and contacts
Accounts represent client companies. Contacts represent people at those companies. Contacts belong to accounts, creating a simple CRM structure that links to engagements. See the Contacts & Accounts guide for full details.
Documents
Servantium generates PDFs directly from your engagement data using document templates. Scope, deliverables, timeline, and pricing flow from the quote into professional documents — no copy-pasting between tools. See the Documents guide for full details.
Notes and AI
Notes capture context from every client interaction. They are the raw input that powers Servantium’s intelligence layer:
- Vector embeddings generated from notes enable semantic matching of similar engagements
- AI context extraction turns unstructured notes into structured template field values
- AI quote generation uses notes alongside similar engagements and the Service Catalog to build complete quotes
See the Notes & AI guide for details on notes, and the AI & Intelligence guide for the full AI overview.
The institutional memory engine
All of these concepts connect through the institutional memory engine — the system that makes your organization smarter with every engagement:
- Notes feed vector embeddings
- Embeddings power similar engagement matching
- Similar engagements inform AI quote generation
- Quotes feed the Learning Catalog with up-to-date costs and items
- The catalog improves future quotes and AI generation
- Completed engagements strengthen the cycle
The institutional memory engine runs automatically. You do not need to configure or train it. Just use Servantium — capture notes, build quotes, complete engagements — and the system improves on its own.
Templates
Servantium uses three types of templates:
| Template type | Purpose | Managed in |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement templates | Define custom fields for engagement types | Settings > Engagement Templates |
| Quote templates | Pre-populate quotes with standard structure and items | Settings > Quote Templates |
| Document templates | Define the format and merge fields for generated PDFs | Settings > Document Templates |
See the Settings guide for details on managing templates.
Tags
Tags provide cross-cutting categorization for engagements, resources, accounts, and other objects. Tags are organized into color-coded categories managed in Settings. See the Tags guide for details.
What’s next?
- Engagements — Creating and managing engagements in detail
- Quotes & Pricing — Building accurate, margin-aware quotes
- Resource Planning — Assigning team members and tracking capacity
- Documents & Proposals — Generating client-ready deliverables
- Notes & AI — Capturing context and AI-powered insights
- Contacts & Accounts — Managing client relationships
- Dashboard & Navigation — Finding your way around the app
- AI & Intelligence — All AI capabilities in one place
- Administration — Configuring your organization Configuring your organization ing your organization
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