Broadcasting Evidence from Source to Target

The evidence broker is configured to broadcast new, updated, and removed evidence from the source to the target. For example, income evidence from one product delivery case type can be shared with income evidence in another product delivery case type. Evidence sharing is uni-directional and per evidence type. This means that different case types or persons/prospect persons can be configured to receive and share each evidence type in different ways. For example, if required, one case type might be able to receive shared evidence, but not be able to share its own evidence.

There are two categories of evidence sharing, identical evidence sharing and non-identical evidence sharing, each of which is configured separately. Evidence is identical when the source and target have the same categories of information and are effectively the same evidence. An example of identical evidence is pregnancy evidence; the same information is likely to be recorded for pregnant women across different case types. For non-identical evidence, the source and target evidence will be two different evidence types with some common categories of information. Income evidence types are good examples of non-identical evidence, such as trust income. While two case types will share the name of the trustee and the trust amount, there may be additional aspects of trust income maintained for a specific case type, but not for other case types. When the evidence broker broadcasts evidence available for sharing, it separates identical evidence from non-identical evidence. Identical evidence can be fully shared whereas non-identical evidence cannot.

Each broadcasted evidence record has an associated event which reflects the latest action performed on the source evidence resulting in the evidence being broadcast. The evidence broker reflects the event so that caseworkers can see the sequence of evidence updates applied to the same piece of evidence. By examining the sequence of events on the broadcasted evidence, case workers can decide the order in which to process it. For example, a new evidence record which has been subsequently removed on the source case may not be relevant to the target case. The caseworker can therefore decide not to accept the broadcasted new evidence record since it has subsequently been removed.

There are three main business functions which will trigger the evidence broker to broadcast evidence, each one described below:

• Any time a new person is added to a target, the evidence broker will first check to see if that person is a member on any source cases or has a person/prospect person record. The evidence broker then checks for active evidence on the source case or person/prospect person record which concerns the new person and which is set up to be shared with the target. This evidence is then broadcast to the target.
• Any time evidence changes are made to the source and the evidence changes are for the same person who exists on both the source and target, the evidence broker will broadcast those changes to the target.
• Any time a new target is created, the evidence broker will search for potential evidence to be shared. If found, the evidence broker will broadcast it. This is the default behavior but an API is provided which an agency can use to alter this behavior.

In addition to the business functions which trigger the evidence broker to broadcast evidence, the following business rules exist to ensure that evidence being broadcast will be valid on the target:

• If two members are involved in a piece of evidence on the source, the evidence is only broadcast to the target if both individuals are also members on the target. For example, Relationship evidence recorded for two case members on a source case is only broadcast to a target case, if both individuals are case members on the target case.
• If the evidence concerning a person also involves other participant(s) who are participants on the source but they do not exist on the target, then the evidence is broadcast to the target and the related participant is added to the target with the appropriate role. For example, Student evidence recorded for a case member where the related participant is a school is broadcast to a target case if the individual for whom the Student evidence concerns is a case member on the target case. Once this evidence is accepted onto the target case, the school is added to the target case with a case participant role of 'School'.