To use Disc you'll first need a 'Welcome Email' from your Administrator, which contains your unique registration link. Look for an email with the Subject line of 'Welcome to [your Disc system's name] Disc system'. If it's not in your email inbox take a look in any spam or junk folders you may have, or in your deleted emails in case you deleted it by accident.

NOTE: If you cannot find your Welcome Email, this is usually for one of four reasons:

• You were sent a Welcome Email but for some reason you have mislaid it
• You have not have been added as a Member by the Administrator
• Your Administrator may have entered the wrong email address for you when he/she added you as a Member (e.g. there was a typo)
• Your Welcome Email may have been intercepted by a spam or security filter on your email system

If you have not received your Welcome Email, please contact your Administrator.

When you receive your Welcome Email you should open it, read it, and click the registration link. You will then be connected to your Disc system's 'Registration Page'.

Here you are asked to complete your details and to confirm that you have read, understood and agreed to abide by the Rules of Membership, and any other documents that have been designated 'must-read' by your Administrator. These documents can be downloaded from this page.

This same page also allows you to set up your password.

When you have completed the Registration Page, click 'Submit' - you will then be taken to your Disc Desktop Homepage. If you are using your smartphone web browser, you will see a banner at the top of the screen recommending that you download (or open if you have already downloaded) the Disc App.

Once you've logged in for the first time you won’t need to fill in the Registration Page again, but you may be periodically required to confirm your details and continued acceptance of the the 'must-read' documents by your Administrator.

Note: If you mislay your Welcome Email and need to request another one, please either contact your Administrator, or else go to your Disc Desktop login page and click the "Click here" link at the bottom of the login-panel, where it says "If you have not previously accessed this secure website and wish to do so" . In the page that opens, enter your email address in the box titled 'Request Password Reset or Welcome email'. You will then be sent a new Welcome Email. If you have already successfully logged-in, you can use this same tool to request a password reset email, if you forget your password.

The Desktop Homepage provides easy access to all the information that is available on your Disc system. Below you can see an example Homepage.

Header Section

• Left: Your Partnership's logo and the Disc system's name
• Top Right: Your email address, the 'Switch workspace' tool (only appears if you are a Member of more than one Disc system) and a link to log out
• Right: A 'Search' facility that allows you to search for specific content, including Subjects

Navigation Ribbon

(From left to right)

• Home Click this link anytime to return to the Homepage
• Browse Subjects Use this to view the full list of Known and ID Sought Subjects published on the system
• Galleries Galleries are categorised lists of Subjects with clickable images that will take you to their profile pages
• Current Awareness Links to pages where you can view Alerts, News, Events, and Documents published on your Disc system
• Instant Messages Links to a list of any Instant Message 'threads' you have access to
• Help A link to this online guide
• More A drop-down menu that provides access to the following:
  • My Premises A link to your My Premises page (only appears if your Administrator has set up Premises on your Disc system and has assigned you to one or more of them)
  • My Draft Incident Reports If you have any in-progress Incident Reports, access and finalise (or delete) them from here
  • My Crime Reports > Pending Reports/Submitted Reports If direct to police crime reporting is enabled on your Disc system, you can view and manage your pending and submitted Crime Reports on these pages
  • View Analytics (If enabled by your Administrator) view a selection of analytic reports about your Disc system
  • My Account and Security Settings A link to your Account page, where you can view and edit your details, change your password and optionally set up Multi Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Contact the Administrator Click this link if you need to send an email to your Administrator

Below the Ribbon

• Click here to submit a report... Click this button to submit an Incident, Intelligence, or Public Realm Report
• Contact the Administrator Click this button if you need to send an email to your Administrator

• Left Column
  • Latest Subjects When displayed, this block shows the three latest Subjects who have been added to Disc
  • Latest News When displayed, this block shows the latest News items that have been published. Click on a headline for full details
  • Crime Map When displayed, shows a map (centered on your post code) with the latest available published crime information from Police UK (not reports from your Disc system)

