Release Notes: Here's What's New in Your Ontic Platform
Release Date: September 21st, 2020
Summary:
WAVR-21 - New Feature
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about this feature
What it is: A structured guide for the Assessment of Workplace Violence Risk (or more commonly referred to as WAVR-21) as a fully integrated application within the Ontic platform.
Why it matters: A more thoughtfully integrated and enhanced version of the digital WAVR solution that builds upon the strengths of the Ontic platform and advanced learnings from the WAVR-21 team themselves.
How it works: From the 9-box navigation click on the “Entities” dashboard link and navigate to an entity to view their details. From here you can engage in the complete WAVR-21 process experience flow:
Assessment Intake: Much of the intake process related to the entity you would like to assess has now been included within the entity details page. Scroll down to highlight and hydrate the information that would be valuable to include as part of the assessment process. We have included new sections such as “Family Member” and “Weapon Detail” that can be hydrated as required. Below this section we have included a “Description of Incident, Reason for Concern Now, and Contextual Information” that are additions from the WAVR-21 intake flow. All of this information can be maintained in the context of the entity overall to help build a more complete picture to inform the next phase of the WAVR-21 worksheet process.
Worksheet: To access the WAVR-21 worksheet, click on the “WAVR-21” link in the left-hand navigation of the entity details page. On the next screen you will find the 21 questions that can be filled out as part of the worksheet assessment process. You can highlight ‘Absent, Present, or Prominent’ for each question, add a Remark and upload a supporting file as required for each question. A proprietary summary guideline for each question (developed exclusively for Ontic users by the WAVR-21 creators called ‘Management Guidelines’) is viewable by clicking on the “i” bubble icon at the end of each question. In that pop-up you will see a link to view the “Full Guidelines” developed by the WAVR team for reference which can also be found in our Knowledge Portal.
Grid: To view your recorded answers from the worksheet as reflected in the WAVR-21 grid, simply click on the grid icon located near the blue save button (as highlighted in red box in the image below).
The grid view.
Risk Narrative: to view this section simply click on the “Risk Narrative” tab link near the top of the WAVR-21 page. This section can be completed as per the instructions highlighted in the WAVR-21 methodology.
Trend Snapshot: a new feature developed exclusively for Ontic users of the WAR-21 methodology is the ‘Trend Snapshot’. This view will provide a monthly snapshot comparison of the grid results to provide historical context related to this entity over time and visually highlight changes that may have occurred during those periods. To access this feature, click on the ‘Trend’ logo (see image below) located at the top upper right portion of the WAVR-21 application (as shown in the image below).
Here you can see the ‘Lifecycle’ of the entity trend and the WAVR-21 trend as shown below.
Download the WAVR-21 Report: you have the ability to customize a WAVR-21 report template and download it in a PDF format to share or distribute. First, create a WAVR-21 report template by clicking on “Report Templates” from the 9-box navigation under ‘Administration’. From this screen click on the blue box “Create New Template” button. On this page, you can name your WAVR-21 template and then select the fields you would like to include in the report related to your entity. To view the WAVR-21 grid as part of your report, simply toggle “on” the WAVR-21 option as seen in the image below (which will be the last option in the Report Template Builder). Save your template.
To download a WAVR-21 report simply navigate to your entity and click on the download icon (highlighted in the image below) located under your entity’s name and avatar image and select the name of your WAVR-21 template and then click the blue button “Download” to download your report.
Live Streams: Fixed ALPR Vehicle Signals - New Feature
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about this feature
What it is: The ability to view live sightings of all vehicles captured by fixed LPR cameras installed across various locations. The vehicles are processed in real-time and their previous sighting trends are displayed to spot anomalous behavior.
Why it matters: Have a finger on the pulse of vehicles that enter or exit secure locations in real-time to view trends, understand unwanted approaches, or identify irregular activity. Live signals help you monitor all vehicles (whitelisted, hotlisted, POI vehicles) that pass by fixed LPR cameras integrated with Ontic.
