When a person creates a case, they automatically become the case owner. A case owner can edit their cases and view other people’s cases, but they cannot edit a case that someone else owns.
Users told us that it was important to allow other people to edit their cases in certain circumstances.
If the person’s off and they are the only person who can edit, that's not practical
Uncovering and defining the problem
During user research sessions we learned that people might need to work on someone else’s case in different scenarios, including where:
- the case owner was off sick or on long-term leave
- the case owner was on annual leave
- the case owner is leaving or has left the team
- the case had to be updated urgently and couldn’t wait for the case owner to do it
We needed to add a reassign function so a case could be updated when its owner was unavailable.
As a ... caseworker or team leader
I need... to be able to reassign a case
When... the case owner is moving on from that case (or team)
So that... another case worker knows to work on that case, and can edit it
What we did
We did some user research to find out more about the language people use to describe case ownership and transfer and when and why people need to reassign cases.
We looked at how case ownership and transfer was handled in the system we were replacing and asked users what they thought of this system and what they would like to see in its replacement.
We learned that in DaRT (Data and reporting tool) each case has an owner but can also have optional case editors. We asked users more about this feature to understand if there was a genuine need for this role that would not be met by reassigning a case and decided the reassign feature was sufficient for our minimum viable product.
To make sure users experienced consistency across the products they use, we checked how other projects manage case ownership. We looked at how Prepare conversions and transfers assigns cases and how work is assigned in Complete conversions, transfers and changes.
Reassigning a case in Record concerns and support for trusts
When a user wants to reassign a case, they click on the ‘Change’ link beside the case owner field.
The user can then search for the email address of the person they want to assign the case to. Emails are pulled from the Azure active directory list and users do not need to enter a minimum number of characters to see results.
When the user reassigns the case, they will see a success message. The case owner field in the case overview page now shows the new case owner’s name.
If the user tries to reassign the case to an unknown person or does not select a name from the list, they will see an error summary and error message.
The person that the case has been assigned to will now see the case in their list of open cases.
Deciding who can reassign cases
Some users expressed concern about allowing anyone to edit a case and being able to audit changes to case ownership. Users were already comfortable giving their managers access to their cases.
we have very specific approval levels
I want g7 to have edit access in case the caseworker isn't around
To address these concerns, we agreed that:
- any user would be able to reassign their own open cases to another team member
- only users with admin access would be able to reassign someone else’s open cases
- the reassign feature would only be available for open cases
Testing the reassign feature
We tested the feature with users who found it simple and intuitive.
Next steps
We’ll continue reviewing user feedback and support queries to see if there’s a need to allow users to edit other people’s open cases, that has not been met by the reassign feature.
We’re thinking about how we let users see other people's casework in the team casework view. We're considering if this should look more like the reassign feature.