Investigations
Fire and arson investigations, cause-and-origin work and any other case that needs restricted, need-to-know access. A case is visible only to its members, every read is written to an access audit, evidence items carry an append-only chain of custody, and findings must be approved by someone other than their author before they can be recommended as an amendment to the incident report.
Feature flag: Records.Investigations; requires the View restricted records permission and case membership. Menu: Records → Investigations.
Opening a case
Open case — you become the lead investigator. Give the case a title, kind (fire cause & origin, arson, explosion, fatality, hazmat, other), an optional linked occupancy and call, jurisdiction and reference number. Add members afterwards; only members can read the case.
Working a case
| Panel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Case members | Add / remove members and their role. |
| Linked incidents | Link an incident report; linking pins the incident revision at that moment — findings never change the incident report. |
| Evidence | Evidence number, kind, collected from / on, storage location, current custodian. Transfer custody records who gave, who received, why, when and the resulting state (including transfer to an external party such as a lab). |
| Case notes | Dated notes with subject and body. |
| Referrals | Referrals to law enforcement, insurers, prosecutors, with agency and status. |
| Findings | Cause classification (accidental, natural, incendiary, undetermined), cause detail, origin description, incident summary, recommends amendment. Record findings sends them for approval; a reviewer or the lead (other than the author) approves or returns them. |
| Access audit | Who opened the case and when. |
| Export packet | A packet of the case for the prosecutor or insurer. |
Close case makes notes read-only (a closure reason is required); Reopen case is available to the lead.
Setup examples
| Department | Notes |
|---|---|
| Fire department with investigators | Investigators role granted View restricted records; every fire with loss opens a case linked to the NERIS report; findings drive the NERIS incident analysis. |
| Small department | Open a case only for suspicious fires; add the county fire marshal as a member when handing over. |
| Security / industrial | Internal incident investigations (theft, process-safety events) with HSE as lead. |
Technical reference
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Routes | /User/RecordInvestigations/{Index,Details,Open,Custody,Export} |
| Model | RmsInvestigationCase, RmsInvestigationMember, RmsInvestigationEvidence, RmsCustodyTransfer, RmsInvestigationNote, RmsInvestigationReferral, RmsInvestigationFindings, RmsAccessAudit |
| Flag / permission | Records.Investigations; ViewRestrictedRecords (59) + case membership; RecordsPreventionAdmin is not sufficient |
| Protected data | Case content is always protected-classified; under ADP it is encrypted at rest. |