How it works: From the 9-box navigation click on “Fixed Cameras”. Under the ‘Live View’ tab you will see four tiles that represent the last live image sighting of a vehicle and license plate captured by a fixed ALPR camera integrated with Ontic. You can paginate at the bottom of the screen to locate other cameras that may provide additional sights for other locations.
To view the details associated with that vehicle, click on a tile and you will see a feed view of activity for that vehicle and all other vehicles in chronological order for that specific APLR camera. To the right you can view a visualization of the ‘Previous Sighting Trend’ that will provide a quick snapshot of the days of the week, the time of day, and the frequency of that vehicle’s sighting history with that specific camera location. Aberrations should be easy to detect. This fixed camera signal will function like all other signals within the Ontic platform. Note: at the bottom of the screen you can add this vehicle to a list you would have managed in the administration section of the platform.
Lists - New Feature
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about this feature
What it is: The ability to define and catalog a specific group of vehicles, locations, and social profiles that can be referenced in several ways across the Ontic platform.
Why it matters: A flexible way to organize and manage similar assets types. For vehicles, lists would be a great way to group whitelisted vehicles, family & friends vehicles, hotlisted vehicles together. You may want to mute signals within Ontic related to any vehicle that is part of a friends and family group for instance. For locations, lists are a simple way to designate all of the buildings connected to a specific campus location or highlight locations based on regional importance, etc. You may want to suppress connections this way if there are suspicious sightings of individuals at any of the buildings at corporate headquarters by not having those individuals automatically connected (a rule based on the corporate campus list). Another example could be the need to initiate actions based on rules just targeted to those specific locations (ex: issue a regional BOLO). For social handles, this is a good way to aggregate or mute signals based on the list created.
How it works: From the 9-box menu under Administration, click on “Lists”. Here you will find three tabs at the top for ‘Vehicle’, ‘Location’, and ‘Social Profile’. Click on the blue “Create List” button to begin the list creation process. On the next screen the list can be created a couple of ways. The first way is manual where aftering naming the list you click on the “Add Vehicle” button to add each individual vehicle one at a time that you would like to group together. Note: a valid license plate number is required to match a vehicle stored within the Ontic platform.
The second way is to add a conditional rule by clicking on the “Add Condition” button. If any of those conditions are met, those vehicles will become part of this created list. For example, a condition could be to include all vehicles of individuals who are on BOLO. Rather than entering and managing that list continuously, a list can make that job much easier to maintain and control. To view the vehicles automatically entered based on the conditional rule, click on the second tab called ‘Condition based Entities’.
Lastly, if you maintain a list in a spreadsheet you can import those vehicles into Ontic by downloading a very simple excel template (to capture license plate or VIN) and uploading a completed file back into Ontic.
You can add to the lists directly from the entity details page as well by navigating to the vehicles section and upon hovering over and clicking the “Add to List” icon (shown below). That vehicle will now be added to the list section designated.
Entity Features & Enhancements
Profile Live Posts - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to view live Twitter or Reddit posts on Entities without violating the Terms of Service (TOS) with a social network that prohibits monitoring and storing content from a specific individual's social media handle.
Why it matters: Remain in compliance and abide by the TOS guidelines established by the social networks to protect individuals from having their social media handle and content directly monitored + stored. We have provided a way to view the individuals posts in real-time (as you would on the social network directly) without storing the content or looking back in time.
How it works: On any entity details page, scroll down until you reach the social profile section that has been hydrated with at least one social media profile (ideally twitter). Click on the icon near ‘Add Social Profile’ as highlighted within the red box image below.
Once clicked you will see the latest posts on Twitter and Reddit connected to the hydrated social media handle. Here you can view a stream of these posts, toggle between different handles,
From Intelligence Feeds add a new feed for Social Stream. You will be able to create a stream based on a specific social handle, the social handles associated with an Entity, and mentioned social handles.
These posts are considered transient posts and will not be stored in the Ontic platform until an action is taken (ex: add to a collection, associate with an investigation, or change a workflow setting). Afterwhich that specific post will appear as a signal in the entity’s timeline and entity’s signal feed.
