Case Management User Resources

After logging into Convercent, click "Report an issue via Proxy" under Quick Links on the right sidebar on your Dashboard or Case Health screens:

Things to consider:

• Be detailed as possible and answer as many questions as you can
• Location is Major Business Unit
• Double check spelling of names; double check involved parties once the case submitted

Anatomy of a Case/Report

Case access can be shared/delegated to any individual with Case Management Administrator, Moderator or Viewer security roles.

To assign/delegate a case to a member of your team, click Manage allowed users for this issue:

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Individuals added to a case will automatically receive an email with access information. By default, any individual mentioned in the filed report will automatically be denied access.

Managing cases includes communicating with the reporting party and members of your team; creating and managing tasks; adding attachments related to the issue (e.g., work papers); and creating an investigation if required.

Messages

Convercent saves all message history in a central location for each case. Those with access to the case can start a message thread with the reporting party or with others on the internal team who have access to the case. To start a new message, click Start new message with reporting party or Start new message with the internal team in the "Messages" section.

Pay close attention to whether you are selecting Start new message with reporting party or Start new message with the internal team to ensure communications are received by the appropriate recipient. 

As new messages are posted, individuals that have access to the case will automatically receive an email indicating the case has been updated (individuals will need to have their notification preference set to notify them of all changes). An email will also be sent automatically to the reporting party if the message is directed to them and they have provided their email address. The reporting party will only receive notifications if they elected to receive email updates during case submission.

Click here for a video tutorial on messages

Assigning Tasks

Tasks can also be created to help track and manage an open case. Tasks can be created by, viewed by and assigned to all individuals that have access to the case. If the task owner does not have access to the case, the case details are not viewable, but they can receive the task request.

To create a task, click Add a new task in the "Open Tasks" section.

Note: Tasks must be marked complete or email reminders will be sent automatically every day after the due date.

Uploading Attachments 

Attachments (such as screen captures, PDFs and reports) can be uploaded and made visible either to the reporting party or to team members assigned to the case.

To add attachments to the case, click Upload Files in either the "Attachments visible to reporting party" or the "internal team attachments" section. 

As new attachments are posted, individuals that have access to the case will automatically receive an email indicating the case has been updated (individuals will need to have their notification preference set to notify them of all changes). An email will also be sent automatically to the reporting party if an attachment was made visible to them and they provided their email address. The reporting party will not receive updates if they chose to remain completely anonymous to the organization and to Convercent.

Pay close attention to whether you are selecting "Attachments visible to reporting party" or the "internal team attachments" to ensure attachments are shared with the appropriate recipient. 

Opening an Investigation

Click Start New Investigation in the "Investigations" section of a case. You will be prompted to add a title, description and indicate access for team members.

Once an investigation has been created, it will appear in the "Investigations" section of the related case.

To view and edit the investigation details, click the newly created investigation or click View All Investigations from the right sidebar of your dashboard and select the investigation that you wish to view.

Things to note about an investigation:

• With investigations, you can add evidence and findings relative to the investigation.
• By default, only you as the creator of the investigation will have access to the investigation and you must assign an investigator.
• When an investigation is assigned to an investigator, the individual will now have access to the related parent case or cases.
• When the investigation is complete, the status should be updated to "Closed." All related cases to an investigation remain in the "In Review" status even when the investigation is closed; therefore, it is necessary to close the parent case as well.

C‌hange the status to "closed"

If the case has been resolved without the need of a broader investigation, the status should be updated to "Closed." To update the issue status, click In Review and select Closed on the right sidebar under "Status": 

You will then be prompted to enter the outcome (i.e., substantiation level), an overview of what lead to this outcome/conclusion and any applicable notes. The reporting party will automatically be sent an email indicating a change to the issue if an email address had been provided.

Outcomes defined:

• Substantiated — Allegations are more likely than not true (i.e., misconduct* occurred) based on the facts identified during the investigation. 
• Partially Substantiated — Some allegations in the case are more likely than not true (i.e., misconduct* occurred), and others are unsubstantiated or unfounded. 
• Unsubstantiated — Allegations are not likely true (i.e., misconduct* did not occur) based on information presented or facts identified during the investigation. 
• Substantiation Undetermined — Allegations were not able to be substantiated nor unsubstantiated. Insufficient information was available to proceed with additional inquiry or investigation.

