> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/cortex-xdr/insights-and-tips-cortex-xdr/investigation-and-case-management/case-lifecycle-and-grouping.md).

# Case lifecycle and grouping

Understand Cortex XDR case grouping and lifecycle stages, from signal investigation through resolution.

### From signals to cases

1. **Ingest and stitch:** Data from endpoints, firewalls, identity providers, and cloud sources is normalized, and related activity is stitched into causality chains. See [What is Causality?](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/cortex-xdr-5.x/detect-investigate-and-respond-to-threats/investigate-and-respond-to-cases/case-concepts/what-is-causality).
2. **Detect:** Detections raise **issues**.
3. **Group:** Related issues are grouped into a **case** using shared artifacts, matching attributes, or related entities. If there's no match, a new case is created. See [Case grouping](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/cortex-xdr-5.x/detect-investigate-and-respond-to-threats/investigate-and-respond-to-cases/case-concepts/case-grouping).

### Lifecycle

| Stage                   | What happens                                                                                                     |
| ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| New                     | A case is created from grouped issues and enriched with threat intelligence and asset context.                   |
| Triage                  | Severity and scoring help prioritize. Playbooks can run automatically.                                           |
| Investigate and contain | Analysts review the timeline, causality, and evidence, and take response actions, manually or through playbooks. |
| Resolve                 | The case is closed with a resolution reason, manually or automatically.                                          |

See [Case lifecycle](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/cortex-xdr-5.x/detect-investigate-and-respond-to-threats/investigate-and-respond-to-cases/overview-of-cases/case-lifecycle).

### History and knowledge retention

* Search past cases and issues to find similar activity, and use playbooks to compare a new case with previous verdicts.
* The case War Room and timeline keep the full record of actions, notes, and evidence. Retention follows the default retention period for cases and issues.

### Reporting

Issue and case notifications can be forwarded by email, Slack, syslog, and other destinations, and synchronized with ticketing systems through Marketplace integrations. You can also schedule reports from dashboards.


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