Chart Store

The i2 Analyze Chart Store provides server-based, secure storage for the charts that you create. You can share charts from the Chart Store with your colleagues, or take advantage of the organizing and indexing features that make charts easier to find.

Analyst's Notebook has features that help you to interact and work with charts in ways that enable you and your team to gain insights and collaborate on investigations. Everyone with authorization can quickly access the latest intelligence and add to the data, ensuring that the most up to date information is available to all team members.

Discovering charts

How you search for charts in the Chart Store depends on the deployment of i2 Analyze that you connect to:

If your i2 Analyze server includes the Chart Store and the Information Store, you can use Quick Search to find charts by specifying terms that they might contain. The returned results include records and charts that match the search terms. You can then refine your search or use filtering to focus on finding charts.
Other search tools in Analyst's Notebook do not support the discovery of charts.
If your i2 Analyze server includes the Chart Store but not the Information Store, use the Shared Charts button on the Home tab to search for charts.

Opening charts

Analyst's Notebook provides two ways to open charts from the Chart Store:

You can open charts from the returned results window. When you select Open, you are presented with the Save As window. You must save a local version of the chart, and then the chart will open.
The File menu maintains a list of the most recently saved charts. If you previously uploaded a chart to the store and it appears in the list, you can open it from the File menu. If changes have been made to the chart by another user, you are notified to get the latest version.

Sharing charts

You can share charts by uploading them to the Chart Store. By doing so, you benefit from access to all the information that accompanies the chart in the store, such as notes, source references, and version history.

To upload or update the current chart in the Chart Store, click Upload Chart on the Publish tab. If the chart has not been uploaded before, Analyst's Notebook displays the Chart Inspector, where you can provide a name and other information for the uploaded chart.

If the Chart Inspector is already open, you can click Upload to achieve the same result.

Note:

If you have a large number of charts to share, and you have permission to do so, you can use the Upload from Folder feature to upload charts to the Chart Store in bulk.

The status of the current chart is displayed in a number of places to help you, including in the application header. You can click Check for Updates on the Publish tab to ensure that you are working with the latest version.

If another user causes a chart to change in the Chart Store while you edit a local version, you cannot upload your changes until you accept the update from the store. A good strategy for working with the Chart Store is to save the local version regularly, and to upload a new version of the chart when your edits become significant.

Note:

You can continue to share .anb files with colleagues, but if the charts you share have also been uploaded to the Chart Store, those files can quickly diverge from the versions in the store. Reconciling the differences between such charts can be a time-consuming process.

Chart identifiers

All charts created since the introduction of the Chart Store receive a unique identifier that does not change when you save or upload them. This identifier powers the Chart Store's versioning feature and helps to prevent duplicate charts from being uploaded.

However, if you want to use an existing chart as the basis for new, distinct work, then you need to create a duplicate file with a new identifier. To do so, use Save As Copy from the Save As menu. You can then upload the new chart to the Chart Store independently from the original.

Chart Inspector

The Chart Inspector is available from the Publish tab. Chart Inspector provides everything you need to view and edit information about your chart. You can use the Chart Inspector to add properties, notes, security settings, and source references to your charts; to check for updates; to upload a new version; or to delete it from the store.

Security

You can assign security settings to charts in the Chart Store in the same way as for records in the Information Store. However, security conflicts can occur if the chart has different settings from the records it contains. For example, a chart with unclassified settings might contain controlled records.

When you upload a chart that exhibits a security conflict, Analyst's Notebook provides the option of proceeding with the upload by clicking Upload anyway. Alternatively, you can abandon the upload by clicking anywhere else on the screen and returning to the chart.

Version history

The version history of the current chart is available from the Publish tab and from inside the Chart Inspector. The most recently uploaded version is listed at the top, and you can click Get latest to open it if you don't already have that version. You can also select an earlier version of a chart from the list and click Make latest to work with it as the latest version.

If you do reinstate an earlier version of the chart, it moves to the top of the list and all the previous versions are retained in the version history.

You can delete specific, previous versions of the chart from the list, but not the latest version. If you want to use a previous version as the basis for new work, use the Open as copy option from the Version History window. (The Save As Copy command from the Save As menu works in exactly the same way.)

Deleting charts

When you delete a chart through the Chart Inspector, you remove all versions of the chart from the Chart Store. If other users have downloaded the chart, their copies become orphaned, as do any files that you have saved locally. To delete specific versions of the chart, use the version history instead.