Empty States - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to mark data points as ‘Not Found’ when hydrating entity profile details
Why it matters: You did the research, you found nothing. Capture that effort without getting penalized on the entity completeness score and when pulling metrics on entity details. For example, after extensive research you did not find a vehicle associated with your entity. You can reflect this by marking the vehicle section as ‘Not Found” and add a remark / commentary for reference. That attribute will not be counted against the entity completion score or related hydration based metrics.
How it works: From an entity details page, as you scroll down to hydration the various profile sections you can view any section highlighted as ‘Not Set’. Once you hover over this specific area you will see a blue link titled “Mark as ‘Not Found’”. Click on this link to provide a reason, optionally add an attachment and save. If in the future you discover new information, simply click on the ‘+’ symbol and add the new information found.
Folders (for Entities and Investigations) - New Feature
What it is: The ability to manage the files you have uploaded for your Entities or Investigations into folder structures.
Why it matters: Easier to organize the files you have stored by Entity or Investigation within Ontic. This makes it easier to organize and quickly locate the files you need access to without scanning or scrolling through a large list.
How it works: From the 9-box menu under Administration, click on “Entity”. On the entity page in the left hand navigation, click on “Files”. Here you will find folders to help manage the files that have been stored for this entity. You will find two tabs at the top to view ‘All’ folders or the ‘Most recent’ files uploaded for this entity. You can click on each folder and view the files in both grid view and list view formats.
Once you have opened a folder to view the files, you can ‘Move’ or ‘Delete’ the file by hovering and clicking on the 3-dot menu located in the upper right of each image. To move a file, simply hover and select ‘Move’ and then select the folder you would like to move that file to.
To manage these folders (add a new folder, change a description, delete a folder), from the 9-box menu under Administration click on “Configuration” and on this page click on the second tab called “Folders”. Here you will see an option to manage Entity folders and Investigation folders. Here you can edit the label/title of the four standard folders or you can add, edit or delete a new folder to the library.
Note: these folder structures are viewable within Investigations within the “Evidence” section (if that capability has been turned on in your environment).
Intelligence Dashboards Features & Enhancements
Feeds Personalization - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to manage the sort order of your feeds dashboard to your preference and designate the dashboard you start from every day. For any dashboard shared with you, you can now tailor the feed order, feed size, and feed sort to your preference.
Why it matters: View and manage your dashboards in the order that makes the most sense to how you work. Also, when a feeds dashboard is shared to you from another team member, you can now personalize the view of your version of the shared dashboard without impacting the original. Think of this as having your own copy to manipulate and view based on your preferences.
How it works: From the 9-box menu under Dashboard click on “Intelligence Feeds”. Here click on the 3-horizontal menu lines in the upper left corner to expose all of your dashboards (standard, the ones you created, and shared). By clicking on the 3-dot menu near ‘All Feeds Dashboards’ you will see a pop-up option to ‘Sort Dashboard(s)’. By dragging and dropping the sort order you can create your ranked order for your dashboards to be viewed. The topmost dashboard will effectively be your ‘default’ dashboard that you will see each time navigate to intelligence feeds. See images below for additional context.
For dashboards that have been shared with you can a) change the feed order of the shared dashboards by moving feed columns to the left or the right b) change the width of the feeds as you do with you normal daboards and c) you can change the sort order of the dashboards themselves. None of these actions will change the original dashboard owned and managed by the creator.
Incident & Investigations Features & Enhancements
Observations: Custom Layout - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to restrict what an individual who submits or analyzes an Observation is allowed to view and interact with.
Why it matters: Control the views and available fields for an Observation so that certain roles (ex: guards) can be presented with a very clean and minimal set of information to keep them focused.
How it works: From the 9-box Administration section click on “Layouts”. Select the second tab titled ‘Signal Layouts’ and select the button called “Create New Template”. Here you can click on the ‘Edit” pencil link to toggle on / off the sections you would like displayed for this specific signal layout. Once named and saved, this template can be associated with a Role within the Ontic platform. To do this, select ‘Role’ in the Administration section and choose a role you would like to associate with this new template. Click ‘Edit’ from the 3-dot menu of an existing role (or create a new one) and select the fourth tab called ‘Layout’. Scroll to the bottom of this page until you see Signal Layouts and Observations with a drop down menu. Select the observation layout you created and it will be associated with this role. You can ‘Preview’ or ‘Activate’ this role with the new layout applied.
