Case controls & escalation

Change timing, ownership, urgency, and workflow state through explicit transitions that preserve deadlines, wake conditions, current facts, and audit history.

Case controls change how work proceeds; they do not change balances, waive obligations, or bypass a specialist workflow.

Control matrix

Control	Required inputs	System effect	Cannot do
Wait/snooze	Reason, wake time or condition, expected version	Moves to waiting state and creates wake trigger.	Move past a non-deferrable deadline.
Schedule contact	Purpose, channel, requested time, destination	Creates future task/interaction intent.	Guarantee the future contact is eligible.
Reassign	Destination queue/worker and reason	Moves eligible task ownership.	Grant missing skill or permission.
Escalate	Reason, urgency, destination, response target	Raises case level and creates specialist work.	Convert a blocked action to allowed.
Reopen	New trigger and reason	Creates a new open interval on the same history.	Erase the prior closure outcome.
Close	Structured outcome and exit evidence	Freezes completed interval.	Close with unmet mandatory tasks or obligations.

Versioned transition

curl -X POST "$BASE/v1/servicing/cases/case_HBR_COL_51/transitions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: hbr-wait-for-documents-2027-05-01" \
  -d '{
    "transition": "wait_for_borrower",
    "reasonCode": "documents_requested",
    "wakeAt": "2027-05-05T09:00:00-07:00",
    "expectedVersion": 6
  }'

The workflow validates that the transition is allowed from the current stage and that exit/wake requirements are present. A concurrent update returns 409 rather than overwriting newer work.

Deadlines keep running

Waiting state distinguishes customer wait, external-party wait, scheduled follow-up, and operational hold. Each state declares which service-level clocks pause and which regulatory or contractual deadlines continue. A user cannot snooze away a mandatory response date.

Scheduled work re-checks

The scheduled time is a preference. At execution, the interaction re-resolves customer local time, consent, restrictions, contact frequency, case/loan state, and destination. If blocked, it records the blocked attempt or creates review; it does not keep retrying around the same control.

Escalation

curl -X POST "$BASE/v1/servicing/cases/case_HBR_COL_51/escalate" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: escalate-hbr-vulnerability" \
  -d '{
    "reasonCode": "vulnerable_customer",
    "destination": "supervisor_review",
    "note": "Customer requested specialist support."
  }'

Escalation preserves the existing case and links the new task, urgency, service-level effect, owner, decision, and return path.

Close and reopen

Closure requires structured outcome, reason, all mandatory stage criteria, and current authoritative facts. Reopen creates a new trigger event and current workflow state while retaining the previous closed interval and evidence.

A control prepared under one case version may be stale. Use optimistic concurrency and re-read current state after a conflict; never retry a different transition blindly.