In ShareDo, master data records are created for different types of entities, e.g. organisations, persons or teams. An example of a master data record would be an organisation's name, contact details, and the address of each branch. It is best practice to use master data records as participants so that there is no duplication in the system. Ideally, you want to have master data records for orgs etc so that you aren't duplicating data.. When we assign the organisation to a Matter, they become a participant on that Matter, and you need to select what of the organisation’s information is relevant to the Matter. 

For example, which branch address will you use for the Matter? In this example, the organisation is the master data record, and the branch addresses are a party type of that participant type. 

Terminology

• Participant: this is the entity that participates in a case.
• Participant Role: the role the participant will play in a piece of work. For example, a person who raises a complaint is given the role of Complainant. Other typical roles include Employer, General Practitioner, and Member of Public.

Work Type > Action bar > Participants > Manage Participants

If configured, another way to access Participants in the Work Item view is on the left-hand navigation.

A blade opens and shows unassigned participants and participants currently assigned to the case. 

Unassigned

The Unassigned aspect displays at the top of the blade. 

• Mandatory
  Some work types may insist that Participants are assigned to specific mandatory roles. If so, a red warning message appears if the participant is missing. There may also be phase guards or other controls that prevent a case from progressing until a participant is assigned to the mandatory role.
• Recommended
  Some work types may classify specific roles as recommended. The case can progress without these, though warnings will appear in orange.
• Optional
  All remaining roles on a work type are classed as optional.

You can filter the unassigned participant list to show mandatory, recommended, and optional participants.

Assigned

The participants shown are a mixture of entities (individuals, organisations, teams, etc.). The icon to the left of their name helps identify this.

You can also tag each entry with multiple tags like party type or role ole to indicate the nature of their involvement in this case. E.g., Matter Owner, Defendant.

The assigned list shows all participants involved in this case. However, note the following Ribbon Bar buttons, which act as filters: 

• All - this is the default. 
• Case Team - restricts the entries to those internal Sharedo users/teams directly responsible for the case. Select this button to remove any external participants.

Security Team

Security Team displays a list of all users and teams with access to this case and their level of access as defined by the ShareDo administrators. For example, a Contributor can amend case details, whereas a Reader cannot. 

Use the icon to reassign or remove the participant and the . . . icon for more actions or activities configured for that participant.

The process to add a participant to a case always begins by selecting the type of participant you wish to assign and then checking to see if there is an ODS entity for that participant, in other words, if they already exist in ShareDo. If a participant does not exist, you can create them and add their contact and location details and any competencies they may have. If a participant already exists in ShareDo, you can review and amend their details if required. You can also check their involvement in other cases for reference or conflict purposes. 

Entities are then assigned a role. At this stage, you may need to capture further information about the participant that relates specifically to their involvement in this case. The participant is then added to the case, and their details can be seen from a portal widget.

This assignment process can start by either of the following 2 ways:

• Select the role to assign the participant to. ShareDo uses this to help locate the participant. For example, when searching, ShareDo displays suggested participants from this and other cases based on the selected role.
• Select the type of participant to assign. As mentioned above, this helps drive the process. For example, when searching, ShareDo displays suggested participants based on the party type, such as expert.

After that, the process is essentially the same, regardless of the method chosen.

Work Type > Participants icon > Manage Participants

In the top right of the ribbon bar are two icons.

Add Participant

Select Add Participant.

Select the type of the participant to assign. You can further refine the search by filtering. This example uses the person party type, and we'll filter the search in the step below.
Selecting the participant's party type opens the search blade.  Click the filter icon to apply a filter. Add party type filters by clicking the text box and selecting the appropriate filter. The image here shows the Expert party type selected. The results will be restricted to the selected party type. If required, you can select one or more competencies or locations to refine the search criteria further.
Enter the name of the participant to search for. Leaving the search box blank and clicking on the search icon (or hitting enter) lists ALL the participants in ShareDo that match the applied filters.      At this point you can edit their details.  See Edit Person/Organisation Details.
Click the Link icon to the right of the participant.  The Edit Participant blade opens.  Select the Role this participant has in this work type and a reference is applicable.   Click Save and Close.

 

 

In both cases, if the participant you want to add does not already exist in ShareDo, you can create it and then assign it to a case. 

Create New Participant

When you are confident the participant doesn’t already exist, click the Add New button at the bottom of the Search blade.

ShareDo uses the options selected previously to help refine/speed up the process.  For example, if you chose to add a role of Witness, in ShareDo a Witness is a person therefore the Add/Edit Person blade displays. Enter the details of your new Participant, including the Contact details and preferences.
Some Party types may have further fields to capture specific details.
Click Save to save progress and present the nav bars at the foot of the blade. See the notes below for how to complete this data.
Click Save and Close. The selected Participant will be added to the list of Assigned Participants in the chosen role.

 

 

Edit Participant Blade

Work type > Manage participants > Click on participant's name

You can edit the role and reference number for the participant relating to this work type.   The Organisation/Person details can be edited by clicking on the icon next to their name.  For details see Edit Person/Organisation below.   Any other details relating to this party type can also be edited.  These details are different depending on the party type.   Connections display in the Network Connections aspect and also the Connections blade.  For details see Manage Participant Case Connections.

Edit Person/Organisation

A participant's details can be edited at different times:

• You can edit a participant whilst adding them.  Click the Edit icon on the person/organisation from the search results.  If you create a new person, you can add these details at creation.
• For already assigned participants: Work type > Manage participants > Click on the participant's name > Next to the Person/ Organisation click the Edit icon

Party Type Specific Information

The party type field at the bottom of the Individual Details aspect. The party type entered here will determine what extra fields exist on this aspect to capture further information about the participant. For example, if the party type is Expert, an extra aspect displays to capture their details. A participant may belong to more than one party type. Accordingly, several additional aspects may be presented.