* Misconduct is defined as a failure to meet expectations stated in the Code of Conduct, policies, laws or regulations, whether intentionally or unintentionally. 

Communicate closeout with the reporter

• For anonymous reports, or reports citing significant concern of retaliation, the ICO will continuecurrent practice of communicating the final response to the reporter. The response will include collaboration and review by the unit(s) addressing the concern and provide the anonymous reporter with assurances that their concern was vetted and addressed with assistance by an independent office.
  • NOTE: This does not include cases that are entered as proxy. Reports made direct to compliance partners are confidential but generally not anonymous.

• For all other reports where the reporter is identified and/or communicated with throughout the inquiry and/or investigative process, the unit/area lead will maintain responsibility for close out to the reporter. The ICO is available for consultation and suggested closeout language is provided below:

Thank you for sharing your concern through the VCU Helpline. Your concern was shared with leadership for review and appropriate corrective action when necessary. After thorough review, it was determined that:

• [Determination/Fact #1]
• [Determination/Fact #2]
• [Determination/Fact #3]

Conclusion #1:  Based on the above information, no violations of policies or procedures were found and we now consider this matter closed.

Conclusion #2:  Please note that anytime corrective actions are taken, including disciplinary actions, these actions may be kept confidential as a matter of protocol. This report has been tracked in our system and is now considered closed.

Again, thank you for using this Helpline. We appreciate your willingness to speak up and give us the opportunity to ensure appropriate conduct in [Department/School]. Reports like these help to maintain the integrity of VCU's civil and professional teaching, learning and working environment.

 

Document corrective actions, contributing factors and keyword tags

Corrective Actions ("sanctions")

For each involved party, note corrective actions that were taken to prevent future miscommunications/misunderstandings or misconduct from reoccurring. To do this, scroll down to the Issues Types section, click "Manage sanctions" and select the relevant actions from the provided list. If you do not see the "Sanctions" menu, you need to add an allegation and involved party, based on the report and review. Here, you can also select the individual's role (e.g., reporter, victim, subject, witness).

Contributing Factors

The “Contributing Factors Summary” is where you can document the root cause of a reported concern, allowing for better data and proactive case management. You can view or edit factors in this section:

In the behavioral factors section, you can record certain factors such as cultural, and personal behaviors that contributed to causing the issue.

In the external and organizational factors section, you can record certain factors such as pressure from management and lack of policy guidance that contributed to causing the issue.

Tags

The keyword/tag field is located on the right side-bar:

If there are elements of a case that you would like to be able to track/report on, this is where you "tag" a case with the related keyword. For example, if a reporter shares that they fear retaliation/reprisal/retribution for providing information, you should type the keyword "retaliation" into this field. Be sure to discuss internally any tags that investigators in your area should use to ensure consistency and accurate reporting. 

With Convercent you can specify a default/global notification setting for all cases and customize notification preferences for individual cases.

Notification settings include:

• Notify me of all changes – an email notification will be sent to you when any change is made the issue or the investigation.  Changes to issues that trigger an email notification include status, owner, messages, tasks and new investigations created.  Changes to investigations that trigger an email notification include status, assignment of a lead investigator, messages, activities, tasks and evidence.
• Notify me of status changes and messages (default setting) – only changes made to the status of the issue report or investigation or any new messages will generate an email notification to you. Your global notification setting automatically defaults to this setting.
• Notify me of status changes only – only changes to the status will generate and email notification to you.
• Do not notify me of any changes – you will not receive any notifications for changes to an issue or an investigation.

Customizing notification preferences for an individual case

Click the notification preferences link at the top of the issue or investigation details page as appropriate.

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If you choose to limit when you are notified about a case, you can always view the activity history to see what has been changed and by who under Recent Activity in the right-hand sidebar.

Default/Global notification preferences

The global setting applies to all cases that you have not specified an individual notification preference for.  For example, if you have explicitly specified that you would like to be notified of all changes for a specific case, this overrides your default global notification settings.

Irrespective of the default/global notification setting, you will always be notified if an issue or an investigation is assigned to you (either you are set as the owner or you are assigned as an investigator). 

To set your default/global notification settings, click the profile icon in the upper right corner and select Manage Notifications.

Then click on any of the Issue or Investigation Settings links to select your preferred notification option. Click Save to apply your new settings.