The evidence pattern provides support for two types of evidence change: evidence correction and evidence succession.
An evidence correction is the replacement of an existing evidence record with a new evidence record in order to correct an incorrect piece of data. For example, an active bank account evidence record which contains an incorrect bank account number can be updated such that the new bank account number supersedes the incorrect one.
An evidence succession is the set of evidence records that collectively represent a piece of evidence as it changes over time. For example, a bank account evidence record may include a bank account balance. This bank account balance is likely to change over time and the succession of bank account balances collectively represent the changes to the bank account.
The evidence controller uses the correction ID, succession ID, and effective date attributes to manage evidence changes.
A correction set ID and succession ID are assigned to all new evidence records. The correction set ID is used to track corrections made to evidence; the succession ID is used to track changes in circumstance.
When updating an active evidence record, a user has the option to modify the effective date of change or else leave it the same. The effective date of change is the field which determine whether a modification to an active evidence record is a succession or a correction.
When modifying evidence, if no change is made to the effective date of change field, the modification is a correction. For all evidence corrections, the system assigns the in edit evidence record the same correction ID as the active evidence record. This ensures that the evidence corrections supersede the existing active evidence. Also, it allows for all evidence corrections to be tracked in a single evidence change history.
If the effective date of change is changed as part of modifying evidence, the modification is a change during the lifetime of the evidence and as such is a succession. To monitor a succession of updates made to an active evidence record, the system assigns each in edit evidence record the same succession ID, but a different correction set ID. When activated, the succession of updates will not supersede any existing active evidence.