Functions of the “Advanced” ribbon

This section describes the functions of the menu items on the “Advanced” tab.

Case help

F2’s case help assists users in following the organisation’s rules and guidelines for case processing.

The case help is set up during the initial configuration of F2 and supports users in following the organisation’s established guidelines for working in F2. This means that it may contribute to keeping case work in line with the organisation’s wishes regarding its conduct.

An F2 installation typically comes with case help enabled. Depending on its configuration, it may be optional or mandatory for users to follow the case help’s suggestions.

The case help also facilitates that deliveries to the National Archives or a similar institution are performed with a minimal search for records that are not associated with a case, but should have been. Registering a record is insufficient if it must be delivered to the National Archives; it must also be associated with a case. The case help can be set up to remind users of this.

If needed, case help can be disabled for individual users. These users are assigned the privilege “No case help for saving or sending records”. For further information on assigning privileges, see Administrator.

In the case help dialogue “Suggested changes when [action]”, the dialogue title informs the user which action that caused the dialogue to open. The action may be saving, sending, forwarding or replying to a record.

The dialogue text offers more context. Suggested changes are based on one of five categories:

  • Save record.

  • Save record from external participant.

  • Send record internally.

  • Send record to own unit.

  • Send record externally.

The figure below is an example of F2 supporting the user via case help when saving a record. In this example, management has decided that records must be registered, and that their access level must be “Unit”.

If the sender has not performed these actions already, the case help will open and suggest that the user perform them.

case help suggestions
Figure 1. Case help: Suggested changes

When the user has selected the actions to be performed on the record, three options exist:

Function Description

“OK”

The case help will perform the selected actions on the record.

“Ask again later”

The case help will not perform any actions, but remains active. The dialogue reappears when relevant.

“For this record do not ask again”

The case help will not perform any actions and is deactivated for this record. It may be reactivated via the “Advanced” tab.

The case help does not suggest retaining the currently selected access level or restricting it.

Case help on answer records

If the organisation has decided that records be created with case help, the following applies:

  • Case help is activated for records created as a reply to or a forward of a record with case help activated.

  • Case help is activated for records created as a reply to or a forward of a record without case help.

  • Case help is activated for records that are replies to other records.

If case help is activated for an incoming email, and the user clicks either Reply, Forward or Reply all, F2 performs the following actions:

  • Access level is set to that of the incoming record

  • “Case help” is ticked.

  • The responsibility is allocated to the user.

  • The record is marked as read.

  • Flags are removed from “Unit line to case processing”

Access information

Access information shows users with:

  • Read access to the record

  • Write access to the record’s attached documents (including the record document)

  • Full write access to the record and attached documents (including the record document).

To access a record, the following conditions must be met:

  • The user has read access to the record.

  • If the record has an access restriction, the user must be included in at least one of the access groups.

On the “Advanced” tab, click Access information. The “Access information” dialogue lists all users with access to the record and their access rights.

The unit casework line

When a record is sent to one or more users or units using the Send function, it is possible to follow the recipients' processing of the record. This is done using the “Unit casework line”, which is used in cases of inquiries that require a reply from the recipient, e.g. a record sent to the legal department in connection with a hearing.

To enable this line, go to the “Advanced” tab and tick the field “Unit casework line” before sending the record.

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Figure 2. Add “Unit casework” line

This creates a new group of fields on the record, “Unit casework”, when it has been sent. A “unit casework” line is added for each recipient when a record is sent to multiple users or units.

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Figure 3. The unit casework line

When the email is received, the recipient user or unit can use the line in their work. A deadline and a responsible user can be assigned using the unit line. The formal responsibility for the record remains with the sender; however, with the “Unit casework” line, the recipient may delegate the responsibility for the record to another user within the same unit.

Information regarding the recipient unit’s management of the record is shared with all users with access to it. This allows the sender to keep track of the recipient’s work and for example see:

  • Whether the receiving unit and its responsible user have seen it.

  • Whether the responsibility for a record has been delegated to a certain user.

  • The status of the record.

  • Whether the receiving unit has assigned an internal deadline to the record.

Each field is described in the following sections.

If necessary, recipients of emails without the unit casework line can add the line themselves. This is done by clicking on Show all fields in the record window’s ribbon, selecting Advanced, and then clicking on the Unit casework in the bottom left-hand corner as shown below.

add unit line
Figure 4. Add the unit casework line on a received email

This adds the unit casework line, as illustrated below.

unit casework line fields
Figure 5. Recipient unit’s casework line

If a user adds the unit casework line on a record received in their inbox, F2 automatically allocates the responsibility for the record to this user. The following section describes the field in further detail.

The unit casework line’s “Seen”, “Recipient”, and “Responsible” fields

“Unit casework” contains two sets of fields indicating who has seen the record: one set for the recipient and one for the user to whom the responsibility has been allocated.

The first “Seen” field, followed by a field with the recipient unit’s name, indicates whether a user in that unit has seen the record. The second “Seen” field, which is followed by a “Responsible” field, indicates whether the responsible user has seen the record.

Even though a record has been sent to a specific user in a unit, only the recipient unit is shown until a user has actively seen the record. This is because all users in the unit can see the record and it may be a different user than the intended recipient who processes the record.

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Figure 6. The “Seen” and “Responsible” fields

When a user opens the record and clicks on Edit, e.g. to reallocate responsibility or add their own deadline (see below), F2 automatically ticks the “Seen” field and designates that user as “Responsible”. If the user reallocates responsibility after this, F2 removes the tick in the relevant “Seen” field.

