Create and submit a Community Request

Community Requests allow your organization to securely collect digital evidence from the public. This article provides a complete walkthrough, including step-by-step submission, resubmission, triage instructions, and how to use CCTV search.

Law enforcement frequently asks members of the public to submit evidence after an incident occurs. Organizations who use Axon Evidence can request evidence from community members from a single dashboard in Axon Community Request.

Axon Community Request has two components:

  • Axon Community Request for the public: Allows organizations to create public evidence submission portals where the public can submit evidence during both large-scale and smaller, day-to-day events.
  • Axon Community Request for specific individuals: Allows officers to send out individual invites to witnesses directly from Axon Capture or Axon Evidence.

This video explains how to submit a business request.

Create and submit a request

  1. Select Evidence.
  2. Select Community and then Community Request.
  3. Select Create New Community Request.
  4. Choose which type of Community Request invite you wish to create. Depending on your organization's permissions, you can select one or both to create them at the same time, and some request types may not be enabled.
    • Individual Request: Sends a request (via email or text) to an individual recipient, inviting them to submit evidence via a secure link with the ID and category fields prepopulated. To create an Individual Request, complete the following:
      • ID
      • Retention categories
      • Incident start date and time
      • Languages to support
      • Request title
      • Request description
      • Certificates
      • Delivery method (with Individual Contact Information)
        Watch this video to learn how to create a portal invitation.
    • Portal Request: Allows all community members to invite themselves to the portal and submit evidence. Portals can be created for unique businesses, large events, or investigations. Submitter information can be stored with each submission. To create a Portal Request , complete the following:
      • ID optional
      • Retention categories
      • Incident start date and time
      • Languages to support
      • Request title
      • Request description
      • Incident location
      • Delivery method (with Public Portal Information)
        Watch this video to learn how to create a portal invitation.
    • Area Request: Sends a request to camera owners through their participating service providers. Camera owners that choose not to participate remain anonymous. Camera owners that decide to help can share video evidence directly into Axon Evidence following a tamper-proof chain of custody. To create an Area Request, complete the following:
      • ID
      • Retention categories (optional)
      • NIBRS category
      • Incident start date and time
      • Incident end date and time
        • Each request can only target a timeframe of up to 24 hours.
        • Each request can only be made within 45 days of the incident occurring.
        • End times can be set up to 23 hours and 59 minutes in the future from the time of submission.
      • Request title
      • Request description
        • The content of each request will be reviewed by the camera provider’s content moderation team. Here are some tips to make sure the request is approved:
          • Focus on specific actions - For example, "Investigating package theft where individual took packages from porches". Don't use general terms like "suspicious activity" or "person of interest".
          • Use complete physical descriptions - If mentioning race, always include at least 2 additional unique descriptors. For example, "Black male wearing red jacket with white stripes, driving blue sedan".
          • Protect privacy in descriptions - Reference intersections rather than exact addresses and do not use victim names.
      • Incident location
        • The incident boundary can be adjusted, but must have a minimum area of .025 miles and a maximum area of 2.0 miles.
          Note

          Ring is currently the only supported camera provider. All requests will be immediately visible to the public through your agency’s profile on Ring’s Neighbors website. You can find your agency’s profile page here.


    • Business Request: Creates a portal to request evidence from the public for a business. This selection includes the following sections:
      • ID
      • Retention categories
      • Incident start date and time
      • Incident end date and time
      • Crime type
      • Request description
      • Business location
      • Delivery method
  5. Select Create Request.
Note

After creation, share the portal link to your website, social media, news outlets, QR code, etc

After creating a request, community members can upload files either through the link in their individual invite, or through the portal URL.

Resend a Community Request

In the event you need to edit or resend your request (such as a misspelling or expired link), complete the following:

  1. Open the request you wish to edit or resend.
  2. Select Resend Invite.
    • When resending an invite, users are permitted to edit and/or resend the invite depending on the status of the portal.
    • Depending on your organization's settings, you are prompted to insert information. If evidence has not uploaded at the time that the user is editing or resending the link, the user has full access to edit all fields and change the contact method.
    • If evidence has already been uploaded to the portal, to maintain the chain of custody, you cannot edit the submitter information (name, DOB, or contact methods). You will see a blue information box advisingthat the only supported action is to resend a second link. If you need to edit the contact details, create a new request.
  3. In the panel that opens, enter the following:
    • First Name (optional)
    • Middle Name (optional)
    • Last Name (optional)
    • Date of Birth (optional)
    • Contact option
    • Email address or phone number
  4. Select Send.

