All Your Investigations, One Place: How to Create a Case
SEiNG makes investigations effortless with Cases: your tool for tracking and managing CCTV investigations with your team, all in one place. This guide will show you how to create a case, add multiple recordings, manage existing cases, and redact faces.
How to create a Case in SEiNG
When you see a piece of CCTV media that requires further investigation, you can turn it into a case to facilitate collaboration in your team.
Navigate to Recordings and use the smart filters to find the relevant media. Alternatively, a case can be created from your Context page or your Watchlist.
Click on the green button to open the recording.
Click the grey “Actions” button in the top right corner. A menu will drop down. Select “New Case”.
A pop up box will appear, where you can add the details of your case:
- Name: add a title
- Notes: a short description
- Select labels: make it easier to filter your cases
- Assignees: add your team to your case
- Settings: choose to notify assignees or keep the case private
Select “Media” to preview the recordings in the case.
When you’re finished, click the green “Create Case” button.
By default, a Case will be stored for 1 year. However, this retention period is customisable, ensuring you only store footage as long as you need it under GDPR.
How to add multiple recordings to a Case
You can add as much footage to a Case as you need, so you can bring every angle of an incident together for faster, clearer decision-making.
Navigate to Recordings and use the smart filters to find the footage you want to add to your case.
Select the footage and click "Actions". A drop down will appear. Select "Add to Case".
The "Add to Case" pop up will appear. Use the filters to choose which Case you'd like to add the recording to.
Your Recording will now be added to your Case.
How to access Cases in SEiNG
As soon as you log into SEiNG, Cases can be accessed via your Dashboard. Alternatively, in the sidebar menu, click Analysis and then Cases.
Hit refresh, and you’ll see all your cases, plus the status (amber for open, green for approved, red for rejected), title, notes, a preview of the footage, and Devices.
Cases are sorted by most recent by default, with your own Cases at the top. Cases that have been shared with you will be shown below.
How to open and manage an existing case
Find the case you need using the search function or filters in the green bar. You can filter by:
- Sites
- Devices
- Group
- Owner
- Labels
- Status
Once you find the case you’re looking for, click it to view more details.
Your case will show a media window, where you can view the footage assigned to the case. Use the "Next" and "Previous" buttons to flick through the footage, or turn on Autoplay to automatically view the next piece of footage.
Below the media window, you will see details including the date and time of the recording in view, and which cameras have been assigned to the case.
Next to the media window, you'll see four navigation tabs:
Media tab for footage review
This media player allows you to select and play footage within the Case.
You can also view more details about specific media by clicking the three dots and choosing "open media detail". Alternatively, select "download media" to download it.
Attachments to add files to a Case
Upload PDF, images, and video attachments to your cases, to help support your evidence.
To upload a new attachment to your SEiNG Case, select the "upload files" button. You'll now be able to drag and drop files, or upload a file from your folder.
You'll now be able to view your new attachment, along with any others previously uploaded.
Note that images render within the browser; to view attached PDF or video documents, click download. Do this by clicking the three dots on the attachment and clicking "Download". You can also delete attachments from this dropdown.
Details tab to alter settings
In the details tab, you can:
- Add a description of your case
- Categorise your Case by adding labels
- Assign team members and tick “Notify New Assignees” to automatically alert them
- Alter the visibility of your case - private for only you, or public for other SEiNG users
Comments tab for collaboration
Keep your team in the loop by adding comments. Simply type your comment and press send.
Open case detail
Below your media window, you'll see three buttons:
- Delete - to remove a Case
- Download - to locally save a Case
- Open detail - to open Case review in a dedicated window
Within "Open Detail", you can view the same information as within the Case preview - but with further export and sharing options.
Select the grey "Actions" button in the top right corner of the page.
The drop down will show:
- Approve Case
- Reject Case
- Generate Export
- Download Export
- Share Case
- Delete Case
Sharing a Case
Share your Case as a secure link to anyone who needs it.
Under the "Actions" drop down on your selected Case, choose "Share Case".
A pop up will open.
Under the Details tab, enter the email addresses of those you wish to share the case with. You can also customise how long the link is live for - 1 hour, 1 day, or 1 week. After this time, the link will expire to keep your data safe.
You can also see active links already shared and their expiry date. Select the bin icon if you wish to delete a link to a shared Case.
The next tab is Media. Your link can include all media within the Case, or only select pieces.
Finally, the attachment tab allows you to choose whether you want to include attachments within the link.
When you're ready, click "Send Invite".
After a few minutes, the recipient will receive an email. For security purposes, we will ask them to verify their identity by sending a 6-figure verification code to their email.
Once this is submitted, they will be able to view the Case in their browser - without the need for a SEiNG login.
Their access to the Case will be revoked when the link expires.
Approving and rejecting Cases
Once you have checked the case, you can approve it or reject it depending on the follow up needed:
- Approve the case if follow up is required. The status symbol will turn green.
- Reject the case if follow up isn’t required. The status symbol will turn red.
Your case will now be filterable by the assigned status.
Once you have approved or rejected the case, you can re-open it by clicking the grey “Open Case” button.
Blur what matters: redacting faces in a Case
Once you have created your Case, open it within the Cases tab and select open detail to see the media within your case.
Click the grey Actions dropdown in the top right corner and select Run Workflow. Enhanced Redaction will be selected by default. Select the footage within your case that you want to be redacted, and click the green run workflow button.
The workflow can take a few minutes to run, depending on how much footage you are redacting.
How to view redacted footage
Once the workflow finishes, each piece of media will show 2 versions. SEiNG never edits your original footage — instead, it creates a separate, duplicated copy to apply the redaction to.
To view the redacted version, click the 2 versions dropdown on the media item and select Redaction v1. Faces will now appear blurred when you play the media.
If you need to confirm the original footage hasn't been altered, you can check it with the verification tool.
Your redacted footage can now be downloaded or shared within the case or as a secure link.
How to adjust or remove redaction
Need to unblur someone specific — say, keeping one person visible while everyone around them stays redacted? Or need to edit where the redaction is on your footage? Click the three dots on the media item and select Redact.
From here:
- Toggle redaction off or on for a face. As you hover over the toggle, the corresponding selection will turn yellow to highlight which track you are adjusting.
- Click and drag a redaction box to reposition or resize it.
When you're done, either:
- Click Save to apply your edits to the existing Redaction v1, or
- Click Generate video to save your edits as a new version instead.
How to share a Case in SEiNG
How to download a SEiNG Case
Cases allow you and your team to track investigations without footage having to leave the platform. However, if you want to download media - for example, to share it with a team member who doesn't have SEiNG access - you can download what you need.
Navigate to Cases and open the Case you'd like to download.
Click the grey "Download" button in the bottom left corner of the case. All of the media within your Case will now be downloaded as a zipped folder.
Open the folder in your downloads. You will be able to view:
- Player (HTML)
- Playlist (M3U)
- Each individual recording (MP4)
One file, multiple downloads: SEiNG's media player
View multiple downloaded recordings from your Case without juggling individual files with the media player.
In your zipped folder, select the HTMP file "Player".
A window will open on your browser. This is the media player.
Use the left-hand recordings panel to switch between clips, or click Next and Prev to move through footage sequentially.
Keyboard shortcuts are displayed in the bottom-right corner of the player for quicker navigation.
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