This allows the sender to monitor on the record when it has been received by the unit and whether it will be processed by the user to whom it was sent or by another user in the unit.

However, the recipient can open the record to view it and untick the “Seen” field in case they cannot process it immediately.

Using the “Responsible” field, the responsibility for the record can be allocated to a user in the unit. It is not possible to allocate the responsibility for the record to a user outside the unit. When a user is specified in the "Responsible" field, the record is placed in the inbox of that user, notifying them of the reallocation of responsibility.

The “Status” field on the unit casework line

The recipient updates the status field to inform the sender whether work on the record is “Completed” or still “In progress”. This lets the sender of the record follow its status and its progress.

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Figure 7. The “Status” field on the unit casework line

The “Deadline” field on the unit casework line

The recipient may add their own deadline to inform the sender when action on the record is expected. This lets the sender keep track of the recipients' internal deadlines for processing the record.

Add a deadline to the record by clicking the calendar icon icon calendar or by entering the date in the “Deadline” field.

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Figure 8. The “Deadline” field on the unit casework line

The deadline may also be set by entering e.g. “+10”, (i.e. 10 days from today), in which case F2 automatically fills in the date when the user leaves the field.

History

When a record is edited, F2 adds a description of the activity to the record history.

Click History to open the "Record history" window and see a list of all activity on the record. The record history can be filtered by either record changes, documents, or metadata using the filter fields below the column titles. F2 starts filtering the list when the user enters text or makes a selection from the filter’s drop-down menu.

record history window
Figure 9. The “Record history” window

The dialogue can be kept open while working in F2. Click Refresh to update the list of actions on the record.

The record history is divided into three tabs which are described in the following sections.

Show record changes

Click Show Record changes to display information about changes on the record, including creation time and date and selected metadata.

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Figure 10. History: Record changes

Show documents

Click Show documents to display information about changes to the record’s attached documents, including creation time. The record document is included in this list.

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Figure 11. History: Record documents

Show metadata

Click Show metadata to display information about changes to the record’s metadata, including notes, approvals, and requests.

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Figure 12. History: Record metadata

Versioning

Versioning of records is managed by F2. A record and its attachments only appear once in F2. When a new version of a record is made, all users will see the newest version only.

It is possible to check the record’s version number and each version’s creation date and, if the user has at least write access to the record’s documents, make an earlier version active again. F2 retains all previous versions of the record, and they can be accessed from the record window.

Versioning is described in further detail below.

Creating a new version of a record

To create a new version of a record, go to the “Advanced” tab, open “Versions” drop-down menu, and click New version.

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Figure 13. New version

Sometimes F2 creates a new record version automatically. This happens when the case number on the record is changed, i.e. when a record is moved from one case to another. The new record version is created before any other changes are saved.

In certain instances, F2 suggests creating a new record version. This happens e.g. when a user saves a record’s attachments who were previously edited by someone else. A dialogue is shown from which the user may choose to let F2 create a new version.

If a user makes several successive document changes, F2 only asks to create a new version once.

Previous versions

A list of previous record versions can be found on the record window’s “Advanced” tab. Click the drop-down arrow on the menu item “Versions”. Each version is assigned a number, with the highest being the most recent version of the record.

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Figure 14. Select previous version

By default, users are shown the most recent version of the record. To see a previous version, click on it in the list. For further information, see Versions and access.

F2 will then open the previous version of the record, and a purple bar above the record metadata shows that it is version x of y.

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Figure 15. Version 2 of 3

This means that a user can always access previous versions of a record and its attachments in F2 regardless of any changes and edits. Note that old versions of chats, notes, and requests are not retained. These can only be seen on the active version.

The record must be in read-only mode for the “Versions” drop-down menu to be active.

A previous version of the record cannot be edited, but the user may make a copy of the record in the desired version and continue working with this version in a new record.

A previous version of the record can be set as the active version.

When a previous version of the record has been selected in read-only mode, click Make version X the active version.

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Figure 16. Make current version the active version

When you click on Make version X the active version, F2 creates a new version of the record based on the currently selected older version. In the example on the figure above, version 2 would be the basis for a newly created version 4.

This means that attachments added in later versions are removed and changes to the record document or metadata are reverted to their state in the previous version. However, old versions of chats, notes, and requests are not saved. This means the newest versions of these elements will be copied to the newly created record version.

Only the active version of a record can be edited.

Versions and access

The “Access” value on the newest version of a record determines whether it is accessible to a user.

The record’s access level is retained when a new version is created. For example:

Three versions of a record exist. All have the same case manager and responsible unit, but version 1’s access level is “Involved”, version 2’s is “Unit”, and version 3’s is “All”.

Because the newest version of the record has the access level “All”, all users have at least read access to version 3. The responsible case manager and other involved users can access all three versions (by accessing them from the “Versions” menu item). Users in the responsible unit can only access versions 2 and 3, while users outside of the responsible unit can only access version 3.

A similar principle applies to the “Suppl. case mgr.” field. A supplementary case manager with full write access cannot accidentally restrict their own access rights. If the supplementary manager reverts the record to a previous version to which they previously only had read access, they keep their full write access from the current record version.

Access restrictions on a record also affect uses' access to a given record version. For example:

Two versions of a record exist, both with the same responsible user and access level “All”. In version 1 the responsible user’s unit is added to the “Access restricted to” field. This means that users outside of this unit are only able to access version 2.