Resending an invite reuses the original trackable link, inserts a new audit action in the audit trail, and permits an additional 25 files to be uploaded. If 50 items have been uploaded to the portal, you will not be able to resend an invite and will be directed to create a new request. If the link is resent or accessed, the community member receives a notice that additional submissions are not permitted and they should request a new link from the organization. Any uploads attempted will fail.

Reminders

  • Reminders will follow the same cadence with a new link being sent.
  • Evidence Certificates:

    • If Evidence Certificates are enabled for your organization when resending the invite, the originally used certificate is sent with your resend. This will be a new, blank certificate that is only attached to any evidence that is received on the resent link.

    • Example: An officer sends an invite, 20 files are uploaded, and one certificate is completed. Five days later the officer needs to resend the invite, 10 additional files are uploaded and one new certificate is completed. This new certificate only attaches to the 10 additional files and is not attached to any of the original 20 files uploaded on the first attempt.

Request creation panels

Request descriptions support hyperlinks, allowing users to include clickable links to websites and email addresses.

To enter hyperlinked text in a description:

  • For websites, enter the full URL, including "www." (for example, www.axon.com).
  • For email addresses, enter a valid email format (for example, [email protected]).

When a community member selects a hyperlink from a portal description, they will see a confirmation prompt notifying them that they are leaving the submission portal. They can then choose to stay on the page or continue. The links will open in the system default browser or mail client.

Request details panel

The Request Details panel includes the following items:

  • RETENTION CATEGORIES: Select the retention category from the drop-down menu.
  • INCIDENT DATE & TIME: Enter the date and time of the incident in the format (MM/DD/YY hh:mm am/pm). Optionally, select the Calendar icon and choose the date and time in the Calendar pop-up.
  • ID: Enter the ID number.
  • REQUEST TITLE: Enter a title for the request.
  • REQUEST DESCRIPTION: Enter a description of the request.

Request area panel

The Request Area panel includes the following items:

  • INCIDENT LOCATION (NOT SHOWN TO THE PUBLIC): Enter the location of the incident.
  • FRIENDLY NAME (Optional): Enter a friendly name for the location.

Delivery method panel

The Delivery Method panel includes the following items:

Individual Contact Information
  • Select either Contact by email or Contact by text message.
  • Contact by email: Enter your email address in the EMAIL ADDRESS text box.
  • Contact by text message: Beneath MOBILE PHONE NUMBER, select your country code from the drop-down list, and enter your phone number in the Phone Number text box.
  • Save contact information: Select the checkbox to save your contact information for future request creation.
  • FIRST NAME, MIDDLE NAME, and LAST NAME: Enter your full name in the respective fields.
  • DATE OF BIRTH: Enter your birth date in the text box. Optionally, select the Calendar icon and choose your birthday in the Calendar pop-up.
Public Portal Information
  • PUBLIC URL: Enter the name of the URL which will be displayed to the public.
  • PORTAL OWNER: Enter the name of the portal owner.

Multiple languages

Axon Community Request supports sending Community Request invitations in multiple languages. This functionality is available for both Individual Invites and the Public Portal. Officers can also send multilingual invites from the Axon Capture app.

This functionality is available in limited geographies only. Community Request supports the following languages in each region:

  • Arabic
  • English
  • Hindi
  • Norwegian
  • Russian
  • Thai
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • Finnish
  • Hungarian
  • Polish
  • Slovak
  • Turkish
  • Chinese (Taiwan)
  • French (Canada)
  • Italian
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Spanish (Latin America)
  • Ukrainian
  • Czech
  • French (France)
  • Japanese
  • Portuguese (Portugal)
  • Spanish (Spain)
  • Welsh
  • Danish
  • German
  • Korean
  • Punjabi
  • Spanish (US)
  
  • Dutch
  • Hebrew
  • Malay
  • Romanian
  • Swedish
  

Agency admins can enable multi-language invitations from the Community Request Settings page. This setting applies to both Individual Invites and Public Portal. The default language for the invite will be the same as the default language of Evidence.com.

