CASE FILES PROFESSIONAL — INVESTIGATOR WORKFLOW ENHANCEMENTS
Included in the GIB full installer, Commercial clean installer and cumulative GIB patch.
Existing edition branding and GIB-only Legal Reference Library/Operational Databases are retained. These GIB-only modules have NOT been added to Commercial.

INSTALLATION
Existing GIB: take a full backup, then apply the cumulative GIB patch to the existing application root using your normal patch process. Preserve installed.php, storage and credentials. Sign in as Administrator and complete the prompted Database Upgrade. The upgrade makes a protected safety database backup before adding five investigation tables. Do not run the clean installer over an existing database.
New installation: use the appropriate GIB or Commercial full ZIP and its normal installer. New tables are included from the start. Existing cases, statuses, users, company/contact relationships, invoices, reports and uploads are retained by an upgrade.

WHERE TO FIND THE NEW TOOLS
Staff sidebar: Field Operations > Investigation Workspace.
Inside a case: Investigation Workspace tab.
Clients: Case Management > Scope Approvals, plus the Scope Approvals case tab.
Case creation: Check Conflicts Before Opening a Case.
Reports: Review & Release includes report quality checks.

1. INVESTIGATION PLANS
Record objectives, unanswered questions, investigative steps/completion criteria, restrictions, an assigned active case-team member, due dates and progress status. Create separate plan records for independently assigned objectives. Open / In Progress / Completed / Cancelled statuses track work. The existing Tasks & Calendar remain available for appointments and operational scheduling; plan records do not silently create duplicate calendar tasks.

2. SURVEILLANCE FIELD LOG
Quick entry links: Arrival, Observation, Lost Contact, Break and Departure. Record location, activity, conditions, start/end timestamps and supporting files. Dates entered use the signed-in user's selected timezone and are stored in UTC. Each saved observation can cite evidence, case files, reports and other investigation records. Internal logs do not automatically publish to clients or overwrite report narratives.

3. UNIFIED CASE TIMELINE
Chronological investigation records, report observations, reports, tasks, evidence and case audit events, each linked to its source. Date filters and pagination are available. Date-only report records remain dates; they are not shifted to the previous day by timezone conversion. Investigator report visibility retains the existing author restrictions.

4. FINDINGS & SOURCES
Classify each finding Observed / Reported / Corroborated / Disputed / Unverified. Document the basis and confidence/limitations. Select multiple source records and attach supporting material. Cross-case sources are rejected and existing report/file permissions are rechecked. Removing a source from the current version does not erase its historical reference or permit deletion of its retained file.

5. WITNESSES & INTERVIEWS
Link a case subject/witness; record contact attempts, interview plans/questions, attributed statements, discrepancies, follow-up work and recording consent/authority as documented. Upload supported recordings or other files. A related person's name is snapshotted with the interview. The Follow-up Task button opens the existing case task form.
Validated document uploads now also support MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, MP4 and WebM with matching MIME types. The normal 25 MB document limit and hosting limits apply. The existing Client Videos module retains its separate 128 MB MP4 workflow. Interview media requires an entered recording consent/authority note. No automatic transcription is included.

6. CLIENT SCOPE & AUTHORIZATION
Administrators/case managers create a scope request with objectives, requested budget limit, restrictions and agreement/instruction reference, then choose the exact active assigned client contact and set Awaiting Client Approval. All scope fields are visible to that named contact; put internal notes in another workspace section.
The named contact can approve or decline, confirm authority and enter a decision note. The system records the contact, time, version and decision. Other contacts at the same company cannot approve or access that request just because they share a company. Approved/declined requests are preserved; additional work uses a new request.
Pending requests queue an agency email to that contact. Decisions queue emails to active administrators and assigned case managers. Delivery uses existing agency SMTP, immediate post-commit handling and cron fallback. Revoked assignments, inactive parent companies and obsolete request versions are rechecked before delivery.
These approvals document the client's authorization. They do not automatically change invoice amounts or the existing billing budget/rates. The approved record includes a Review Billing Budget link for authorized staff to apply the existing financial controls deliberately.

7. FIELD SAFETY
Create an active schedule assigned to a case-team member, with a future check-in deadline, supervisor/escalation instructions and optional location note. Check In & Set Next Deadline records a check-in and resolves earlier open alerts. Complete the schedule when safely finished.
Sharing GPS is optional: only an explicit click requests browser permission and enters one location. It is sent to the case team when the investigator saves the form. There is no background or continuous location tracking. Browser GPS requires HTTPS and user permission.
On the next scheduler run after a missed deadline, an in-app alert is created and agency emails are queued for active administrators/assigned case managers. Duplicate alerts are suppressed, old alerts become invalid after a new check-in, and supervisors can acknowledge an alert. Acknowledgement does not itself count as the investigator checking in. Closed/cancelled cases do not generate new safety messages.
Safety alerts depend on cron, email configuration, connectivity and queue processing. They are an operational aid, not emergency dispatch. Use the escalation instructions and your agency's direct contact procedures. No new automatic SMS rule was introduced for this module.