Change the Name of Observations to Incidents (or anything else): From the 9-box, click on “Configuration” and under the ‘Label’ tab you will see a box alongside ‘Observations’. Here you can change the term to Incident or any other term and that will be reflected immediately across the platform.
Administration
Rules: Volumetric - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to create rules that trigger actions based on the increase in signal volume by a defined percentage change increase.
Why it matters: Stay on top of fast rising and viral signals. For example if you are interested in receiving an email alert when a social media conversation associated to a particular topic rises in volume by over 25% - volumetrics rules would be a great solution to set up in advance.
How it works: From the 9-box navigation in the right column under Administration click on Rules. You can begin by clicking on “Volumetrics Rules” in the Tab and the “Create Rule” button in the upper right of the screen. After you name the Rule, begin by matching the Signal (ex: social media, domain, or screen name) to a set of conditions. Then associate those conditions to a specific event - such as an increase in signal volume. Finally choose the set of actions to perform. You can save this rule as a Draft or you can ‘Activate’ the rule which will begin working immediately.
Rules: Stream Rules for Live Fixed Automated License Plate Reading Cameras (ALPR) - New Feature
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about this feature
What it is: The ability to configure real-time triggered rules based on the patterns of a live stream of vehicles that are detected by ALPR cameras.
Why it matters: The first version of a pattern analysis and anomaly detection solution based off of live camera streams of vehicles. You can now trigger alerts and notifications based on rules (hotlisted vehicles, a vehicle spotted by a camera over a period of time, the same vehicle spotted driving past multiple locations within a defined period of time, or other list types) without having to monitor live camera streams continuously 24/7.
How it works: From the 9-box navigation under ‘Administration’ click on “Rules”. On the next screen click on the rightmost tab labels “Stream Rules”. From this page you can “Create Rule” by clicking on the blue button or manage the rules you have in place. These rules work similarly to all of the other rules across the platform. See a partial example of a stream rule below.
Rules: Observations / Incidents - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to create rules that trigger actions when an observation or incident matches certain conditions.
Why it matters: Observations / Incident Rules will help automate workflows and trigger alerts in Ontic to drive awareness to important events ingested into the platform. This will minimize the need to continuously monitor an Observation / Incident feed for a critical submission as these alerts can be sent directly via email, mobile app, or in the platform, and downstream actions can be automated.
How it works: From the 9-box navigation in the right column under Administration click on Rules. You can begin by clicking on “Observations or Incident Rules” in the Tab and the “Create Rule” button in the upper right of the screen. After you name the Rule, begin by matching the Signal (the Observation or Incident) to a set of conditions.
Then associate those conditions to specific events related to the Observation or Incident. Finally choose the set of actions to perform. You can save this rule as a Draft or you can ‘Activate’ the rule which will begin working immediately.
Administration
Roles: Preview - New Enhancement
What it is: The ability to preview what each role will have access to within the Ontic platform - what navigation and fields they have access to, what actions they are allowed to take, and what content they can view.
Why it matters: Visibility. In the past when you assigned a user to a role you were unable to verify what they could see or do. You had to trust that the system would properly configure their environment without having visibility to what the user would see. Now when you assign a user to a role, you can preview exactly what they will experience without having to be in that user's environment.
How it works: From the 9-box menu under Administration, click on “Roles”. From here for any of the roles assigned click on the 3-dot menu option on the far right and select ‘Preview’. Here you will see the Ontic home page with a blue border around it indicating that you are in preview mode. These would be the navigation elements this role have been given access to. As you click around you will experience what a user assigned to this role will experience. From the 9-box navigation you will see the menu options available. As you click through you will see the explicit layout this role has been assigned, the content and fields they have access to, and field level configurations (accessible and view only restrictions).
To end the Preview, simply click on the “End Preview” button located on the lower right hand corner of the screen.
Field Configuration - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to control specific field level access or visibility at the user level.
