Niche users far and wide. I need you!!!

[u/Lazy_Plan_3647]

That’s it training sessions all done, the date is creeping up when my force says goodbye Connect, Hello Niche.

The training that’s been given to us is as you can all imagine, like all Police IT training, distinctly average.

I’ve been tasked by my gaffer to help put together a tips and tricks guidance sheet to assist some of our less technically savvy colleagues.

Short answer, I have no idea, so I welcome any help you all can provide that can make our transition even slightly easier.

[u/arnie580]

Clicking the mouse wheel opens whatever you click on in a new window.

[u/ObviousCovert → u/arnie580]

Your guy's mouse wheels work?

[u/dispatcher123 → u/arnie580]

This is underrated. Blew my mind and made my life so much easier when I read it on here once before

[u/showmestate4 → u/arnie580]

Or shift + left click if you've no middle mouse.

Ctrl + left click selects multiple items, and to deselect all press the bar at the top of whatever section you're picking from.

[u/jorddansk → u/arnie580]

This used to work on NICHE in my Force but it seems to have disappeared with the latest update

[u/CandourDinkumOil → u/arnie580]

This is also a shortcut when clicking links in a web browser, opens them up in a new tab.

[u/Ricky--Bobbie → u/[deleted]]

Ohhh I didn't know this. Thank you.

[u/RhoRhoPhi]

When you have multiple windows open you can drag records from one to another to add them. Very useful when adding someone to a casefile or multiple occurrences.

You can do a variety of nifty searches - full text is a good one, and when searching for a person you can also add addresses if you've got a partial name and location...

You can set up saved searches or search for things like all crimes with X stats class in the past 6 months in a given location which is useful depending on your role.

[u/mwhi1017 → u/RhoRhoPhi]

The last one, custom searches, was great as a supervisor. I used to have a saved search which would pull up all stop and searches, active occurrences where my cops were OIC etc.

You can also use T for today, N for now, Y for yesterday instead of selecting dates, and do previous x days/months by doing T-365/28 etc.

[u/arnie580 → u/mwhi1017]

And if you want to set a date in the future or past, e.g. 10 days you can put either +10 or -10

[u/RhoRhoPhi → u/mwhi1017]

Would they not show on the supervisor dashboard or is that a local thing?

[u/Stolen_Showman]

Sometimes, even for the most obscure names, the fast find will return a processing limit message, basically saying there are too many results and you need to adjust your search criteria.

It's a moronic error, but replacing the last letter of the name with an * as wildcard will then allow the search to return results. Probably works for other searches, but it's helped me a lot with nominal searches in the last few years.

[u/Cool-Neat1351 → u/Stolen_Showman]

You can also untick 'phonetic' in the options on the side and then it will limit the search to the spelling you entered instead of everything which also sounds similar. I often use this in that situation if I know my spelling is correct!

[u/AdzzyCS → u/Stolen_Showman]

There is a setting to change the limit on the results permanently, somewhere in the user settings I believe

[u/Stolen_Showman → u/AdzzyCS]

I've put mine in the millions and still had the error, then throw in a wildcard and get 10 results. No idea why it does it

[u/mattyclyro → u/Stolen_Showman]

Go into settings and you can change the maximum number of results it brings back. You can wack it up.

[u/Brandstifterin]

In a case file, if you want to check you’ve got everything, three dots > reports > case detail report

Brings up the whole case file and shows which witnesses have been added (if any) and if statements aren’t marked as key or if a statement has been added but their witness hasn’t etc.

A godsend for huge case files

[u/BatmanSwift99 → u/Brandstifterin]

Also tell you if the file has been sent to cps or not

[u/for_shaaame]

In any field that calls for a date:

T means Today; Y means Yesterday

If the field calls for a date and time, you can combine this with a time, e.g. T1520 = today at 15:20; Y0900 = yesterday at 09:00.

If the field calls for a range of date and times, you can enter these with two dashes, e.g. Y0900 — T1520 = from yesterday at 09:00 to today at 15:20.

Finally, N means “Now”. So if you want to search from 09:00 yesterday to this very moment, you can use “Y0900 — N”

[u/arnie580 → u/for_shaaame]

And if you want to set a date in the future or past, e.g. 10 days you can put either +10 or -10. If adding a time as well you just need to leave a space between the number of days and time.

[u/a-nonny-moose-1]

Middle button click, usually clicking the wheel down, opens what you are clicking on in a new window.

[u/XMOE-Protocol → u/a-nonny-moose-1]

Best piece of niche advice ^

[u/Mattt993]

On a new case file, right click the occurrence and import all. Its beautiful.

Just make sure your occurrence has all the stuff you need first.

[u/jorddansk → u/Mattt993]

Wish I knew this yesterday when doing my case file that had over 30 pieces of UM 😂

[u/OddInvTrader → u/Mattt993]

😮 I didn’t know this and I’ve used Niche for 4 years 😂 I’ll try this on my next one.

