Structure

Users are the individual accounts assigned to case team members. Users may be:

Internal Users - Users belonging to an Organization.

Invited Users - Users belonging to another Organization but invited to work on one or more Cases.

Users are individuals who have been supplied credentials to log in to CaseGuide.

• The unique identifier for each user is their email address.

• Each User belongs to one Organization. Users within an Organization are called Internal Users.

• Users may be guests of any number of other Organizations or Cases.

• A User that has been invited to join one or more Organizations or Cases is called an Invited User of that Organization.

Organizations

At the top level are Organizations.

• Organization settings are determined by Users assigned the “Manage organization” Role. This would include Organization Roles, the default Organization timezone, etc.

• Each User belongs to one Organization. Users within an Organization are called Internal Users.

• Users may be invited to join other Organizations. A User that has been invited to join an Organization is called an Invited User of that Organization.

  • Inviting a User into an Organization grants that user access to all Cases within that Organization, dependent upon the default Role assigned to the Invited User.

  • Instead of inviting a User into an Organization, inviting a User into individual Cases will limit access to those specific Cases.

  • Case-specific Roles can also be assigned to Invited Users.

• Each Case belongs to one Organization. This is based on the Organization of the User who created the Case.

• Organizations are responsible for licensing and billing for all Internal Users.

• Invited Users do not count toward the license count of the inviting Organization.

Cases

Cases are the electronic case file where data is imported, organized, analyzed, and reviewed before reports are generated.

• Case settings are determined by Users assigned the “Manage case” Role. This would include Case Roles, the Case timezone, etc.

• Cases may be shared with Users in other Organizations.

  • Inviting a User into a Case grants that user access to only that Case within that Organization, dependent upon the Role assigned to the Invited User.

Case-Related Structure

Cases include multiple structural elements. Key elements include:

• Dashboards

• Folders and Sub-folders

• Team Documents

• Source Documents

• Work Documents

• Notes

  • Notes can include a special field called “Event Date” that will appear in the Timeline Report

• Tasks

• Events

• Persons

• Categories, which can be applied to Documents, Notes, and Persons

• Bates Stamps

• Special designations, such as Discoverable

• Reports

Dashboards

The Personal Dashboard is unique to each User and shows:

• An Organization Selector. (Every user is an Internal User to their own Organization and may belong to multiple other organizations as an Invited Users; this selecotr allows switching between Organizations.)

• Recent Cases. Up to five Cases are listed based on recent activity within those Cases. Selecting a Case in this list is a shortcut to both the Organization and Case.

• Tasks. Up to five Tasks are listed based on due date to serve as reminders for upcoming Tasks.

• Events. Up to five Events are listed based on event date to serve as reminders for upcoming calendar events.

Folders and Sub-folders

Team Documents, Source Documents, and Work Documents can be organized within Folders or Sub-folders. Folders and Sub-folders can be modified during the Import and Organize steps of the process and viewed during the Analyze step of the process. Folders and Sub-folders can be used in coordination with Categories to organize information within the system.

Team Documents

Team Documents are collaborative documents that users can edit directly within the system. Team Documents are often internal and used as part of investigation management. Team Documents can be created in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats.

Team Documents can remain internal, or they can be promoted to Source or Work Documents if needed to be included in the case files.

Source Documents

Source documents are files that are uploaded by a user during the Import step in the process. Source documents are often referred to as “originals,” but in an electronic case file this is most likely the initial scan of an original, hard copy document. Note that CaseGuide can input and recognize almost any type of digital source document, from Microsoft Office products (such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), image files (such as JPG, PNG, and GIF), video files (such as MP4, AVI, and MOV), and audio files (such as MP3, WAV, and WMA). Source documents can be scanned as images, without any pre-calculated optical character recognition (OCR).

Work Documents

Work Documents, sometimes referred to as Working Documents, are copies of Source Documents or excerpts from Source Documents that are to be Analyzed, Reviewed, Bates Stamped, etc. Work Documents are created in the Organize step in the process.

The default format used by CaseGuide is PDF; the system will attempt to create all Work Documents in the PDF file format.

• Example: Source Documents that were uploaded as Microsoft Word documents and converted to Work Documents will be rendered as text-searchable PDFs.

• Example: Source Documents that were uploaded as a scanned image, OCR’d by the system, and converted to a Work Document will produce a Work Document as a text-searchable PDF file.

Notes

CaseGuide provides Users the ability to assign notes to documents. Notes can include metadata, including the User who created the Note, the Event date the Note refers to, the Body or content of the Note, and the Categories assigned to the Note.

Tasks

Tasks allow Users to set reminders for to-do’s. Any case user, with the appropriate permissions, may assign a task to themself or other users and track the status of each task over time. For example, report due dates may be assigned to a user to ensure the task is completed on time.

Events

Events allow Users to set reminders on key dates in the future. For example, interview, depositions, and court appearances may be listed as events so that all case users are aware of the schedule.

Persons

CaseGuide provides Users the ability to create personas in the system and assign them to work documents, much in the same was Categories are applied. These personas are custom and are referred to as Persons in the system. Persons are specific to Cases.

Note that Persons are an element of a Case and not to be confused with Users. Users are members of the case team that have been granted access to the system.

Categories

Users can create custom Categories and apply certain structural elements, specifically Work Documents, Persons, and Notes. Categories can be used to quickly locate elements or generate custom Reports. Categories can be used in coordination with Folders and Sub-folders to organize information within the system.

Bates Stamps

Bates Stamps, also known as Bates stamping or Bates numbering, is an indexing method commonly practiced in the legal and medical fields to uniquely identify documents. CaseGuide provide Users two mechanisms to apply Bates Stamps to documents:

1. Automatically, using a custom numbering format and numbers tracked by the system

2. Manually, if a page or set of pages were Input with existing Bates Stamps

Special Designations

Documents can be assigned special designations, including:

• Not Started

• In Progress

• Completed

• Discoverable

Reports

CaseGuide enables Users to produce Custom Reports which can be downloaded and/or saved for future reference.

*Microsoft, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.