Why it matters: There may be sensitive information at the field level that you do not want specific users to access (ex: view, search, or filter) or other fields that you only want to provide ‘view only’ visibility to. An example field could be a social security number (SSN) that you may want certain users restricted from viewing, searching, or filtering from anywhere within the Ontic platform. Likewise, you may have created a custom field that you would like ‘view only’ visibility to for certain users. Field Configuration provides you with those granular controls.
These are managed centrally across all layouts.
How it works: From the 9-box menu under Administration click on “Roles”, then select a role to edit. On the next screen you will see a tab tilted “Field Configuration”, click on that link. On this screen you will see a list of available entity fields where you can manage ‘Accessible’ and ‘View Only’ permissions. Simply check the relevant boxes and then click on the blue “Save” button to register those permissions.
Fields: Dependency Management - Enhancements
What it is: The central location to manage all of the standard and custom fields across the Ontic platform. In addition, the ability to define & control if certain fields can only be displayed based on the selection or value of another field.
Why it matters: One place to manage all fields within Ontic. The power of the dependency management function is that it provides a way to restrict certain fields from being visible or present unless a specific field or value was selected first to expose it. A simple example would be the display of states and cities. Rather than exposing every city upfront, only display a city after the appropriate state was selected first. Then, only show the cities that are related to (or dependent) on that state. Another example is for an incident or observation. You can define the simple categories that would be present for a guard to select from when submitting an incident or observation. Then based on the first selection (ex: emergency), you can define what fields are presented next (ex: medical, fire, travel, bomb threat, active shooter, etc).
How it works: From the 9-box menu under Administration, click on “Fields”. Here you will find the ability to manage the fields for: Entity, User, Investigation, Signal, and Connection. Most of these selections have both ‘Standard’ and ‘Custom Field’ options available to manage.
For the ‘Standard’ fields: you can edit each field by clicking on the pencil icon to the right. While you will not be able to edit the label or description, you will be able to edit the name of each field option, delete, change a color, and sort the order in which the field options are displayed. Optionally for select field types, at the bottom of the screen you can select where the standard field is displayed within the platform.
Note: Connection Standard fields have been moved to this section and can be edited unde the ‘Connection’ tab.
For the ‘Custom’ fields: you can edit each field by clicking on the pencil icon to the right. Here you can edit the label or description, name of each field option, delete, change a color, and sort the order in which the field options are displayed. Optionally for select field types, at the bottom of the screen you can select where the standard field is displayed within the platform.
Field Display Dependency: Once you have selected a field to edit, scroll to the bottom at the screen to the ‘Field Display Dependency’ section. Here you can define the condition when the field (let’s call your field ‘child’) that you are currently editing will be displayed to users within the Ontic platform. In this case, this field will display only when the field and field values (of the parent) are present. If none of the fields or field values are selected (from the parent), the current field you are editing (the child) will not be displayed.
To start, click on ‘Add Display Dependency’. On the pop-up window that appears, select the field and then the values of the field (the parent) you would like to have present first before this current field (the child) that you are editing is displayed.
You can also define your field (the child) to display when specific values (of the parent and the values of the parent) are displayed. Here, once you select the parent field, you can multi-select the values of the parent and map to the specific values of the child. Here is a simple example of the parent field (Southern States and it’s values - Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California)) and then mapping to the child field (Southern Cities). In the example below, the parent field Southern States and one of it’s values Texas was mapped to the child field Southern Cities and it’s values of Dallas and Austin.
Mobile App: Permissions, Create Entity, New Layouts - Enhancements
What it is: The ability to manage mobile app user roles & permissions, support the creation of an entity, and some flexibility on observation / incident layout and entity details. (currently iOS only)
Why it matters: When you would like to mirror specific permissions of the desktop application to the Ontic mobile app user by role to ensure each user can perform their function as desired. For a guard, you can restrict visibility and access entities for example. For an analyst, you may want them to have the ability to create an entity or access a wider amount of information.
On permissions specifically we have not replicated every action a user can take on the desktop version of the Ontic application and not all features exist in the mobile app. The specific features we have enabled mobile permissions on are:
Entities
Observations / Incidents
Assessments
We have also provided the ability for a field operator or remote analyst to do more with the mobile app such as create and entity, edit information in line on a redesigned entity screen, and mirror changes from the desktop on the observation submission template.
