Creating Complaints

The Complaints & Appeals area tracks external challenges to how your institution handled an access or privacy matter — a complaint filed with an oversight body, or a statutory appeal of a decision. AccessPoint treats complaint and appeal as two "kinds" of the same record; the kind comes from the complaint type you pick at intake, and the panel wording adapts to it. A complaint can stand on its own or be linked to the request it contests. Open the intake dialog from the Complaints dashboard; the form is help-enabled, so the ? icon opens this guidance.

Registering a Complaint or Appeal

1. Complaint type (required) — pick the type. Each option is tagged (Complaint) or (Appeal). Your choice drives everything below, including the read-only Regulator / governing authority shown beneath the dropdown, the filing-window rule, and the grounds catalogue.
2. Intake origin — choose Regulator investigation (the oversight body is investigating) or Direct to institution (the matter came straight to you). The type suggests a default, but you can override it. The origin determines whether the complaint later passes through a Submitted stage; a short hint explains the difference.
3. Admissibility hint — if the type defines a filing window, a banner tells you whether the complaint is in time against the computed deadline (calculated from the notified date, or the received date if none). This is advisory only and never blocks you from registering.
4. Title (required), an optional External complaint / file number (the regulator's reference), and a Summary.
5. Ground — if the type has a grounds catalogue, select the subject-matter ground of the complaint.
6. Parties — capture the complainant name, email, and the assigned investigator name. The investigator may be the oversight body's.
7. Received on and Notified on dates, both capped at today.
8. Primary request link (optional) — search the request register (type-ahead, top matches) and link the contested request. Standalone complaints are fully supported; you can link or change requests later.

Click Register complaint / Register appeal. The complaint is created in the Active stage and opens in the detail panel. If you close the dialog with unsaved entries, a guard asks you to confirm.

(screenshot placeholder — capture: the intake dialog with the complaint type, read-only regulator, intake-origin choice, admissibility hint banner, parties, and received/notified dates)

Kind-Aware Wording

The complaint type you pick determines the kind of record. When you choose an appeal-kind type, the panel wording flips automatically — for example, the title and received-date labels — but the workflow is identical to a complaint. The type also carries the governing authority (the regulator office), the filing-window rule, and the grounds catalogue, so choosing the right type sets up the rest of the record.

Privacy by Design

Staff you later delegate investigation work to — custodians and contributors — never see the complainant's identity. Instructions are sanitized, and the create dialogs remind you of this firewall.