Creating and analyzing geofence and tower dump cases

This topic explains how to upload geofence and tower dump files to a case and then analyze the data using the Target development analysis.

NOTE: The files you upload must be the original files you received from the operator and not ones which you have edited.

For geofence and tower dump cases you can either manually create your locations before or after uploading the files, or you can allow OSS-ESPA to automatically create locations for you from the data in the files. The following procedure details the later option,where OSS-ESPA creates them automatically, and provides recommendations on the order of uploading your files.

1. For the case you want to upload geofence and tower dump files to, open the Manage case screen.

   Need help finding your case?

   On the main menu click View cases. The screen that opens depends on your setting of View cases. If it is set to:

   • Advanced view, then the Advanced view cases screen opens.
     • If your case is listed on the Favorite & recent cases tab, click the case name to open the Manage case screen.
     • If it is not listed on the Favorite & recent cases tab, then click the Cases tab. Use the search filters to help locate your case. You can also click to open the FILTERS group which allows you to set your own default filter defining what is displayed on this tab, for example you may wish to set it to cases that you created which are currently open.

     For further information refer to Searching for a case.

   • Grid view, then the View cases screen opens.
     • If your case is listed under My recent cases click it to open the Manage case screen.
     • If it is not listed under My recent cases then select your case from the table, using the search filters to help locate it if required. Note, by default the search is set to only display cases that you created; if you are not the original creator but an assignee then ensure you set Case filter to Assigned cases before clicking Search.
   • Tree view, then the View i-cases screen opens.
     • Click at the top-right of the screen to open either the View Cases or Advanced view cases screen and follow the above description.

2. On the Manage case screen click Upload more files.

   

   The Manage files screen opens.

   

3. You must now upload your files selecting the appropriate settings in Data type and File location. To simplify the process, if you have files from multiple operators then it is recommended you upload them in the following order by operator, rather than uploading them all together as the best method of importing the files differs between each operator and file type.

   After selecting the settings for each file type, as detailed in the steps below, to upload the files, click Select. Windows Explorer opens. Navigate to the folder and select the required files. The files upload and a green circle alongside the file name indicates when the upload is complete. Click Save. The Upload view screen lists all the files you selected to import and the import status.

   

   1. T-Mobile provides a key for their tower dump files. If you have this then upload it first with Data type set to Automatic detection. This is useful as it automatically creates all the locations and events that are in the key. A sample of a T-Mobile key file is shown below. Note, T-Mobile does not provide a key for their geofence files, they provide the latitude and longitude in the file header name.

      

   2. Upload your T-Mobile tower dump files with Data type set to Target development and File location set to Detect location in key file. This then imports the files and automatically associates them to the correct locations and events.

   3. Upload your T-Mobile geofence files with Data type set to Target development, and File location set to Detect location in the file.

      Select Event timeline if you want to create just one event for the files you are about to select.

      NOTE: Some operators, such as T-Mobile, supply multiple geo-fence files for the same location each covering only a short period of time, such as 15 minutes. OSS-ESPA creates only one event if the time frame is 4 hours or less. For example, if you have four geo-fence files for the same location covering time frames of 10:00-10:15, 10:15-10:30, 10:30-11:00 and 11:00-11:30, the overall time period is 1.5 hours and only one event is created.

      The following example shows two files that were uploaded with and without Event timeline selected.

      

   4. Upload your ATT tower dump files with Data type set to Target development, and File location set to Detect location in file.

   5. Upload your ATT geofence files with Data type set to Target development, and File location set to Detect location in file.

   6. Although not as commonly available, if you have USCellular files, upload them using the same method as for the ATT files.

   7. Upload your Verizon tower dump files with Data type set to Target development, and File location set to the appropriate location previously created by the earlier imported files.

   8. Upload your Verizon geofence files individually with Data type set to Target development, and File location set to the appropriate location previously created by the earlier imported files.

      NOTE: For Verizon geofence files you must select a location because the files do not contain the location, but instead detail the longitude and latitude as part of the file name. It is recommended that with Verizon geofence files that you first create the location then import the geofence files to the location. If you do not have the appropriate locations created automatically by the other operator imports then you must create them manually before you can upload the Verizon geofence files.

   9. Although not as commonly available, if you have Google geofence files upload these files with Data type set to Target development, and File location set to the appropriate location previously created by the earlier imported files.

   Having problems uploading your files?

   If the files you are importing are very large, the import may fail. For example Verizon geofence files are often large and can consist of 0.5 to 1 million rows.

   To resolve this, select Skip analysis process to first import and then you must run the analysis by clicking Reconsolidate default analysis on the Target development management tab.