Watch this video to learn how to configure multiple languages.

Triage and manage submissions

Note

Files uploaded via Community Request have any associated metadata stored within Axon Evidence. Community Request only supports GPS data images at this time. GPS data is unavailable for video, audio, and document file types.

Once community members begin submitting evidence, it’s important to review, organize, and manage the incoming files effectively. This process is called triage. Triage ensures that relevant, usable evidence is surfaced quickly and stored securely in Axon Evidence.

Organizations have the option to allow submissions to be automatically added as evidence or use the triage process to require the invite/portal owner to accept or decline submissions. A custom retention period to queue declined submissions for deletion can also be set.

Watch this video to learn how to triage submissions.

Triage submissions

  1. Select Evidence.
  2. Select Community and then Community Request.
  3. Locate the submission you wish to triage from the list, and then select Triage. If all evidence has been triaged, the Triage button is hidden.
  4. Review the submission. From here you can take the following actions:
    1. Open and review in a new tab: Select a piece of evidence to open and review it in a new tab.
    2. More info: General submission details are provided on the right pane, select More info to view the full evidence details.
    3. Decline: The file status will be marked as Declined. The evidence is queued for deletion.
    4. Accept: The file status will be marked as Accepted.
    5. Decline Remaining: Decline all remaining files in the submission.
    6. Accept Remaining: Accept all remaining files in the submission. If a piece of evidence is not triaged, the evidence is retained according to the retention category and a status of "Pending Triage" is displayed.
  5. After reviewing, finalize each submission by selecting Done for individual request or Next Submission for portal requests.

Accept or decline community submissions

Use the following procedure to review and accept or decline community submissions.

  1. There are two ways to reach the Portal Details Page for the submissions you want to triage:
    • Method 1:
      • Select View Submission in the email message you receive from Axon Evidence after a submission is uploaded. The email lists the ID, categories, and number of non-triaged items in the submission.
    • Method 2:
      • Select Evidence.
      • Select Community and then Community Request.
      • Find the entry that you want to triage, then select the entry's View Summary link.
  1. Select the Triage button to review the submission. The heading shows the contact's name if entered as part of the invitation and the number of items that need to be triaged. This information also displays on the side of the window. Select the More Info link to see additional information. The information shown depends on the type of file.
  2. Review all the items in the submission.
    • Select Accept or Decline as needed. If your organization has a custom retention period for declined evidence, that retention period is used to determine how long the evidence is retained. Otherwise, the declined evidence uses the retention period for the associated category to determine when the evidence is queued for deletion.
    • To accept or decline all remaining files in the submission, select Decline Remaining or Accept Remaining. The number shown in parentheses on the buttons is the number of files that have not already been accepted or declined.
  1. When finished, select Done for individual invites or Next Submission for public portals. If you exit before accepting or rejecting all items, you can return to the Submission Details page later from the Portal Details page.

Create a Community Request using CCTV search

Axon Community Request has partnered with Fusus to enable detectives to view CCTV registrants (fususREGISTRY) directly from Axon Evidence.

Watch this video to learn how to use CCTV cameras with Community Request.

Create a Community Request from CCTV search

  1. In the Axon Community Request section of your Dashboard, select View Requests.
  2. At the top of the Community Requests page, select Locate CCTV.
  3. Enter an Incident ID and Search Reason, and then select Search to start your search for CCTV cameras.
  4. Enter a Location (or pan to a camera).
  5. When the location appears on the map, select one of the camera locations, which are represented by a blue square with a white border symbol.
  6. In the pop-up, select Create Request.
  7. The Create Community Request window opens. Information from the CCTV pop-up will populate the relevant text fields.

CCTV Audit trail

From the CCTV tab in Community Request, select Export Audit Trail to run an audit trail report for all CCTV requests in the chosen timeframe.