Is there a way to re-open a closed case, WITHOUT using the "archive form" function? This is important for us as we need the information that was captured in the form that closed the case originally, including the date on which the case was closed. I need to know what day the case was closed, AND what day it was reopened.
For context, we register patients as cases and follow up over the course of treatment, and their case is closed once treatment is completed. However, on occasion a patient will need to re-enroll in this program for another round of treatment; we'd like to be able to re-open their case rather than opening a new case (which effectively creates a duplicate for this one patient, making it difficult to know how many unique patients are in our program). It's important that we have the information on their original exit from the program (when the case was closed), as well as the new information when they re-engage with the program (when the case is re-opened).
I had something similar in a completely different use case. What I did is adding a 'status' to the case characteristics and use that one to filter and basically not close the case itself. e.g. when registered you add patient status: "active patient" and instead of closing you change the case characteristic to dormant patient. In our case the cases would move through different pipeline statuses. Maybe this could work for your case too
Thanks - I agree this could work, and is a potential solution for future projects. Since I'm working on an app that has been in use for a few years it's not the best since any case that has already been closed but needs to be reactivated now means I have to create an entirely new case in order to not lose that important data when it was originally closed. I recognize I can add the original caseid as the external ID on creating the new case, but that's still not ideal.
All said, I'm disappointed there isn't a way to re-open a case without archiving the form - Dimagi developers, please consider this for development!