Mass cases & subcases
Coordinate a portfolio event through a versioned population and parent matter while evaluating, executing, and evidencing every customer action independently.
A disaster, provider incident, statement defect, or policy remediation can affect thousands of customers. A mass case manages the common cause; one subcase preserves each customer’s facts, controls, actions, and outcome.
Hierarchy
mass case: provider outage on 2027-08-04
├─ population version 1: 18,420 candidate loans
├─ subcase Maya / Harbor
├─ subcase customer B / BNPL
├─ subcase merchant C / advance
└─ aggregate work, progress, exceptions, and evidence manifestThe parent cannot satisfy a subcase’s individual deadline or compliance requirement. Each subcase has exactly one managing mass case and otherwise follows the normal case model.
Versioned population
Population definitions pin source, query/criteria, as-of time, included IDs, exclusions, checksum, creator, and version. If the affected cohort expands, create version 2 and record added/removed reasons; do not mutate version 1.
| Population state | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Matches detection criteria; not yet confirmed. |
| Included | Eligible for subcase and proposed actions. |
| Excluded | Does not meet policy, with structured reason. |
| Added later | Enters through a later population version. |
| Resolved before action | Subcase retained; unnecessary action skipped. |
Fan-out model
One proposed mass action becomes N individual action intents:
template + population version
↓ fan out
customer fact resolution
↓
individual compliance/eligibility decision
↓
idempotent execution or explicit skip
↓
individual acknowledgement and reconciliationOne blocked customer does not fail the entire population, and one allowed customer does not authorize another.
Safe rollout
Run a dry preview with outcome counts and amount totals, require approval of the frozen population and template, execute a small canary, compare observed outcomes, then expand in bounded batches. A kill switch stops new dispatch but does not pretend already accepted provider or financial effects were recalled.
Aggregate status
The mass case reports counts by proposed, eligible, approval-required, blocked, missing-facts, submitted, completed, failed, drifted, and skipped. Counts reconcile to the frozen population version, and amount-based actions reconcile amounts separately.
Common failures
- a customer pays after population selection;
- a new cease or bankruptcy control appears before contact;
- a document or address changes before rendering;
- the core is stale for one cohort;
- provider acceptance is partial;
- an idempotent retry returns prior success;
- a population criterion accidentally crosses legal entities or products.
Each becomes an individual outcome or controlled incident, never a silent bulk override.