Introduction
The CiviCRM Case Roles extension replaces the default CiviCRM Roles on a case. The reason for its existence is that it creates roles between the contact with the role and the case only. It does not create individual roles/relationships between case clients and the contacts with roles on the case.
When is it useful
The Case Roles extension makes sense in all situations where cases are used. It makes a big difference, however, if you have a lot of cases with a lot of clients and staff (or other people / organisations) having a role on those cases. In that situation, lots of relationships are created between the case client and contacts with a role, whereas the only real relevant information is that they have a role on that case. In other words: it keeps your data-structure much cleaner and makes it easier for the user to understand from different perspectives what is happening.
Use case
The extension was built for Clean Clothes Campaign’s International Office in Amsterdam. They use CiviCase to manage a number of case types, where the case client was usually an organisation reporting the case. With the former CiviCRM Roles set up, relationships between clients and other contacts involved would snowball as cases increased and progressed.
Case Roles helps them untangle the complex sets of relationships and paints a much clearer picture of what really matters: the role each contact plays on a case, rather than its connection to a client itself regardless of case context. Even reporting organisations now have their own case role for consistency.
