Creating contacts at the beginning of your case provides a handy list of all the witnesses, parties, and other persons or entities that make up the cast of characters in your case. You'll also be able to link specific contacts to facts by typing the "@" key as you enter the text of a fact in your chronology. Linking contacts to facts is particularly important when it comes time to run reports on witnesses.
This article covers:
Global Contacts vs. Case Contacts
Contact records can be accessed in two different places within your CaseFleet account:
The Contacts tab in the menu bar of a case. The list of contacts found here includes only those that have been assigned to the specific case file.
The global Contacts menu, is accessible in the left-side toolbar. Contact record visibility in the Contacts menu is dependent upon your assigned permissions level:
Administrators and Standard users can see all contact records in the account
Limited users can see any contacts created by their user profile, as well as contacts assigned to any cases to which they have been given access.
Creating Contacts
To add a contact to your case, visit the Contacts tab located in the horizontal case menu bar and click the "+ Assign a Contact to this Case" button. From this dialog box, you'll be able to create a new contact or select an existing contact from your database to link to the case. (To access your database of all contacts from ALL cases, click Contacts on the left side of your screen.)
NOTE: Users with Limited or Guest permissions can only see contacts included on the case(s) to which they have access or contacts that they have created.
When you add a contact to a case, we also recommend assigning a role to the contact. A role can be general, like "witness" or "defendant." It can also be specific, like the name of an employer. You can assign multiple roles to a single contact. The filter on the contacts page provides a fast way to narrow a long list of contacts to a targeted list. Note: Administrators can edit and create custom contact roles that appear in every new case by visiting Account Settings > Contacts.
You can also create contacts inline as you work from within the document reviewer or from the Facts tab. To learn more click here.
Creating a Contact Alias and @-Name
The Alias field in the contact form allows you to create a short name for a contact that will appear on your chronology and in your reports. To create a contact alias, simply enter the shortened name in the "Alias" field of the contact form. If you do not wish to create an alias, leave the field blank and the full contact name will continue to appear on your chronology and in your reports.
Once a contact has been added to a case, you will be able to link the contact to facts using their "@ Name". A contact's @ Name is auto-generated upon creation but can be customized in the "@ Name" field on the contact record.
NOTE: A contact's @-Name must be unique for each individual contact.
When linking contacts to a fact the full contact name will still appear in the drop-down list, so it's easier to identify the correct contact, as demonstrated below:
To view a short video tutorial on working with Contacts, click here.