• Centre Column
  • Latest Amendments When displayed, this block shows the three Subjects whose Gallery placements have most recently been updated
  • Instant Messages When displayed, this block shows message threads you can access and the latest message in each one
  • Documents This block displays a list of Documents. Click on a Document title for more details

• Right Column
  • Featured items This block contains any News items that your Administrator has chosen to 'Feature'. Click on a headline for full details
  • Latest Alerts This block displays titles and summaries of the latest Alerts. Click on a headline for full details
  • Upcoming Events (not shown in the above image) This block displays a calendar with arrow-links to toggle between months. If any Events are scheduled for a particular day, that day will be highlighted in yellow. Click a highlighted day for full details of the Events scheduled for that day

Subjects are individuals who have been reported by other Members for being involved in criminal activities in your area, or who have been added by your Administrator for other reasons (e.g their details have been provided by police).

There are two ways to view Subjects:

• Browse Subjects displays all Known or Unknown (ID-Sought) Subjects in a list, which you can filter by Gender, Ethnicity, Build, Age Range (where available) or by the Category of Incidents that have previously been reported about them. Each Subject is displayed with their image (when available) and any other details, such as their date of birth, or notes added by the Administrator. When browsing Subjects you can also submit Incident or Intelligence reports about them
• Galleries are lists of Subjects grouped by category (e.g. "Retail Excluded", "Evening Excluded", "Shoplifters" or "Wanted by police", etc). Galleries are set up and maintained by your Administrator. You can click on any Subject who is displayed in a Gallery to view their profile and/or submit a Report about them

To Browse Subjects

1. On the Navigation Ribbon, hover your mouse over Browse Subjects
2. Select either Known Subjects or ID-Sought Subjects
3. You will see a list of all the Subjects in the selected category who are currently published on your system. You can scroll down this list to view them all, or use the filters to view only a subset of them. Click on a Subject's name to view their profile page, which shows their current Gallery listings and also includes summaries of any (published) Incidents they have been involved in.

To View Galleries

1. On the Navigation Ribbon, hover your mouse over Galleries
2. Select a Gallery from the list that appears

As a Member of Disc, you can submit information about local low-level crime and ASB for the benefit of your Partnership. To submit a report, click the Click here to submit a report... button beneath the navigation ribbon. You will be taken to the Submit a Report page, which shows buttons for each report you can submit.

• Incident Reports use these to provide information about a particular incident, such as an instance of violence or theft
• Intelligence Reports use these to provide information regarding a Subject that isn't about an incident, for instance a new image, last known location, aliases, known associates or a change of address
• Public Realm Reports (if enabled by your Administrator), use these to report 'public realm' issues, such as graffiti, vandalism, damage to public property etc

To Submit an Incident Report

1. From the Submit a Report page, click Submit an Incident Report
2. You will see a list of all the Known Subjects. Locate the Subject you wish to submit a report about, and click Submit an Incident Report
3. The resulting page shows the Subject’s profile, with a form to submit a new Incident Report about them
4. Enter the details of the new Incident in the form provided. Be sure to complete all required fields
5. Click Submit Incident Report

To Submit an Intelligence Report

1. From the Submit a Report page, click Submit an Intelligence Report
2. You will see a list of all the Known Subjects. Locate the Subject you wish to submit a report about, and click Submit Intelligence Report. To submit an Intelligence Report about an ID-Sought Subject, find them on the Browse Subjects > Unidentified Subjects list and click Submit Intelligence Report
3. This will take you to a page that displays the Subject's profile, with a form to submit your Intelligence Report
4. Enter the intel in the form provided. Be sure to complete any required fields
5. Click Submit Intelligence Report

To Submit a Public Realm Report

1. From the Submit a Report page, click Submit a Public Realm Report
2. You will see a short form where you can add the details of your report
3. Complete the form and click Submit Report

In addition to access to your Disc system, you will receive an automated, weekly email newsletter (eNewsletter), sent to you on a day specified by your Administrator (if your Administrator has enabled this feature). The eNewsletter contains information about any new content and updates to your Disc system added in the previous seven days. It provides an excellent way for you to keep up-to-date with all the news, events and other relevant information added to your Disc system.

