Investigate a moderation case

Moderation cases give authorised Discentik administrators one internal record for an
account or course investigation. Authenticated reports automatically open a linked
case. A failed automated course-submission safety check also opens one high-priority
case, while repeat failures reuse the active case. The timeline preserves reports, assignment changes, evidence references,
appeals, priority changes, and the final decision.

The queue opens on active cases ordered by the nearest SLA deadline. Filter it by
status, assignment, priority, subject, category, or overdue state, and use Load more
cases to continue through the result set. Closed cases remain available under All
cases. The queue stays usable if either the separate summary metrics or analytics
request is temporarily unavailable; retry the affected summary without reloading the
queue.

The summary cards show active, overdue, unassigned, and appealed cases. They also show
24-hour report intake and recent resolution performance. An SLA becomes due after 4
hours for urgent cases, 24 hours for high-priority cases, 72 hours for normal cases,
and 168 hours for low-priority cases. Claiming a case records its first response.
The trend section summarises the last 30 days and exports daily opened, resolved,
report, and appeal counts as CSV. Assigned administrators receive a due-soon alert;
overdue unassigned cases alert Platform Admins. Alerts are deduplicated per case and
deadline stage.

Open a case

1. Open Platform Admin, then Moderation.

2. Select Open case.

3. Choose Account or Course and enter the account email/profile ID or course ID.

4. Select the category, source, and priority.

5. Add a concise summary and the available report context, then select Open case.

Do not paste passwords, payment-card details, or unrelated personal data into case notes.

Investigate and assign ownership

Select Review beside a case, then select Claim case before investigating it.
Use Release case when another administrator should take over. Add internal notes for
verified checks and investigation context. Do not link to material that the moderation
team is not authorised to access. Notes and evidence are not sent to the reported
person or course author.

Long-running cases initially load a bounded page from each history area. When more
timeline events, reports, evidence, appeals, or enforcement records exist, select
Load more case history to retrieve the next page from every incomplete area. The
panel shows how many history records are loaded and keeps the action available for any
area that could not be retrieved, so you can retry without losing the pages that did
load.

Use Evidence references only for HTTPS sources or clearly labelled administrator
statements. Use Private evidence image for a screenshot that must not be placed at
a public URL. You must own the case before adding either kind of evidence. Only JPEG,
PNG, and WebP images up to 5 MB are accepted. The upload is checked against its declared
file type, screened for known unsafe file patterns, and sent through automated image
moderation by OpenAI before it is stored. A failed or unavailable moderation step
rejects the upload. Upload only evidence that Discentik is authorised to share with
this processor and avoid unnecessary personal data. See the Privacy Policy
for processing details.

Accepted files remain in private storage and open through a five-minute,
administrator-only link. Every signed-link request is audited. The scheduled retention
process removes a file after 90 days only when the case has no active investigation,
appeal, enforcement, or legal hold. Its audit metadata remains after the private file is
removed. Prefer a text statement when an image is not necessary.

Preserve a private image under legal hold

Use a legal hold only when an authorised legal, regulatory, or investigation request
requires the private image to remain beyond its normal retention period. You must own
the case, and the file must still be available.

1. Under the private evidence image, enter a future Legal hold end no more than ten
   years away.

2. Enter a clear reason that identifies the preservation need without adding unrelated
   personal information.

3. Select Apply legal hold. For an existing hold, choose a later date and select
   Extend legal hold.

The evidence card shows the recorded end and reason. Applying, extending, and releasing
a hold creates a case-timeline entry and Platform audit record. When preservation is no
longer required, enter the release reason and select Release legal hold. The normal
retention rules then apply again. Confirm the named evidence and its current hold end in
the warning dialog. Releasing a hold does not immediately delete the file, but scheduled
retention may permanently delete it as soon as it becomes eligible; deletion cannot be
undone. Cancelling or a failed release leaves both the hold and your entered reason in
place. An image that has already been deleted cannot be placed on hold.

Apply or reverse enforcement

Claim the case before changing live access. In Enforcement, enter the policy or
decision reason, then select Suspend account or Withdraw course. Reopen a
Resolved or Dismissed case before applying or reversing enforcement. Account suspension
blocks sign-in, Platform API access, and existing trusted AI sessions while preserving
the account and its data. A course withdrawal makes the course private and immediately
blocks learner and runtime access, including access through existing assignments and
library entries. Course content, learner progress, assignments, and the approved
revision remain preserved.

The case stores the exact prior state and adds the action to both the case timeline and
Platform audit history. Select Restore account access or Restore course access
to reverse the restriction. A reversal also requires a reason. If the account or course
was changed through another workflow after enforcement, the case refuses to overwrite
that newer state; review the dedicated account or course controls first.

An account already suspended outside the case, or a course already emergency-withdrawn
outside the case, cannot be adopted silently as case enforcement. This distinction
keeps the owner and reason for every restriction clear.

Resolve or dismiss a case

Set the case to Action required while an enforcement or follow-up action remains.
Set it to Resolved after the required action and verification are complete. Use
Dismissed when the report is unsupported or does not violate policy.

Every status decision records an internal note in the timeline. Reopening a closed case
clears its resolution marker while preserving the earlier history.

Record and decide an appeal

When case-linked enforcement is applied, the affected account or course owner receives
a private, single-use appeal link by email that remains usable even when account sign-in
is suspended. The link expires after 30 days and places its token in the browser
fragment, so it is not sent in the page URL or referrer or stored in the notification
record. If delivery fails, the enforcement still completes with a visible warning;
after correcting email configuration, the case owner can select Send new appeal
link. Creating a replacement first revokes every older unused link. If delivery of
the replacement cannot be confirmed, that new link is revoked as well, so correct the
delivery problem and send another link rather than reusing an earlier URL. A submitted
appeal returns the case to In review and alerts Platform Admins.
Support can still use Record an appeal after a case is Resolved or Dismissed
when it has separately verified the appellant. The affected account or course owner is
derived from the case and cannot be replaced with an arbitrary recipient.

An administrator who applied the linked enforcement or made the original resolution
cannot decide its appeal. A different case owner must add a decision note, then select
Grant appeal or Deny appeal.
Granting an appeal moves the case to Action required. If the case has an active
restriction, reverse it from Enforcement and record the appeal decision as the
reversal reason. Denying an appeal restores the case's earlier closed status. Both
outcomes remain in the case timeline and audit log.
The appellant receives the appeal outcome by in-app notification and email when email
delivery is configured.

Reconcile a quarantined legacy appeal

An older migrated appeal may be quarantined when its original enforcement link cannot
be determined safely. The case shows Legacy appeal link requires reconciliation
and blocks the review decision until that historical link is repaired. Do not choose an
enforcement by assumption.

Only the Platform owner can perform this recovery:

1. Claim the case with the Platform owner account.

2. Review the appeal, case timeline, and every enforcement record. Select Load more
   case history first when older enforcement records remain.

3. Under Appealed enforcement, choose the active or reversed applied action that
   the appeal actually challenges.

4. Enter a reconciliation reason explaining how the match was verified, then select
   Reconcile appeal link.

The recovery is version-checked and adds both a case-timeline entry and a Platform
audit record. It does not grant, deny, apply, or reverse an enforcement. After the link
is repaired, release the case when separation of duties requires a different Platform
Admin to decide the appeal. If the correct applied enforcement is absent or cannot be
verified, stop and escalate the record for data repair rather than linking it.