This Tutorial is designed to acquaint new users with the main features of the INVESTIGATION CATALYST to prepare them for its use.

What is INVESTIGATION CATALYST?

Investigation Catalyst is software to help investigators develop descriptions of processes or system operations, and identify the best ways to achieve improved future performance.

It provides a set of tools and rules to use during investigations of processes of all kinds. The tools and rules are based on the Multilinear Events Sequencing (MES) investigation technology. The application implements the technology to help investigators understand, describe and explain a phenomenon, and use the explanation to improve future activities.

The software supports two related but different kinds of tasks. The first general task is to develop a logically tested matrix-driven description of the actions required to produce an outcome of interest The latter general task is to develop the changes that would achieve the most effective improvement in future activities.

How Investigation Catalyst works

The following pages provide an overview of how Investigation Catalyst works. New users should start with the first page and step through the rest of the pages with the screen views in sequence for best results, using the Next Page menu at the bottom of each page. This takes up to 20 minutes. The contents include:

• 1. The Application Command Area
  
• 2. The Event Data Input Interface
  
• 3. Data Placement
  
• 4. Defining Data Displays
  
• 5. Showing Coupled Interactions
  
• 6. Inspecting Objects on Matrix
  
• 7. Merging Matrixes
  
• 8. Overlap View

• 1. Diamond Tags
  
• 2. Problem/opportunity/hazard definition.
  
• 3. Options for improvement
  
• 4. Columnar Data Displays

While using INVESTIGATION CATALYST, questions about application details can be answered by consulting the Help Menu at Help Menu >Investigation Catalyst Help. The Tutorials, accessible from the Help Menu, contain additional guidance for tasks using the software.