8. REPORT QUALITY
The report review page and case-wide Quality tab flag missing narrative/date/activity, observations outside a report date, possible name spelling inconsistencies, overlapping non-break field-log intervals, references to attachments when none are attached, and disputed/unverified case findings needing review. Checks are advisory. They cannot prove factual accuracy, identify every unsupported statement or replace human review. Existing submit/approve/release permissions and reviewed-report locks remain in force.

9. CONFLICT CHECKS
Search subject names/aliases, assigned client names, linked company names and intake details. Administrators search agency-wide; case managers only see directly assigned cases. No inaccessible case names/details are exposed through a global-match count. An administrator must perform the agency-wide review where necessary. A zero result does not clear a conflict. Record the review terms, decision and restrictions under Conflict Reviews.

10. EVIDENCE PRESERVATION
Evidence Preservation lists recorded SHA-256 values and check results. Verify Now checks actual bytes against the stored hash and size. Scheduled rolling checks default enabled, process up to two case files per cron run and revisit due files after seven days or the next completed sweep. Large collections may take longer than a week per sweep. Cloud-only files are downloaded for verification, which consumes hosting/network resources. An administrator may disable the scheduled sweep here; manual verification remains available.
Create a separate byte-verified working copy, or upload a separately prepared redacted/modified copy with a purpose/change note. The original is not overwritten. Copies begin as internal case documents, retain their provenance and use the existing document review/release workflow. Uploaded redacted copies must differ from originals; a different hash is NOT proof that redaction is complete. Review the content before releasing it. Original/copy relationships and cited source files are retained.
Verification failures are labelled unavailable rather than automatically accusing tampering: they can indicate mismatched bytes, missing storage or cloud connectivity failures. Review the actual result and preserve storage.

11. LEGAL HOLDS
Administrators/case managers can activate a case hold with a preservation reason. Active holds block upload deletion, evidence removal, subject deletion, report draft deletion, task deletion, scene-diagram deletion, legal/claims-record deletion and investigation-record deletion. They also block final evidence return/release/destruction dispositions while allowing documented retention/transfers.
Holds are administrative preservation controls and may be added/released on closed or cancelled cases; investigation facts remain locked. A release reason and revision history are preserved. Holds do not control file deletion performed outside the application (for example directly in Dropbox or cPanel); keep storage access appropriately restricted. Backup retention settings remain separate and unchanged.

12. CASE PREPARATION PACKAGES
Case managers/administrators select up to ten reports and thirty files (200 MB total uncompressed) and choose Internal/Counsel Preparation or a named assigned Client audience. Report PDFs, selected files, a dated index, SHA-256 manifest and server HMAC manifest signature are put in a ZIP. ZIP contents are read back and checked before download.
Internal packages may optionally include the evidence index/custody histories and workspace records with verified revision histories. Client packages reject private indexes and enforce the chosen client's existing released-report/file permissions. Package creation does not send the ZIP or grant access. The preparing manager reviews what to disclose. The HMAC is a server-side integrity record, not a public-key certificate or a guarantee of admissibility.

PERMISSIONS / SECURITY
Internal workspaces require direct case assignment plus Administrator/Case Manager/Investigator role. Administrators retain agency-wide case access. Investigators edit only records they created or are assigned; scope, holds and conflict decisions require case management. Accounting does not gain investigative access. Clients only receive their own assigned scope requests and existing explicitly released deliverables.
Mutations use CSRF checks, case locks, optimistic record versions and existing write/closed-case restrictions. Edits preserve signed prior revisions; Delete archives eligible workspace records. Source references remain retained. File/report access checks are rerun for sources and exports. Public video deliveries now additionally reject an inactive parent company.
Existing invoice client ownership, separate contacts, private invoice capabilities and billing controls are preserved. No new facial identification, background-data aggregation service or automated legal conclusion was added.

HOST / USER SETUP
No new paid API or AI subscription is needed for these enhancements. Keep the existing five-minute Case Files scheduler running; there is no extra cron entry. Confirm Agency Setup SMTP for safety and scope emails. Report PDF packages use the existing PDF/GD export requirements; ZIP support and protected writable storage are required. Use HTTPS for optional browser location. Take a hosting backup and test a new case, approval request, file copy and package download after installation.

VALIDATION / LIMITS
Native PHP 8.3 functional checks exercised the actual case, workspace, file/report/video access, deletion guards, source retention, client decision, notification validation, integrity and ZIP routines against SQLite-backed PDO compatibility fixtures. Both editions passed PHP syntax checks and browser layout checks at phone/tablet/desktop widths. Existing invoice and company-contact regression fixtures also passed. A native MySQL/cPanel installation, actual SMTP delivery, actual Dropbox transfer, GPS on a physical device and a restore rehearsal were not performed on your hosting. This is not an independent penetration-test certification.
