Cases

Data in your database might be organized into different cases. Each case contains records belonging to a particular investigation. You are assigned access to one or more cases by your database administrator.

Working on a single case allows you to focus only on those entities and links that relate to a particular investigation or series of investigations. You continue to receive alerts for records in the other cases to which you are assigned but you will not be able to view the details for those alerts. To view the details, you need to log on to the appropriate case.

You can be assigned to several cases, but to add or modify data in a case, you must select only that case when you open the database. You can log on to all the cases to which you have access (multi-case analysis mode). This enables you to view records in all the cases, but you will not be able to modify any data.

Open and closed cases

Records can only be added, edited or deleted when you are working in an open case.

Closed cases can be selected when opening the database but only in read-only mode. Closed cases are included in multi-case analysis mode.

Cases can be closed and re-opened multiple times.

Note: Only a user with both security administrator and database administrator permissions can close a case or re-open a closed case.

To change case, select File > Change Case. You can see the current case and its status in the application title bar. Cases are shown in square brackets after the database name.

Accessing a case

You are authorized to access cases by your security and database administrator.

If you are only assigned to a single case you will be connected to that case automatically when you log on, without being prompted to choose a case. When working in a single case, you can create new records as well as viewing existing data.

If you are authorized to access several cases, you can open a single case or all cases at once:

If you open a single case, you can add or modify data.
If you open all your cases in multi-case analysis mode, you cannot create new records.

Note: If you are not authorized to access any cases, then you will be unable to open the database. Refer to your database administrator for assistance on accessing cases.

Records in a case

When a single case is selected, any queries that you run will return results based only on the records in the current case. This also applies to sets and reports; for example, a set will only list the records in the current case.
Whenever you select "All records" when logged in to a single case, this refers to all the records in that case only.
When several cases are selected in multi-case analysis mode, then "All records" applies to the records in all of the cases to which you have access.

Multi-case analysis mode

Multi-case analysis mode is useful when you want to query or report on data across several cases. In multi-case analysis mode, you can view records in all the cases (open and closed) to which you have access, but you cannot add, modify or delete any records in the database, or add alert definitions. You can also view the detail of all your alerts.

When you open a database, turn on Multi-Case Analysis to specify that you want to work in all the cases to which you have access. The cases are opened in read-only mode; no new data can be added.

When you select Multi-Case Analysis, the list of cases becomes unavailable, as you can no longer select a specific case to access.

How do I know which cases I am logged in to?

When you are logged in to a single case, the case name is displayed in brackets in the title bar of the main iBase application.

If the case you are logged in to is closed, this is indicated in the title bar.

When you are in multi-case analysis mode, the iBase application title bar shows "(Read Only)" after the database name to indicate that you cannot add or modify any records in the database.

To view a list of the cases you are logged in to, select File > Properties - Database Statistics, and click Entity Types by Case.

Note: A security administrator and database administrator sees all the cases in the database. If you do not have these roles, you will only see the cases to which you have been given access.

Note: If you only have access to a single case, or there is only a single case in the database, the Entity Types by Case tab is not displayed.

Case details

Each case has the following properties:

Property	Description
Name	The name given to a case when it is created. Case names must be unique across the entire database.
Date Created	Automatically captured when the case was first created.
Date Closed	Automatically captured when the status is set to closed.
Description	Used to provide more information about the case. Entered when the case is created or updated. Can be modified when required.

Note: Cases can only be used in SQL Server databases. Cases are set up by a security and database administrator using iBase Designer.

Note: Word search is unavailable if you have a case-controlled database.