Some work arrives in pieces. A new client sends their ID in one email, proof of address in the next, and the company documents a week later. A case collects those pieces, checks them, and once everything is there and correct, hands the case to a queue for a bot to capture.
The bot reads the mail. Automize matches each email to its case, merges what was read, runs the checks, and decides when the case is ready.
1. Before you start
Cases is a plan feature, and it is off by default because it keeps client data on Automize.
- Your plan must include Cases.
- A company admin switches Cases on in Settings › Standards and templates › Functionality.
- A company admin then opens Settings › Privacy and data › Cases, reads what will be kept, and switches on Keep case data on Automize.
Cases keep what your bots read from emails and documents (names, ID and registration numbers, amounts, addresses), the sentence each value came from, and the results of the checks. Email bodies and document files are not kept; they stay in your mailbox or document store. Case data is encrypted, deleted a set number of days after each case closes, and all of it within a day of switching this off. See Privacy and data.
2. Three things to set up
- Record type: what one thing needs, such as a person or a company. Its fields, the documents it needs, the checks on them, and how it links to other records (a company's directors and shareholders). Record types are shared across case types.
- Case type: the job, such as onboarding a client. Which record types can sit at the top, the queue that captures it, and how chasing works.
- Case: one top record and every record linked to it. A case with one person and a case with a ten-company ownership chain work the same way.
3. Record types
Record types are under Library › Records. The quickest start is Add the legal-entity record types on a case type's menu. It adds person, company, trust, close corporation, partnership and foreign company, with the links between them. They are an example: change or delete them as you need.
A record type's fields, checks and levels are kept as JSON in Fields, checks and levels (JSON). Checks can also be added and changed with the point-and-click check editor on the record type's page.
A check can also ask an outside service, such as a sanctions list. Only a company admin can add one, and only for a service that looks something up and changes nothing.
4. Create a case type
Go to Library › Cases and add one:
- Name and Case number prefix (one to eight capital letters or digits). Cases are numbered PREFIX-1, PREFIX-2 and so on.
- Record types at the top of a case: the keys of the record types, separated by commas.
- Capture queue: the queue a ready case is sent to.
- A person signs off before capture: when on, a ready case waits for someone to send it.
- Process that replies to the sender: the process that sends chase emails (see chasing).
- Switched on: each case type has its own switch.
Under more: Chase what is missing, Hours between chases, Chases before a person takes over, Where documents stay, Days to keep a case after it closes (90 by default), Close a case after this many days with no email (60 by default), Ownership threshold, %, Reuse a party already captured in an earlier case and Team that gets the tasks.
5. Let a bot read the emails
In a bot process that reads a mailbox, add the step Send email to a case. It reads the email and its attachments for what the case type asks for, and sends only the facts to Automize, never the files. Two more steps help keep the mailbox tidy: File email in its case folder and Save case documents from the mailbox.
Automize puts each email in a case, in this order:
- The case number in the subject, such as
[CO-3105]. - An ID, registration or trust number it already knows.
- The email thread.
- Otherwise, a new case.
A name or date of birth only suggests a match for a person to confirm. Only open cases match. An email that matches nothing, or that matches a case being captured, waits on the case type's page. Type a case number and click Put in this case, or Start a new case.
6. Case numbers in subjects
Every email Automize or the bot sends about a case starts its subject with the case number in square brackets, such as [CO-3105] Documents still needed. People forwarding the email keep it, which is how later emails find the right case.
7. Chasing what is missing
On a case, Ask the sender replies to the latest email with a list of what is still missing. It runs the case type's Process that replies to the sender, which answers in the same email thread.
With Chase what is missing on (the default), Automize also does this by itself: every 24 hours, at most twice, unless you change the numbers. It only chases a case that owes the sender something, such as a missing value, a missing document, or a check only the sender can fix. A case waiting only on you is not chased.
After the last chase with no answer, the case goes to Needs a person. An email that brings something new starts the count again. An out-of-office reply does not.
8. The case page
A case shows what is Still missing, the Checks and their results, every email on its Email thread, and where each document is. For a company or trust, Look-through shows who owns and controls it, multiplying the percentages down the chain.
- When two emails disagree, the case shows The emails disagree. Choose one. Click Use this on the right value.
- A person can Accept a failed check. It counts as passed until a value it reads changes.
- Send to capture adds the case to its capture queue.
- Close without capturing closes it. Nothing is captured.
A case that needs a person, or whose capture failed, becomes a task in the Action Center. The task holds only the case number and a link.
9. Capture
A ready case becomes queue items on the capture queue: one item per record, owners first. A record that something links to must be on the target system before the records that link to it, so the bot never points at a record the system does not have yet.
When the bot finishes an item, it returns the target system's ID for that record, and Automize sends the next records. Someone already captured in an earlier case is linked, not entered again, when Reuse a party already captured in an earlier case is on.
If an item fails for good, the case fails; sending it again sends only the records that did not make it.