How it works:
Managing Mobile App User Permissions for Entities, Observations, and Assessments: from the desktop application 9-box menu under ‘Administration’ click on “Roles” and navigate to an existing role (who would also use the Ontic mobile app) or create a new role who would use the app.
Under the “Action (Permissions)” tab, select the boxes under the Entity section that apply. The most important function we have enabled is “Create”. Checking this box will enable a mobile app user to create an entity remotely.
Similar process for mobile app assessments:
… and mobile app observations:
New Actions from the Ontic Mobile App:
Create Entity: For the roles where you have granted permission to create an entity, tap on “View Entity” from the 4-box mobile app home screen. On the next screen in the upper right you will tap on the “+” symbol which will ask you to create a ‘Person, Group, Event, or Business’. Tap on ‘Person’ to explore all of the fields you can optionally hydrate to create your new entity. This is a useful feature for those users who are away from the desk and need to populate information on a new entity they discovered.
Redesigned Entity Details Page: From the 4-box mobile app home screen tap on ‘View Entity’. One the next screen top on the desired entity to view their details. This screen will mirror much of what you see on the desktop solution including the ability to add and edit details about this entity. From this screen you can also ‘Add Incident’, add ‘Notes’ and execute an “Assessment’ by clicking on the appropriate button or tab..
Observation / Incident Layout: You can apply the Observation Layout from the desktop administration section and have those screens and fields viewable for the mobile app user as designed. From the 9-box Administration section click on “Layouts”. Select the second tab titled ‘Signal Layouts’ and select the button called “Create New Template”. Here you can click on the ‘Edit” pencil link to toggle on / off the sections you would like displayed for this specific signal layout. Once named and saved, this template can be associated with a Role within the Ontic platform and viewable by the mobile app user.
BETA Features
Ontic BETA features are new features that are being tested by willing client participants. If you are interested in providing feedback on these types of features, please reach out to your Success Manager to have the features turned on in your Platform.
*BETA* Tasks: on Entity & Assessments-New Feature
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about this feature
What it is: The ability to assign and manage tasks associated with an Entity that can also be applied to an Assessment and governed by Rules.
Why it matters: Provides a mechanism to delegate assignments, set reminders, and drive collaboration around specific entities within the Ontic platform. The range of tasks associated with an entity can be completely customized and managed from the task library and can be dynamically configured.
How it works:
Create and Manage Task Templates: from the 9-box menu under ‘Administration’ click on “Task Library”. On this screen click on the “Configuration” tab to manage your task types and resolution.
Task Type: click “Add New” to create the various task types that you would like to assign to yourself or other team members related to your entities. Examples include: review BOLO status, conduct an interview, validate data, etc. These types can be edited or sorted as desired.
Task Resolution: click “Add New” to create a range of resolutions associated with any task. These will appear as an action that an assigned user can take to identify the status or resolution of that task.
Once those have been saved, you can apply those configurations to any take template you create. To view task templates or create a new one, click on the “Template List” tab at the top of the screen.
Create a new entity task template: Click on the blue button in the upper right part of the screen to “Create Task Template”. On the next screen under ‘Template Info’ you can select the ‘Task Type’ from a dropdown list (that should mirror the Types you created previously) and provide a required ‘Description’ of the task that will be displayed to the person the task will be assigned to. You can optionally add a form if desired.
For a more advanced use case you can select the ‘Task Actions’ tab and and configure a conditional rule that can fire after the completion of the task.
How to assign an entity task to someone: Navigate to an entity from which you would like to assign another Ontic user or yourself a task for. As an example, you may be on an entity where you want to assign yourself a task to review all of the public records of this entity and reassess their threat level. You may not have time to complete this assignment today, but you would like this review to be completed in a few days. If this task does not get completed in time, you would like to remind yourself every 3 days and have this task recur every week until this review has been completed.
The new right column entity navigation bar for tasks, notes, and planner: On every entity screen you will see a new right column navigation bar. The top icon is for the entity ‘Tasks’ feature. Click on this icon to expose the ability to assign, provide a status, and “add” a new task as shown below.
