Cases and the collaboration model

A Case is the container that groups your searches, Bookmarks, and Reports. This page explains what a Case is, how you manage Cases, and how team accounts share Cases and Credits under a team leader.

Case Management modal over the History page, showing the case table

What a Case is

A Case is the active search context. You select the active Case with the Case selector, and you administer all of your Cases in the Case Management modal. A Case can be shared (private or public), can have Forensic Mode enabled per Case, and can carry a Private key and password.

Every account begins with one built-in Default Case. The Default Case cannot be renamed or deleted (see Default Case constraints).

Note

Forensic Mode determines whether a Case keeps a durable record of the search. A Case with Forensic Mode on retains bookmarking and history and provides chain-of-custody; a Private case with Forensic Mode off keeps no bookmarking and no history. Forensic Mode has its own concept page — this page focuses on the Case container and the collaboration model.

The Case Management modal

You open Case Management from the left navigation. The modal presents a header row with the modal title and an + Add Case button, a case table, and a Close button. Selecting Close dismisses the modal and returns you to the underlying page.

Add a Case

1. Open Case Management from the left navigation.
2. Select + Add Case.
3. Provide the new Case’s details in the creation form.

Caution

The Case creation form has not yet been captured. The exact fields presented when you select + Add Case are not confirmed.

The case table

The case table lists your Cases with the following columns:

#	NAME	CREATED AT	SHARE	FORENSIC MODE	PRIVATE KEY	ACTIONS

The SHARE, FORENSIC MODE, and PRIVATE KEY headers each carry a ? help indicator. Hovering over one reveals an explanatory tooltip for that column.

The # column holds a numeric case ID for the Cases you create. The built-in Default Case shows N/A instead of a numeric ID.

A representative table looks like this:

#	NAME	CREATED AT	SHARE	FORENSIC MODE	PRIVATE KEY	ACTIONS
N/A	Default	2024-01-07 10:17:36	Private	On	Green check	Change Password
3809	Mark2	2026-06-11 09:21:31	Off	On	Green check	Edit Name · Change Password · Delete Case
3808	Mark	2026-06-11 09:19:51	Off	On	White check	Edit Name · Set Password · Delete Case

Sharing a Case: private and public

The SHARE column controls a Case’s visibility. A Case is either Private (restricted) or Public (shared).

• For the Default Case, the SHARE state is shown as the fixed text Private rather than as an interactive toggle.
• For a Case you created, SHARE is a toggle. In the off (grey) position the Case is Private; toggling SHARE on makes the Case Public and shareable.

Caution

The on state of the SHARE toggle and its effect have not been captured. The exact audience and scope of a Public Case beyond your team — for example, link-based access versus wider visibility — is not yet confirmed.

The collaboration model: single and team accounts

Accounts are either single or team.

• Single accounts do not share. Cases and Credits belong to the one user.
• Team accounts can share Cases among team members and share one common pool of Credits, all controlled by a team leader. Team members draw on the same shared Credit balance and can access the team’s shared Cases.

Case sharing is therefore a team-account capability, controlled by the team leader.

Note

Because a team account shares one common pool of Credits, every team member’s searches draw down the same balance. See the Credits and billing concept page for how Credits are metered and topped up.

Where team management lives

Seat and team management live on a dedicated Team screen, reached from the My Team item in the left navigation. This is distinct from the Account Credits & Team Licenses page — despite that page’s title, it does not host seat or team management.

Caution

The dedicated Team screen has not yet been captured. The specific seat, member, and team-leader controls it offers are not yet confirmed.

Private key and Case password

The PRIVATE KEY column shows a check indicator per Case, and the ACTIONS column exposes either a Set Password or Change Password control.

A Case password encrypts that Case’s Bookmarks on the UserSearch server, so the saved Bookmarks are stored encrypted rather than in the clear. The Private key is derived from that custom password and is known only to the user — UserSearch holds neither the password nor the key. (per Lee, 2026-07-10)

Danger

If the custom password is lost, the encrypted data cannot be unencrypted and is permanently unrecoverable — the key that would decrypt it is derived from that password, and UserSearch holds no copy of either. Record the password somewhere safe before relying on it. (per Lee, 2026-07-10)

Caution

The meaning of the green versus white check in the PRIVATE KEY column is not yet confirmed for v2.0.20. A working interpretation is that a green check indicates a password (and therefore a key) is configured and a white check indicates none is set yet — a Case showing a white check exposes Set Password — but this is inferred, not confirmed.

The ACTIONS column

The actions available on a Case row depend on the Case:

• The Default Case exposes only Change Password. It has no Edit Name and no Delete Case.
• A Case that already has a password exposes Edit Name, Change Password, and Delete Case.
• A Case that has no password yet exposes Edit Name, Set Password, and Delete Case.

The pattern is that a Case without a password shows Set Password, while a Case with a password shows Change Password. Edit Name opens a rename control, and Delete Case removes the Case (presumably after a confirmation step).

Caution

The rename control, the password entry form, and the deletion confirmation step have not been captured, and the underlying password mechanics are unverified (see above).

Default Case constraints

The Default Case is constrained relative to the Cases you create:

• It cannot be renamed — there is no Edit Name action.
• It cannot be deleted — there is no Delete Case action.
• Its SHARE state is fixed text (Private) rather than an interactive toggle.
• Its # is N/A rather than a numeric case ID.

The Default Case can still have its password changed — Change Password is present.

The Case selector and filtering by Case

You choose the active search context with the Case selector. On the Bookmarks, Reports, and History surfaces, a FILTER BY CASE dropdown lets you scope those views to a single Case. The Cases in that dropdown are expected to match the Cases listed in Case Management.

The Case Summary

The Case Summary is a shared table component that aggregates per-Case totals. It appears on the Bookmarks, Reports, and History pages.

Case Summary panel below the Bookmarks table

The panel is titled Case Summary and sits below the Bookmarks table, with a three-dot (kebab) overflow menu at its far right. Its columns are:

CASE NAME · NUMBER OF BOOKMARKS · REPORTS CREATED · LAST UPDATE

A representative Case Summary looks like this:

CASE NAME	NUMBER OF BOOKMARKS	REPORTS CREATED	LAST UPDATE
Default	0	1	2026-07-08 11:28:14
Mark2	0	0	N/A
Mark	112	6	2026-07-05 10:02:59

Each row aggregates that Case’s totals — its count of Bookmarks and its count of Reports. A LAST UPDATE of N/A indicates the Case has no recorded activity to timestamp.

Note

A Case with Forensic Mode on permits bookmarking and history retention, but that does not imply any bookmarks have been created yet. In the example above, Default is Forensic-on yet shows 0 bookmarks.

Related concepts

• Forensic Mode — how Forensic Mode governs bookmarking, history, and chain-of-custody per Case.
• Bookmarks and Reports — the saved artefacts that a Case groups.
• History — the search and login record a Forensic-on Case retains.
• Credits, billing, and teams — the shared Credit pool and team-leader control over Case sharing.

Verified against UserSearch v2.0.20