Working with cases

You can partition data in your database into different cases. Each case contains records belonging to a particular investigation.

You can then assign access to groups of users to one or more cases. To create and manage cases, you need both Database Administrator and Security Administrator permissions.

Note: Before you can create a case, you need to activate the database for case control; seeActivating case control for details. You cannot use case control if i2 iBase Database Replication is installed on your machine. You cannot use cases with Scheduler.

You can assign users to several cases, but to add or modify data in a case, the user must select only that case when opening the database. Users can view records across all the cases to which they have access, but they will not be able to modify the data.

Each case has the following properties:


Property	Explanation
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 is first created.
Date Closed	Automatically captured when the status is set to closed.
Description	Used to provide more information about the case. Can be updated when required.

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

Opening and closing cases

Data can only be added to an open case. Closed cases can be selected by users when opening the database, but only in read-only mode. Closed cases are included in multi-case analysis mode.

You can close and re-open a case multiple times. Each time you close a case, the Date Closed column in the Select Case dialog is automatically updated.

To close or re-open a case:

In the left pane of the Database window, select Cases.
Double-click on the case whose status you want to change.
In the Case dialog, select Open or Closed in the General page.

Assigning users access to cases

Users assigned to a single case will be connected to that case automatically when they log in, without being prompted to choose a case in the Select Case dialog. When working in a single case, users can create new records as well as viewing existing data.

Users authorized to access several cases can open a single case or open all cases at once in multi-case analysis mode. When opening all cases in multi-case analysis mode, new records cannot be created.

To assign users to a case:

In the left pane of the Database window, select Cases.
Double-click on the case to which you want to add or remove users.
Select the Users tab to add or remove individual users. To assign a user to this case, double-click on their name, or click once to select them and click Add.
Added users appear in the list on the right. To remove a user, double-click on their name in the Users that can access this case box or click once and then click Remove.
Select the Groups tab to add or remove Data Access Control groups of users. To assign a group to this case, double-click on the group name, or click once to select it and click Add. To remove a group double-click on their name in the Groups that can access this case box or click once and then click Remove.

Note: Users who are not authorized to access any cases will be unable to open the database.

For help on setting up users and groups in the database, see Creating users and Creating security groups.

Removing users from cases

When you remove a user from a case, you deny the user access to any of the records in the case.

If alerting is in use, then:

the user is removed from any alert definitions that they own (and only a system administrator can change the alert definition)
the user's alert definitions remain active for other users
no alerts are removed from the user's alerting Inbox (but the alert details can no longer be viewed)

Adding data to a case

If you have data that you want to add to a particular case, the quickest way is to import that data into the case. See Importing and exporting data.

If you have a large amount of data, you can use Bulk Import to import it into the required case more quickly than by using a standard import. See Bulk importing.

You can also add records manually, one at a time, to the case in iBase User. Select the required case

Records in a case

When a single case is selected by a user, any queries that are run will return results based only on the records in the current case. Similarly, sets and reports will only include records in the current case.

Whenever a user selects "All records" when logged into 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.

Note: In contrast, the alerting Inbox always shows all the user's alerts regardless of the current case. However, the user can only view the details for an alert when they are logged into the case that contains the alert definition.

Multi-case analysis mode

Multi-case analysis mode is useful for querying, browsing or reporting on data across several cases. In multi-case analysis mode, users can view records in all the cases (open and closed) to which they have been given access, but they cannot add, modify or delete any records in the database.

Deleting a case

To delete a case, right-click on the case name in the left or right pane in the Explorer view and select Delete.

Important: Deleting a case purges (hard-deletes) all records in the case, the audit history for those records, all alert definitions and any alerts remaining in the alerting inboxes of the subscribers.