In our example, you can add a task by clicking the blue “Add” button. Once you have a list of tasks you can filter by who the task was ‘Assigned To’ (anyone or me), and by ‘Status’.
Once you click the blue “Add” button, on the next screen you can select from the task type you configured and complete out the remaining fields (see example below).
Once that task has been assigned it will display with a blue number in the right column nav and show the task assigned as shown below.
To see the details of the task simply click on the task box as shown below:
Here the person this task was assigned to can add an attachment, provide a summary of the task, mark an action associated with this task, the resolution (as defined in the task library configuration), which entity the task was assigned on, the status of the task, the due date, and who the task was assigned to, along with the original start time of the task itself.
Tasks can be filtered from the Entity dashboard as well (as shown in the image below). Simply navigate to the entity dashboard, select “Task” as a filter option and a list of entities that tasks have been assigned to will display below:
Tasks can also be viewed in the Planner at both the individual entity level and at the Planner view across all entities from the entity dashboard. Planner features will be covered in a separate section of this release notes document.
*BETA* Entity Milestones - New Feature
What it is: The ability to define key personal events associated with an entity that could be a cause for concern at an anniversary date in the future.
Why it matters: Critical life events that an entity has experienced (a layoff from their job, a divorce, a bankruptcy, an incarceration, etc) or actions that an entity has taken (posting a concerning message, ) could set into motion a follow-on event of concern. For example, if an entity was laid off from his job on Father’s Day of 2020, later divorces his wife and loses custody of his children, may decide to seek revenge on his previous employer around Father’s Day 2021. Entity Milestones will help memorialize those dates with context and reminders that can be tuned to be flexible and recurring.
How it works: From the 9-box menu under Administration click on “Configuration” and then the third tab on that screen called “Entity Milestones”. Here you can click on the “+” sign to add an entity milestone and set recurring milestones and reminders.
Placeholder image:
To view or add additional milestones associated with an entity, navigate to the entity and click on ‘Timeline’. From the ‘Vertical’ timeline tab you will see a box to the upper right called ‘Milestones’. Click on the “+” sign to directly add the date of the milestone event, connect to a milestone type you had configured earlier (from the configuration section), and apply any remarks or comments.
You can view these milestones on both the vertical and horizontal timelines as shown below:
Note: you can also add a milestone directly to an event on the vertical timeline by hovering over any of the black dots along the vertical black line which will change to a red circle with a plus sign (see image below).
Clicking on the red circle with the plus sign will bring up the milestone window where you can apply that event to a milestone to be reminded of in the future.
Why is this valuable? There could be important signals that you want to capture as a milestone event to review again in the future (ex: a concerning social post, an arrest, a vehicle sighting date near your principal, or other life event seen on the timeline).
*BETA* Planner - New Feature
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about this feature
What it is: The ability to view tasks and milestones in a calendar view associated with entities.
Why it matters: Planning. The importance of looking ahead. In this first version of the planner we help to visualize the assignment and status of entity tasks and key entity milestones that have been designated as important events and dates for you to review on affected entities across the Ontic platform. You will see these events in a calendar view at the individual entity level and in a view across all entities in your dashboard.
How it works:
To view the planner at the individual entity level: On every entity screen you will see a new right column navigation bar. The third icon from the top is for the entity ‘Planner’ feature. Clicking on the planner icon will reveal a calendar as shown in the image below (which has been narrowed to a day view). You can filter the calendar view by day, week, month and you can use the arrows to further narrow to the view of interest.
Each element (task or milestone) in the planner view can be individually assessed which will either display the task details or enable you to navigate to the entity details in a separate browser window.
To view the planner across all entities in the dashboard: From the 9-box menu click on “Entities”. On the next screen in the horizontal navigation bar you will see an option titled ‘View’ with the Grid view exposed as the default. Click to reveal other view options as shown in the image below and click on “Planner”.
This is where you can visualize the planner across week, month, and day views to accommodate the affected entities. Note: you can filter the calendar by tasks and entity milestones on the left by checking boxes and adding very granular filters.
