Producing complex chronologies

Reviewing interactions between different agencies and organisations often requires a comprehensive multi-agency chronology. Producing one can be a time-consuming task. Chronolator makes it easier.

Little specialist knowledge is required to use it. There are no new programs to learn or install, and only a basic knowledge of working with Word tables or filling out Web forms is required.

Chronolator has something to help everyone involved in using a chronology to investigate a case:

those who supervise and administer it;
the front-line staff who input the data;
those who review it.

Major benefits

Chronolator saves time entering, merging, sorting, and formatting the events in a chronology. It includes tools to help analyse and review what happened. All this speeds up the entire process of producing accurate chronologies and conducting reviews.

See if you can beat the speed of its table handling features by trying the Chronolator Challenge!

Watch a presentation to see why it was developed, the issues it addresses, and how easy it is to set up customised chronologies.

Chronolator is affordable. Please contact sales@chronolator.co.uk for pricing details.

Find out about Chronolator's key features and what is required to run by clicking the items below.

Uses familiar and easy to use Microsoft Word™, or a Web browser

Chronolator began life as a Microsoft Word™ application. If you can use Word, you can use Chronolator.

No software to install;
Widely available;
No special training required.

In 2021, it introduced Web tools that run in a browser such as Chrome and complement the Word features.

It is important to note that only the software resides on the Web. Your chronologies stay on your computer, completely under your control. Their confidentiality is not compromised.

Flexible – column headings can be customised

Specify exactly what data you want to collect for each case, what is optional, and what is required.

Ensures consistency across agencies

When you have decided what data you want to collect, you create a Word table with the relevant column headings. Chronolator makes sure agencies return a table with those same headings.

Simplifies data entry

Source records often become available in random order, and contain dates and times written in different formats.

Chronolator lets you enter them you obtain them and puts them in the right order. You do not need to sort them manually before input or to hunt around in the table to find the right place to put them.

The same applies for dates and times - enter them as they are written in the original records (e.g. June 20 2017 10.38pm or 20/06/17 22.38) and let Chronolator put them in a consistent format, including the day of the week if required.

Highlights missing and out-of-sequence data

When agencies enter an event into their chronology, Chronolator makes sure that it contains all the information you have deemed necessary and that events are in the right order.

Imports, merges, sorts and standardises chronology tables at touch of a button

When agencies have returned their chronologies, Chronolator helps put them all together. It checks that they all relate to the same case, merges them together, sorts them by date and time, and makes sure that dates and times are in a consistent format.

Simplifies tracking of data sources

The Case Review Administrator identifies the source of each table as it is imported into the final review.

Chronolator adds the source into the imported table, making it easy to identify where the information came from.

Speeds data collection

All of Chronolator's features are available to anyone who receives a Chronolator document. If a recipient needs data from other organisations or departments, they can forward the document to them to complete. When they get the completed documents back, they can use Chronolator to merge them into a single document to be returned to the requestor.

The diagram below shows how Chronolator can be used in a typical multi-agency review. Click on it for a larger view.

Assists analysis and review

All the power of Microsoft Word™ is available, so for example you can use Word's standard Find facility. Chronolator adds a number of other features to help reviewers, among them:

Personalising an anonymised document;
Adding the day of the week to events to discover patterns of behaviour;
Colour-coding events according to the agency in which they occurred;
A variety of narrative formats which can sometimes be easier to read than a long chronology table;
A basic timeline view of events;
Analysis of event counts by agency and by month;
Splitting a chronology into date ranges for analysis.

The Chronolator Reviewer's Tool adds graphical timelines and other useful tools to the above.

Anonymisation and Personalisation

Chronolator includes an Abbreviations Glossary which can be used to anonymise a document.

As it can be difficult to build a mental picture of the people involved in a chronology if they are all referred to by abbreviations, Chronolator lets you re-personalise the document while reviewing it.

Comes complete with documentation and instructions

As well as containing information about Chronolator itself, the Setting Up Chronolator Documents manual includes some basic guidelines on good practice when setting up a review.

The Using Chronolator Documents manual includes various hints and tips for people who might be unfamiliar with Word tables, and describes how Local Administrators can use Chronolator to devolve responsibility and produce merged tables for their own agency.

The Using Chronolator Samples manual contains some exercises that can be taken alongside the sample documents provided to acquaint yourself with Chronolator's main features.

All of these manuals are available online - see here.

Saves hours of clerical time

Try the Chronolator Challenge to see how much time Chronolator can save on even a simple set of tables.