   Click for details of each File location option

   • Define location later: This can be used for both single location and multiple location files. OSS-ESPA creates individual files for each location in the uploaded file but it does not assign them to any location. This allows you to select any location from those defined in your case, at a later date using the Target development management tab.
   • Automatically create a generic location: This can be used for both single location and multiple location files. OSS-ESPA creates individual target locations and target development files for each location in the file and names these locations as "Location <n>".
   • Detect location in the file: This setting is only applicable to ATT, T-Mobile and US Cellular files with multiple locations. OSS-ESPA creates individual target locations and target development files for each location in the file and names these locations based on the location identifiers that are detailed in the uploaded file. The location identifiers may be an address, a latitude/longitude or a reference name.
   • Detect location in key file: This can be used for T-Mobile tower dump files. Firstly you must upload the T-Mobile key file, with Data type set to Automatic detection, which automatically creates all the locations and events that are in the key. If you then upload the tower dump files using Detect location in key file, it automatically assigns the correct tower dump file to the locations created previously by the key file.

4. Once your files have uploaded they are listed in Case files; generic locations and events that were created are listed in Locations and Event timeline respectively. If required you can rename a location name by clicking Locations to open the Locations of interest screen, then editing and saving the location name.

   

   Note, sometimes T-Mobile sends tower dump files with no data. To highlight how many of the imported files contained data a number is displayed at the end of each location's row, as shown in the above graphic. For example, indicates that 4 files were uploaded to the location but only 3 contained data.

5. If required you can also manually enter new locations on the Locations of interest screen. You may need to do this to resolve a correlation issue if you selected to automatically detect multiple locations in a file and OSS-ESPA created more file outputs than locations. You must then apply these new locations to the correct files in the following step.

   

6. On the Manage files screen, click to expand the Target development management tab.

   

   • Ensure that the correct files match the correct locations.

     If you created new locations in the previous step then you can also apply the location to the required file, or if you chose to Define location later, or if you had previously created locations for the file to match to, then this is also where you must match the files to the correct locations.

   • OSS-ESPA does not process time zone adjustments prior to analysis, so if your file is being uploaded to locations that have already been created with dates and times, then use Timezone adjustment (hours) to enter the time zone adjustment.
   • If you have separate crime locations, then date and times are not needed to conduct the analysis.

   If you make any changes ensure you click Reconsolidate default analysis.

   

7. At the bottom of the Manage files screen, click alongside Target development preview to expand the tab. This tab displays the target development analysis results for the top 40 results of the devices that were at the case events. The results are ordered by the device at the highest number of locations, then by the highest number of events.

   

   You can investigate the analysis data using some of the following suggestions:

   1. To find devices that were located at multiple events, expand the Location filter to the right of the screen and select the number of events.

      

      Click for more information on the filters

      The filters to the right allow you to select what you want displayed in the Target development preview table. These filters allow you to filter based on one or more device identifiers, operator, data type, target buffer, location and the number of locations a device was found, cell identifier, sector, azimuth and intersects.

      The intersect filter allows you to filter on three types of intersects:

      • Sector AZ and Location: defines whether or not the target location including its buffer, intersects with the azimuth of the cell tower.

      • TA Arc and Location: defines whether or not the target location intersects with the timing advance arc.

      • TA Arc and Location Buffer: defines whether or not the target location buffer, intersects with the timing advance arc.

      

   2. In the table, click on the device id, displayed in the Device id column, to show additional information.

   3. If there are devices you are interested in analyzing further then you can add them to the case. To do this, select the check-box alongside the devices then click Add selected device to case. This adds the device to the case using the device id to identify it.

   4. If you are only interested in analyzing your filtered selection in the ESPA analysis center, then you can click Save to case analysis and enter your analysis name.

8. At the top of the screen click to open the case in the ESPA analysis center.

   

9. On the Case analyses tab, expand the required Target development analysis folder, right-click the analysis and select Open. Note the default analysis is titled Target development analysis default but there may be others listed if you previously used Save to case analysis.

   

10. You can now view the analysis on the Target development view and view the cell site and RTT locations.

    Click for more information on the Target development view

    The results are ordered by the device at the highest number of events, then by the highest number of records.

    

    Right-click on any row to display Add device to case which allows you to add the device to the case. When you do this:

    • if the device identifier is not already in the case then they are added to the People and devices screen. By default they are named using "Unknown person - <device identifier>".
    • call records are added to the Case files section of the Manage case screen. By default they are named "Target development data - <device identifier>".

    • call records are added to the CDR data and Timeline tabs. You can then use them as you would calls from a CDR file. They are also included in the analyses on the Call analyses tab and are included in any link analyses that you run.

    Left-click on a row to open a tab that displays all the events for that device. The tab is titled using the device's identifier. By default the tab groups the records by event. You can use the check-boxes to display the tower and the arcs on the map.

    

    Any row displayed in pink with red text, indicates the location information for the record could not be found in the cell tower data file. If a significant amount of the data is displayed in pink it means your investigation is less detailed and therefore less valid and you should consider sourcing and uploading new cell tower data files.

    

    

11. If you want to create an IQ packet report containing a target development analysis then create a custom report from the Custom IQ packet report settings screen containing the Target Development (Through Geofence/Tower dump ) IQ packet. The default analysis is always available but there may be additional analyses if you created any using Save to case analysis on your filtered selection. To select which analysis is used in the report, click then select from the available analyses.

    

    For further information on the contents of this IQ packet refer to Target Development (Through Geofence/Tower dump).