The Information Sharing and Collaboration module empowers administrators to configure how users within the organization collaborate and share information. These configurations determine each user's access and authority over records created by others, ensuring that sensitive data is shared securely and appropriately across departments and roles.
By defining collaboration rules at both the role and individual user levels, administrators can tailor access permissions to meet operational needs while maintaining compliance with organizational policies. This module supports dynamic, organization-wide, private, and user-driven collaboration models, allowing for flexible and scalable information-sharing setups.
Whether managing cross-departmental investigations, coordinating team efforts, or enabling external partnerships, this module serves as a central hub for controlling visibility, editing rights, and approval workflows across all record types in the system.
Is Collaboration Appropriate?
Collaboration within the OWL system is designed to support structured information sharing based on user roles and license levels. The need for collaboration depends on the direction of access and the hierarchy of user roles.
Appropriate Use of Collaboration
- Higher license users (e.g., Supervisors, Team Admins, Organization Administrators, Super Administrators) may choose to share their records with:
- Subordinate users
- Peers with the same role and license
- This enables team-wide visibility and coordination while maintaining control over sensitive data.
Cross-department collaboration can be appropriate for all types of users in the department except the Organization administrators.
When Collaboration Is Not Required
- Lower license users do not need to configure collaboration to share their records with higher license users.
- This is because higher-level roles inherently have access to records created by users with lower privileges, as defined by the system’s access hierarchy.
In summary, collaboration settings are primarily intended for top-down or peer-level sharing, not bottom-up access, which is already governed by role-based permissions.
Who needs collaboration?
Investigators and Analysts
- Need access to cases, subjects, and intelligence records created by others.
- Collaborate across departments to connect related data and uncover patterns.
Supervisors and Team Leads
- Oversee multiple users and ensure proper handling of shared records within their departments.
- Review and approve user-driven and cross-department collaboration requests.
Cross-Department Users
- Work on joint operations or investigations that span multiple units.
- Require visibility into records from other teams for coordination.
Administrators
- Configure collaboration setups to enforce access control and compliance.
- Monitor collaboration activity and adjust permissions as needed.
External Partners (if enabled)
- May include law enforcement agencies, task forces, or vetted third parties.
- Collaborate on shared cases or intelligence under strict access rules.
New or Junior Staff
- Often need read-only access to learn from existing records.
- Can be included in dynamic setups for training and support.
Collaboration Methods within Organization Users
OWL supports multiple collaboration methods to facilitate secure and flexible data sharing across users, departments, and roles within an organization. Depending on operational needs and access policies, users may choose from the following collaboration scenarios:
- Within Department – All Users: Share records with all users in your own department, enabling team wide visibility and coordination.
- Within Department – Specific Roles: Share records only with users in your department who hold specific roles or responsibilities, such as supervisors or analysts.
- Cross Department – All Users: Enable collaboration with users from other departments across the organization, supporting interdepartmental projects or investigations.
- Cross Department – Specific Roles:Limit sharing to users in other departments who hold designated roles, ensuring targeted collaboration with relevant personnel.
- Organization-Wide: Allow unrestricted access to your records for all users across the organization, promoting transparency and open data sharing.
- Private: Keep records fully private, accessible only to your department supervisors and administrators. Ideal for sensitive or confidential information
OWL provides two distinct methods for configuring collaboration across users within the organization: Role Level Collaboration and User-Level Collaboration. These options allow administrators to control how records are shared based on organizational structure and individual needs.
Role-Level Collaboration Setup
Role-level collaboration enables administrators to share records created by a group of users who belong to a specific department, role, and license type with other users across the organization.
Purpose: Ideal for setting up collaboration rules for teams or functional groups.
o Information Sharing → Collaboration → Records Collaboration Setup
o User Management → Organization → Role Settings → Collaboration
- Effect: All users with the selected role and license will follow the same collaboration rules.
Records Collaboration Setup Page:
Role Setting Page:
User-Level Collaboration Setup
User-level collaboration allows administrators to configure sharing settings for an individual user, regardless of their role or license. If the user belongs to multiple departments, then for each department collaboration setup will be different.
- Purpose: Useful for customizing access for specific users with unique responsibilities or exceptions.
Access Point:
o User Management → Users → Collaboration
- Effect: Overrides any role-level collaboration settings for that user.
Note: When both role-level and user-level collaboration are configured, user-level collaboration takes precedence.
Permissions and Access to Collaboration Setup:
- All Administrators, Administrator-users, Super Administrators, and Super Administrator-users have full access to add or update the collaboration setup for any subordinate roles and users in the organization.
- All Supervisors and Admin Team users have access to add/update the collaboration setup for all roles and users who belong to their departments only.
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