Read and update a case¶

A case detail brings together the matter being handled, the people responsible, the work connected to it and the decisions made along the way. Use it to understand the situation before adding information or taking the next action.

Availability: This draft follows the inspected final designs for case detail, adding participants and staff parties, adding a note and recording a decision. The backend supports these operations, but the inspected frontend still uses sample records and preview outcomes. The steps describe the intended experience; connected use and environment delivery remain unverified. Tasks, workflows, linked work and closure and case activity have dedicated guides. HR case/query management and employee responses have separate guides.

Before you begin¶

Open the correct workspace and find the case in the case register. Check its reference and title before making a change. You need permission to read cases; Restricted and Secret cases also require you to be the owner or an active participant. Protected HR cases require additional HR authority. A person's HR-query response view is a separate, limited experience.

Adding participants, notes or decisions requires case-management permission. Protected HR cases additionally require HR-management permission. Adding a staff party currently requires HR-management permission even for a general case. The presence of a button does not establish that you can complete its action; these controls still need connected verification.

The case must be open to add a participant, staff party, note or ordinary decision. Having a responsible job title or being named in the case is not, by itself, a grant of product permissions. Ask your workspace administrator to confirm your access when needed.

Understand the detail tabs¶

1. From the register, choose Open on the correct case.
2. Read Overview for the summary, current status and stage, responsible office, accountable position, owner and timing information.
3. Open People & accountability to understand the participants and staff members involved.
4. Open Work & relationships to review tasks, workflows and linked records, letters or external work.
5. Open Activity when you need the intended chronological view of changes. The activity guide explains ordering, entry meanings and current limits on selected detail and discussion.

The overall status is Open or Closed. A stage describes progress within that status and can vary by case type. A due date and a target resolution date serve different planning purposes. An overdue indication concerns the due date of an unclosed case; it does not establish whether every associated task or workflow is overdue.

Names may be unavailable when a people lookup fails. A blank display name does not prove that no owner or participant exists. Staff-party details are saved snapshots and can differ from a later staff profile. Review the authoritative People record when current employment information matters.

Linked work belongs to its own system. A displayed link does not grant access to its contents or prove its current state. Confirm a workflow, document or communication in its owning application before relying on its completion or delivery.

Add a participant¶

A participant is a platform user assigned a role in the case, such as reviewer or coordinator. This differs from recording a staff member as the subject, complainant or another party to the matter.

1. Open People & accountability and choose Add participant.
2. Select the person and their role. Use a role allowed by the case type.
3. Check the person and role, then choose Add participant. Choose Cancel to leave without submitting.
4. After a successful save, refresh the case and check the participant list before continuing.

The same active person cannot be added twice in the same role, ignoring differences in capitalization. A person may have different roles if the type permits them. Participation contributes to Restricted and Secret case visibility, but does not replace ordinary case or protected-HR reading permission. Do not use participation as a promise of access to every linked item.

The inspected action saves the person and role. It does not save a separate participation-context field. Participant removal, reassignment and notification delivery are not established by this guide; do not assume that adding a participant sends an invitation or message.

Add a staff party¶

A staff party records how a staff member is involved in the matter. It stores staff identity and role context; it does not automatically make that person a case participant or give them access to internal casework.

1. In People & accountability, choose Add staff party.
2. Select the staff member and an allowed role.
3. Check the selection and choose Add staff party, or Cancel.
4. Refresh the case after saving and check the staff member and role shown.

The selected staff member must be known to the case service's staff records. The same active staff member and role cannot be added twice, ignoring role capitalization. If a recently created or changed staff record cannot be selected or validated, ask support to check its synchronization rather than substituting another person's identity.

This action does not set the case's primary staff member or attach a personnel file. It does not save a contact preference or participation-context field. Staff details shown on the case should be handled within the case's permitted audience; adding the person as a party is not consent to redistribute their information.

Add a note¶

Use a note for factual context or an update that helps the case team understand the work. Use a decision when recording a decision, and a task when assigning work that needs tracking.

1. From the case detail, choose Add note.
2. Enter the note. It must contain text. Check names, facts and sensitive content before saving.
3. Choose Add note, or Cancel to leave without submitting.
4. Refresh the case and confirm the saved text before adding another note.

The current operation saves the text with the signed-in actor and the time of creation. It has no separate note audience or follow-up-owner setting. Do not rely on the frontend preview's “Case owner only” choice to limit visibility. Keep the note suitable for the case's authorized internal readers.

The storage limit is 4,000 characters. Keep the note within that limit; input validation and friendly length feedback still need connected verification. If the result is uncertain, check for the saved note before retrying so that you do not create a duplicate.

Backend note editing is restricted to the note's author, while authorized redaction can replace a note with a removal message. Those operations can also affect closed cases. Their user-facing controls and complete history presentation are not yet verified, so this guide does not promise a self-service edit or removal button. Ask authorized support for assistance with an incorrect or sensitive note. Do not assume a closed case is completely immutable or that the visible note shows every earlier version.

Record a decision¶

An ordinary decision records a result during casework. It may move the case to another permitted stage. It does not close the case.

1. Use Record decision for the selected case.
2. Choose the decision type, enter the outcome, add a useful summary and select the next stage if the case should move.
3. Check that the outcome says what was decided and the summary explains the reason without unnecessary sensitive information.
4. Choose Record decision, or Cancel.
5. Refresh the case and confirm both the saved decision and the resulting stage.

The currently supported ordinary types are Interim, Escalation and Outcome. The inspected design example “Evidence review” does not yet map to a supported type and needs correction before connected use. Closure is reserved for the separate closing operation. A decision called Escalation does not by itself create a new HR case; HR-query escalation has its own process. Ordinary escalation completion, response records and quality reviews are also separate evidence operations, with different assignment and saved-history limits.

The outcome is required. A summary and next stage are optional in the current operation. When a next stage is provided, the current case-type transition rules apply. A later type-policy change can therefore affect the stages allowed on an existing case. See Configure case types.

The signed-in actor and current time are recorded automatically. The operation does not accept a different decision maker, a backdated decision date, record classification or participant-notification choice. Its storage limits are 256 characters for the outcome, 2,048 for the summary and 128 for the stage; friendly validation remains under verification.

Even a stage named Closed does not establish that the case's overall status is Closed. Check the overall status and closure result. The full closing journey is still being documented. The inspected design's open-task and missing-closure-decision blockers do not reflect current enforcement: the backend does not require all tasks to be complete or a prior closure decision before closing. Managers should review outstanding work deliberately rather than assume the application enforces that rule.

Recover from an incomplete action¶

For support, retain the case reference, action, time and a sanitized description of the problem. Share confidential content only through an approved channel. Continue to Tasks, workflows, linked work and closure, or return to Case management, Find and understand cases or Create a case.