How to re-link a record to an MNI

Periodically it may be necessary to re-link a source record to an MNI record. This topic explains how.

Suppose you have created a module record (Citation, FI etc), and CrimeStar has subsequently created an MNI record and linked your module record to the MNI. Likewise the MNI record will contain an involvement pointer back to the module record.

Now suppose your MNI record is accidentally Deleted. The MNI record and all the involvements it held are now gone. You now have a module record which points to an MNI record that no longer exists. This may be obvious when from the module record you click on the ‘Open MNI Record’ button and receive a message saying "Master Name Record could not be located".

In order to correct this problem you want CrimeStar to re-create an MNI record and the associated involvement based upon the information in the module record. First Recall the module record and click on the Edit button to go into Edit mode. The first thing that must happen is that the module record’s internal link to the non-existent MNI must be cleared. Because a module record can not have a link to an MNI unless there is a last name specified you can clear the internal link by going to the last name field in the module record, blank out the field and tab out of the field. This will clear the internal MNI reference. Now, go back to the last name field and re-enter the last name.

Now save the module record. During the Save process CrimeStar will detect that the name

In the module record does not have an MNI linkage. CrimeStar will re-create or link to a matching MNI record and automatically create the associated involvement.