Competencies

The navigation (nav) bar shows how many competencies (i.e. skills or specialisms) the current participant has. Click to open the blade and view them.
Use the box at the top to filter through the Competencies displayed on the blade. Use the button at the bottom right to search through and add new Competencies. Click when finished.

Role Specific Information

Dependent upon the role selected, further aspects may be presented. These will capture information specific to the selected person, in that role, for that particular case.  In this example, we are capturing witness details concerning a statement.
In this example, we are capturing whether the Complainant is a vulnerable person.

Locations

This nav bar presents the address (location) details of the participant. The Locations nav bar shows the total number of set locations.
All locations linked to this participant are presented. Use the icon to edit a selected address. Use the icon to disassociate an address from the participant (but still retain the address on the ShareDo system so other participants can use it). Use the button at the bottom right to add a new address.
Select the type of new address to be created. E.g., Correspondence. More than one location type can be selected. If you selected the wrong location type, click the X on the tag to clear the location.    There are two methods of entering an address. Either use the Find Address search box by starting to type the address and then selecting the correct one from the results or click the Enter address manually link to open a form to enter the address details. Use the Map section as a visual confirmation of the address. If you use the Enter address manually link, the blade will automatically present the appropriate boxes for you to complete.

Connections

This nav bar shows how many other work items the current participant is connected to.
In this example, the participant has been assigned 75 times across three main types of work: Instructions, Matters, and Tasks. Click the arrow to the right of each entry to view the details. E.g., Matters.
In the blade that opens, use the burger menu to the right of each entry to open the matter (or enquiry or task) or the icon to open the blade view of the matter.
You can also use the Connections blade to establish connections between one participant and another. E.g., employee and employer.  Click Add New at the top of the blade.
The possible relationships available are presented. The participants party type determines these.  To add a relationship, click the appropriate hyperlink to open a search blade.
Search for the participant you wish to link to (or create it, if required), then click the icon.
A further blade may open to capture the nature of the relationship. Complete the details, then select Save & Close .
The relationship now appears at the top of the user profile connections blade.

Activities on Participants

Find the Activities that can be run in the Edit Participant Ribbon Bar icons. See working with documents and working with tasks for full details of how these functions work.

When you're managing participants in a case, you can manage their case and network connections, depending on their participant role, from the edit participant blade.

Also see Configure Participant Role Connections.

Manage Case Connections

From within a case, use the Manage Participants icon to open the blade.

Scroll down to the list of assigned participants and click on the relevant participant. The Edit Participant blade opens. Depending on this participant's role, either or both the Case Connections and Network Connections nav bar is displayed.

We'll deal with case connections in this article, but network connections work similarly.

Under case connections, click + case connection. The type of connection available to this participant is shown in a pop-up. Hovering your mouse over this pop-up shows existing connections and a search box to find other possible participants.

Enter some details for the participant for whom you want to create the connection in the search, and click the search icon. Choose the participant from the list. That participant's blade opens for you to confirm it is the correct one. Click Save & Close to continue.

The connected participant you chose is now shown in the Case Connections section.

You can unlink the participant using the unlink icon.

Connections Blade

This nav bar shows how many other work types the current participant is connected to.
In this example, the participant has been assigned 75 times across three main types of work: Instructions, Matters, and Tasks. Click the arrow to the right of each entry to view the details. E.g., Matters.
In the blade that opens, use the burger menu to the right of each entry to open the matter (or enquiry or task) or the icon to open the blade view of the matter.
You can also use the Connections blade to establish connections between one participant and another. E.g., employee and employer.  Click Add New at the top of the blade.
The possible relationships available are presented. The participants party type determines these.  To add a relationship, click the appropriate hyperlink to open a search blade.
Search for the participant you wish to link to (or create it, if required), then click the icon.
A further blade may open to capture the nature of the relationship. Complete the details, then select Save & Close .
The relationship now appears at the top of the user profile connections blade.

This Participant Summary portal widget  contains options to add/edit or remove the Participants from the case. When configuring the portal for this work type, you can rename the widget. This example uses Key Participants. As the name suggests, these are the important Participants on this case.

Add New Participant

Use the + icon at the top of the widget to assign a new Participant. ShareDo will allocate the Participant to the correct widget after the Participant has been created. Select the appropriate party type to begin the process.

For full details see Assign Participants

Remove/Reassign Participant

Use the hamburger icon to the right of a Participant to access the Actions menu, including the Remove/Reassign blade. Validation Depending upon the Participant’s role, ShareDo will warn/limit what actions can be undertaken when attempting to Remove or Reassign Participants. Mandatory Roles The Case Owner Role cannot be left blank as it is a mandatory role. However, the role can be reassigned to another Participant. Note the orange button that starts the reassign process.

Tasks If a Participant had tasks assigned to them, a warning appears if you attempt to remove the Participant. The Review tasks button shows the list of the Participant's Tasks and allows the user to manually reassign the tasks to another Participant if required. Alternatively, another Participant can be assigned to the role instead, and they will inherit the Tasks from the previous Participant.

Edit Participant

The Participant, and their role in this case, can be edited via the Actions Edit option.  See Edit Participants.

Activities

The Activities options are also action buttons in the Edit Participant blade. See working with documents and working with tasks for full details of how these functions work.