Investigation Notes and Annotations

Overview#

The Investigation Notes and Annotations module provides knowledge capture and collaborative documentation for financial crime investigations, enabling analysts to document findings, share insights, and build institutional knowledge while maintaining forensic-grade audit trails. The system supports multiple note types, threaded conversations, real-time co-authoring, and advanced search capabilities that ensure critical insights are preserved, searchable, and accessible to authorized team members.

Key Features#

• Multi-Type Note System -- Seven note types including investigation notes, evidence annotations, timeline comments, suspect profiles, analytical findings, external communications, and decision logs support comprehensive case documentation.
• Note Threading -- Conversation chains track analytical evolution with threaded discussions that link related observations, hypotheses, and conclusions across investigation timelines.
• Collaborative Co-Authoring -- Real-time collaborative editing with low-latency synchronization enables multiple analysts to contribute to shared documentation simultaneously.
• Advanced Search -- AI-powered search across multiple metadata dimensions locates relevant notes rapidly, with content indexing, tag filtering, author filtering, and temporal search capabilities.
• Evidence-Linked Annotations -- Notes and annotations attach directly to specific evidence items, entities, transactions, and graph elements, providing contextual documentation at the point of analysis.
• Rich Content Support -- Markdown rendering with security-hardened parsing supports formatted text, tables, code blocks, images, and embedded references within investigation notes.
• Version History -- Complete version tracking for all notes preserves edit history, enabling investigators to review the evolution of analytical thinking over time.
• Classification and Tagging -- Configurable classification schemes and tagging systems organize notes by investigation phase, topic, priority, and custom categories for efficient retrieval.
• Access Controls -- Role-based visibility controls manage note access at the investigation, team, and individual level, with support for restricted and privileged content categories.

Use Cases#

• Investigation Documentation -- Analysts document findings, observations, and analytical reasoning throughout the investigation lifecycle, creating a comprehensive record of investigative work product.
• Team Knowledge Sharing -- Collaborative notes enable investigation teams to share insights, coordinate analysis efforts, and build on each other's findings across shifts and geographic locations.
• Decision Logging -- Decision logs capture key investigation decisions with supporting rationale, enabling quality assurance reviews and regulatory examination documentation.
• Evidence Annotation -- Contextual annotations on evidence items, transactions, and entity profiles provide analytical commentary that enriches the investigation record.
• Investigation Handoff -- Comprehensive note histories enable seamless transitions when investigations transfer between analysts or teams, preserving institutional knowledge and analytical context.
• Audit and Compliance -- Complete, timestamped documentation of investigative activities satisfies regulatory requirements for investigation record-keeping and supervisory review.

Integration#

The Investigation Notes and Annotations module integrates with the platform's case management, evidence management, timeline tracking, and reporting systems. Notes appear contextually within investigation interfaces, evidence viewers, and graph visualizations. Search results include relevant notes alongside other investigation artifacts, and note content can be incorporated into investigation reports and regulatory filings through the reporting module.

Last Reviewed: 2026-02-05