Get started

Community Request enables your agency to securely collect evidence from the community and manage that media in Axon Evidence. This topic helps you understand which request type to use and how to get started.

Request types at a glance

Request type	Use case	Delivery method	Who can submit
Individual Request	Specific witness, victim, or involved party	Email or SMS	Single recipient
Public Request	Large events, ongoing investigations	Shareable URL, QR code	Anyone with the link
Area Request	Doorbell or security cameras in an area	Ring Neighbors	Ring subscribers in the area
Business Request	Business-specific evidence	Email, SMS, or Auror Portal	Business contacts
CCTV Request (Beta)	Registered CCTV cameras	Email or SMS	Single recipient
API / Integration	Integrates Community Request with agency-owned or third-party systems	Email or SMS	Single recipient

Storage and licensing

With an active Axon Community license, your agency receives unlimited third-party (3P) storage for evidence submitted through Community Request. This storage is excluded from your agency's à la carte 3P calculation.

Prerequisites

Before creating requests, ensure the following:

• Axon Evidence access with Community Request permissions enabled.
• Role permissions configured for the specific request types you plan to use.
• For Area Request, a Ring Neighbors Public Safety Service verified account.

Roles and permissions

Before users create or manage Community Requests, administrators must review role permissions in Axon Evidence. Permissions are managed through roles: administrators can modify an existing role, create a new role, or copy and modify a role to enable the appropriate Community Request permissions. Use permissions to control who can view requests, create requests, manage requests, and triage submissions.

Learn more about roles and permissions.

Permission configuration examples

The following examples show role permission configurations for common use cases. The Audit Trail PDF permission is determined by your organization's policies for reviewing audit trails.

View Portals	Invite Individual	Create Public Portal	Edit and Close Public Portal	Triage Submissions
Use case: Patrol officers who can invite individuals and must triage their own submissions
Only Their Own	Allowed	Prohibited	Prohibited	Only Their Own
Use case: Detectives who can create public portals and triage their own submissions
Only Their Own	Allowed	Allowed	Only Their Own	Only Their Own
Use case: Public information officer who can create a public portal but not triage
Any Portal	Prohibited	Allowed	Any Portal	Prohibited
Use case: A centralized group who can triage any portal
Any Portal	Prohibited	Prohibited	Prohibited	Any Portal
Use case: Command staff who can access and triage any portal
Any Portal	Allowed	Allowed	Any Portal	Any Portal

Community Request settings

Community Request settings are organized by tab and control how requests are created, reviewed, and submitted. The settings below are on the General tab and apply across request types. Request-type-specific settings are documented in each request type's topic.

To open Community Request settings:

1. Select Admin.
2. Select Application Settings.
3. Select Community Request.

Select Save Settings at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

Help contact settings

Enter up to three contact methods for community members to use if they have questions about their evidence submission. The contact methods are shown at the bottom of all Axon Community Request web pages community members visit.

• Enable contact information turns the contact methods on or off.
• For each contact method, set Contact Type to Email or URL, then enter the email address or URL.

Retention period for declined submissions

Evidence declined during triage uses the default category retention period unless a custom retention period is specified.

• Use custom retention period turns the custom period on or off.
• When the custom period is on, enter a number and select a time unit, such as Days, to set how long declined evidence is retained.

Language support

Provide simple translations for Community Requests in regional languages. Select the checkbox for each language you want to support. English (US) is the default and is always selected.

Supported languages: English (US) — Default, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (CA), English (UK), Finnish, French, French (CA), German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (US), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh.

For organizations with a non-English language set as their default in Axon Evidence, the Community Request upload screen text, Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy also appear in that language.

Terms and conditions

Display the Terms and Conditions before allowing a community member to submit evidence via the submission portal. The Terms and Conditions should include translations for all supported languages.

• Enable Terms and Conditions turns the disclaimer on or off.
• For each supported language, enter Disclaimer content, External document link text, and an External document url.

After Terms and Conditions are enabled, when a community member opens a request (public portal or individual invite), they must accept or decline the terms before continuing to upload evidence. Selecting Decline displays the disclaimer message you enter here. If the community member changes their mind, they can re-open the original request, accept the terms, and submit evidence until the request expires.

Caption field

You can enable or disable the caption field on the community-facing portal submission page. When enabled, community members can add a description or caption when submitting evidence. This setting is global for all request types. Disabling it does not remove captions that have already been uploaded.

To enable or disable the caption field:

1. Select Admin.
2. Select Application Settings.
3. Select Community Request.
4. On the General tab, scroll down to Community Request Captions, then select Enable Community Request captions.
5. Select Save Settings.