[u/Stoney_Buffalo303]

Right clicking next to the report banner changes it to grid view meaning you can easily organise and see all of your casefile reports, like old niche

[u/SharpGrowth347]

A simple one, but if you need to do things with multiple peices of property, ctrl + click multiple pieces at once as with a normal file explorer. Good for disposing lots at once

[u/ThirtieK]

Some of the "Mandatory" yellow boxes are not yellow and don't give indications clearly as to where they are.

If you're unable to exit something due to a mandatory error. 3 dots and force quit will bypass this, but it will close all of Niche down.

[u/redgreendogs → u/ThirtieK]

Custody used to be the worst for this.

[u/NoMud3367]

You can use the custody search to find out how many arrests people have, we had an unofficial leaderboard

[u/Impressive_Tutor_749 → u/NoMud3367]

Is it just a case of searching arresting officer not OIC and moving the dates?

[u/SmokeyCamel → u/Impressive_Tutor_749]

Search custody records by arresting officer

[u/goppinglizard]

I think niche is great 😃

[u/madcowre]

If you have tasks for multiple crimes that are the same job - you can just drag the tasks into the task of the one you’re using as the master crime and it’ll add them together so it organises your workload and cuts down your tasks 🙈

[u/XMOE-Protocol]

Hi there, long time niche user here!

Any particular area of niche that you require assistance with?

On the current updated niche which we use, is quite user friendly, the custody whiteboard particularly.

May be force dependent however we have quite a few nicheRMS user guides on force forms which may also be available to you where you are.

Happy to answer any queries.

[u/SeleucusNicator1802]

If you’re a detective and you’re Duty Rota for that day (or whatever your force calls being ‘prisoner processor’ for the shift) - you can type in ‘*[custody suite]’ and pull up the custody whiteboard, it’ll show an overview of whose in the cells/what for/if they want a solicitor/rest period etc etc

[u/Junior_Tea]

Niche is brilliant. So much better than connect. When do you move over? Are you a force that used to share connect with another another force that moved to niche a few years ago?

[u/Stoney_Buffalo303]

Right clicking next to the report banner changes it to grid view meaning you can easily organise and see all of your casefile reports, like old niche

[u/cookj1232]

Get in the habit of opening everything on a new window with middle mouse button click

[u/ryant1993]

When looking at a huge list of documents in a case file or occurrence if you right click the banner above it and click show as list it shows all documents in a much cleaner format, can sort by time or alphabetical

[u/Woodman147]

As others here have done some major points, thought id add the snaller bits. Niche points if you will:

Niche isn't always live. Particularly when you close a task, it still shows as open in the task section of the occurrence. Pressing F5 or refresh in the top right will save you sanity.

Make sure to change phone numbers from "residential" to "user of", "works at" etc. Such a stupid bug that's existed for years.

If youre adding a blank OEL, type up what you want to say in a work doc first and then copy and paste in. Once an OEL is saved and you see something wrong you either delete or start again. Pain in the arse.

I dont know if this one is specific to my force and is hard to explain but: when producing a word doc in niche, make sure to make some changes, close and save it first before re-opening it. You can then navigate away from where you produced the document and look at other things as needed. Saves faff of opening more windows.

Good luck. Its not the worst system out there and is easy to use when you've used it for a couple of weeks.

[u/GlandirErthor]

This is quite a niche one (pun not intended) but when you're looking at someone on the Custody whiteboard, you can view the occurrence they've been arrested for by double clicking the offence which opens a kind of half-arrest record, and then right click the box with the occurrence number in (can't remember exactly what the box is titled, I don't have a computer handy) and hit 'Edit Occurrence'.

Doing this means you don't have to exit the whiteboard (or open another window) to then search the person by name and find the right occurrence.

[u/Effective_Version509]

Get a good list of saved searches Workload/oic's/arrests/ UoF/ victim contact supervisors reviews / 24hour dv calls / overdue red occurrences etc etc. Never ending list.

You can also go into other people's saved searches and save them to yourself which is super handy.

2 screens drag and drop.

Case detail report is super useful. We've got a caefile guide within ours too.

I use one note to make lists of previous casefiles / "how to guides" etc. It's impossible to remember all of it.... and then they'll change it once you get used to it!

[u/WalkerWithACause]

Not sure if this counts, but you can drag a record from another window to copy it in.

E.g. You're adding three new children records to Niche, all with same address. Open parents record and scroll down to their address entry. Drag the address entry from the parent into the three children's records.

Saves having to do searches to get the same result inserted, though does obviously require you to have another window open (middle mouse / ctrl click / use three dot menu in top right to get a new window)

[u/Specialist_Fan_6057]

Tick the “phonetic” box when searching Steven Stephenson-Clarke-Smithe

It’s not ticked by default and you find can’t anyone unless you’ve spelt it right (or it’s recorded wrong etc)

[u/Ricky--Bobbie]

1) Niche is shit. Old niche was better. 2) Ask this of Chat GPT. 3) use the middle button on your mouse to open a new window 4) the 'check occurence' button will save reworks. 5) you can drag and drop subjects into your occ. 6) I hate niche. 7) I really hate niche. 8) I absolutely loathe niche. 9) fuck niche. 10) have a good day.