When you have an assignment that needs to be scheduled on a certain day and/or time (e.g. a day of surveillance), the best way to accomplish this is through the Trackops event system. Scheduling events within Trackops allows managers to quickly find the best investigator for the job, easily communicate upcoming assignments, alert investigators when their activities are upcoming, and track investigator locations through mobile event check-ins.
The easiest way to create a new event is to navigate to one of your open cases that has work to be scheduled. From here, click the New button at the top of the case, and then select New Event.
- Title: The name of the event, as you want it to appear on the agenda.
- Case: The case number associated with this event.
- Service: Optionally assign a case service to this event. By specifying the service, you'll be able to better isolate certain types of events (e.g. surveillance) when filtering from lists or calendars.
- Calendar: The event calendar you wish to place this event on. Calendars offer a great way to color code and organize your events. It is usually recommended to create separate calendars for each type work you schedule.
- Status: The current status of the event.
- Start At: The date and time the event is scheduled to begin. You can specify an alert (see below) to let the investigator know when this date is approaching.
- End At: The date and time the event is scheduled to end.
- Timezone: If the event is to occur in a different timezone (i.e. different from your system timezone), you can optionally choose a new timezone for the event. This is useful when you are communicating event information to investigators outside of your local area.
- Address: If you have a desired start location for this activity, enter it here. Events with locations will appear on the case map, and are easier to track through mobile check-ins. When an event is connected to a case, any existing case or subject address on the case will be automatically available to select and pre-populate the address fields via Case Addresses.
- Staff: If you already know who you're going to assign the case and/or event to, you can select them from the Staff dropdown. If you need assistance in determining the best available investigator for the job, use the Recommend link, located to the right of the assignment box (see below for details).
- Alert: If you want an Upcoming Event Notice emailed to the assigned staff, configure that here. Please note, you can configure email templates to change the content of these notices.
Investigator Recommendations
By clicking the Recommend link, the system will provide a list of the best qualified investigators to work the activity based on a variety of scheduling criteria. Read more about Using the Investigator Recommendation Engine for a better understanding of the criteria used and the features available.
After the user has been assigned to event, you will see their name listed next to the Assigned To field within the new event form. At this point you will be able to optionally set an alert to remind the investigator of the upcoming assignment, and save the event.