The My Premises feature enables your Disc Administrator to set up a list of 'Premises' and assign Disc Members to one or more of them.

A Premises could for example be an individual shop, pub or nightclub, a shopping centre, a whole street of businesses or even a team of security wardens; a Premises in this context isn't necessarily a physical building (although in most cases it will be), rather it is a group of Disc Members who are able to submit and view Incident Reports specifically about their 'Premises', on a special page (available in the App and on Disc Desktop) that is only visible to Members who have been assigned to those Premises.

If your Administrator has enabled the feature, and if you have been added to at least one Premises, you will see a link under the More menu of Disc Desktop navigation ribbon - My Premises

The My Premises page displays information about all Incident Reports that have been submitted about the Premises you belong to

The page is laid out, top to bottom, as follows:

Title and Description

The Title comprises the page title, My Premises, plus the name of the Member viewing it (in this case A.N. Other). The Description lists all the Premises that the Member has been assigned to.

Items per page, Filter controls and Search form

You can use the Items per page dropdown to select the number of Incidents to display per page (25, 50 or 100). The Filter controls enable you to filter the results by Premises (if you are assigned to more than one; this filter option will not appear if you are assigned to just one Premises) or Reported by (to view only Incidents that have been submitted by a particular Member of your Premises).

Incidents Dataview table

The Incidents Dataview table displays the list of Incidents. By default, it will display all Incidents for all Premises you are assigned to; you can use the Filter controls to show only a subset of Incidents.

Using the Incident Dataview table

The Incidents Dataview table provides information about each Incident and includes links that allow you to view or print the full Report, view the Subject profile the Incident is about or contact the Member who submitted the Report. The table is laid out, left to right, as follows:

Incident Date column

This column shows the date the Incident occurred, the date it was reported, the reporting member and the Area (if applicable) the Incident occurred in. You can click the Reporter's name to send them an email through Disc.

Name column

This column displays the name of the Subject, their image (if one is available) and the date they were added to the database. You can click the Subject's name to view their profile page.

Warning column

If a warning/card/ban was issued for an Incident, a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark will be displayed in this column.

Summary column

This column displays the Incident Summary.

Actions column

This column contains View Incident details and Print this Incident links, which allow you to view or print the full Incident Report (these links will only appear if the Incident has been 'processed' by the Administrator).

If this feature has been enabled on your Disc system, you will have the option of 'escalating' Incident Reports that you submit into Crime Reports.

You also have the option of submitting MG11 Witness Statements with your Crime Reports.

When you submit an Incident Report, a confirmation popup will appear asking you if you would also like to submit a Crime Report about that Incident. If you click the "Submit as a crime report to police" button, a new Crime Report form will open, with many of the options on the form pre-filled with data from the Incident Report.

You do not have to complete the Crime Report in one go - you have the option of saving your report as a Draft so that you can complete it later (see Save as a Draft and My Crime Reports, below, for more details).

PLEASE NOTE: For security reasons, you will be automatically logged-out of Disc after a few minutes of inactivity. To avoid losing any of the changes or additions you have made to your Crime Report, it is advised that you regularly save your report as a Draft.

PLEASE NOTE: It is extremely important that you provide as much detail and information as you can in your Crime Report and optional Witness Statement, and that you answer all questions carefully, thoughtfully and truthfully.

Completing your Crime Report form

The Crime Report form includes the following sections:

Business Crime confirmation
You must first select whether the report relates to a business crime. Police will only accept business crime reports from Disc, non-business crimes must be reported by other means (by calling 101 or using police online reporting).

