Analysts record primary requirements in the list of Issues or User Stories. You can give the customer access to the project so that they can register requirements on their side themselves. This does not affect the cost, because such users are free. If you need to isolate part of the project information from the customer, simply configure a special role for them and grant it access rights that allow requirements to be recorded but do not allow other data that is sensitive for the project to be viewed or changed.
If there are many customer representatives and they are not experienced with modern trackers and ALM systems, you can offer them the technical support portal. It is a separate site with a simplified interface where you can publish useful information, leave requirements, discuss them with analysts, and track their status and degree of readiness.
You can collect requirements sent by email. Tell users the email address to which they should write their requests. Messages are automatically converted into Requests and placed in the Issues list.
Import a list of primary requirements (Issues) from Word, OpenDocument, or Excel documents. Business and system requirements can be imported as documents from DOCX, ODT, and other file formats used with text editors.
When importing requirements from Excel, you can build a requirement hierarchy. To do this, add a column named "Section number" (the name is entered in the first row). Specify a section number for each requirement in the imported list, for example 1, 1.1, 1.1.2, and so on.
All unstructured information about requirements, such as letters, files, document scans, spreadsheets, and so on, can be stored on pages of the project Knowledge base. The data can be imported (converting it to the internal ALM format) or attached as files to Knowledge base sections.