Occurrence details
This section is to provide information about the Occurrence (Incident). Many of the form fields are pre-filled with the information provided in the original Incident Report, but you can edit any of this information, for example to provide further details about the Occurrence. You will also be asked if you are a witness to the occurrence. If you select yes, you will then be asked whether you would like to include a Witness Statement with your report ('support a prosecution' if your report is about a shop theft incident).

Reporter details
Police may need to contact you when they investigate your report. Use this section to provide the best contact details for them to use. Most of the fields are already filled with the information that you provided when you registered on Disc, but you may edit it (for example if you would like police to use a different telephone number).

Optional Witness Statement
If you answer Yes to "Are you a witness to the Occurrence?", a new option will appear (beneath the Add another witness? button) to ask if you would like to also submit a Witness Statement with your Crime Report.

If you answer Yes to this, a new set of form fields will appear, after the Reporter details section.

Optional other witness(es) details
You may provide contact details for (other) witnesses to the Occurrence. To do this, click the Click here to add details for another witness to this occurrence button and a new set of fields will appear for you to add another person's details. You can repeat this procedure if you need to add further additional witnesses.

Suspect details
Next you will see Suspect details (#n) section(s), one for each Subject you associated with the Incident.

Each is pre-filled with information about the relevant Subject and you may be asked to complete further information that will be used to populate your Witness Statement. Again, you can edit the information in any of the pre-filled fields.

Photographic/CCTV details
You will be asked to specify whether CCTV footage of the Occurrence exists. For shop theft reports where prosecution is supported, you'll be asked whether you personally are responsible for CCTV download. If you select no, or if your report is not about shop theft, or is about shop theft but you do not support prosecution, a field set will appear for you to provide CCTV contact details.

If you select yes, a field set will appear asking for details about your CCTV system. This information will be used to populate your witness statement.

Additional Images
You may add up to five 'additional' images, which could include images of suspect(s), or a till receipt listing stolen goods. These images will be included with your submission to police.

Save as Draft and Submit Crime Report buttons

At the bottom of the form are two buttons, Save as Draft and Submit Crime Report. Click Save as Draft at any time to save your work. As mentioned above, it's recommended to do this at least every few minutes, to avoid losing any work if you are automatically logged-out of Disc.

Once your report is complete, click Submit Crime Report to submit it. If any missing required fields are blank, the system will warn you that the report could not be submitted; the missing fields will be listed at the top of the form and will also be highlighted in red to help you find them.

When your report is submitted, it will be sent direct to police.

My Crime Reports

If you have submitted any Crime Reports, or have saved any Draft Crime Reports, you will see a My Crime Reports menu option under the More menu on the Disc Desktop navigation ribbon. Hover over this option to reveal two menu links: Pending Reports and Submitted Reports.

The Pending Reports page shows a summary of Crime Reports that are in "draft" status and are awaiting completions and submission.

The Submitted Reports page shows a summary of completed, submitted Crime Reports. Note that once submitted, a report can no longer be edited.

You have the option of enabling Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) for your Disc account, for added security. In some areas, using MFA is required and you'll be obliged to choose one or more methods when registering your Disc account.

There are three MFA methods available (you can use one or more):

1. Secret Phrase — essentially, a second password. You'll be asked to enter three random characters from this phrase to complete login
2. Magic Link — Disc will send you an email when you try to log in. You'll need to click the link in that email to complete login
3. Authenticator app — you'll need to install a third party app on your phone or tablet, such as Microsoft Authenticator (many other free options are also available) and will need to enter a code from this app when logging in. 

Simply choose your preferred option(s) and follow the on-screen instructions to set it/them up.

What to do if you if you lose access to your authenticator app, can't receive magic link emails, or forget your secret phrase

Contact your Administrator. They can reset all MFA methods associated with your account, allowing you to log in and set up MFA again.