Example 2: A custom report based on a template

Presentation Reporting | Web Protection Solutions | v8.2.x, v8.3.x | 10-Dec-2016

Suppose the Top Security Risk Categories chart on the Usage dashboard shows an unexpected number of requests for URLs in the Spyware category. To find out how may requests for Spyware sites are typical, you can create a Trend chart to compare today with the rest of the month.

One way to do this is with the New Trend Report template, as follows:

In the Report Catalog, expand the Base Templates catalog entry and select New Trend Report.

Click Save As to open the Save As New Report window.

Edit the Report name and Report title to provide information about the report contents, then select a Report category that will allow you to easily find the report later. For this example, we'll select Trends.

Because this report will compare daily requests for Spyware sites, select Day as the Time unit, Category for Internet activity per, and Requests from the Measure by list.

Click Save and Edit to open the Edit Report Filter window.

On the Clients tab, click Next or Categories to move to the Categories tab.

Scroll down to Security and mark the check box next to Spyware. Use the right-arrow (">") button to move the category to the Selected list.

There are no changes needed for Protocols or Actions, so click Options in the navigation bar to move to the Options tab.

Verify the Report catalog name and Report title, then edit the Description to provide more accurate information about the report contents.

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Click Next or Confirm to move to the Confirm tab.

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Select Save, then click Finish. We'll run the report later.

When the Report Catalog opens, find your new report in the Trends category.

To run the report from the Report Catalog, select the it and click Run.

The Start date and End date are set to today's date so, since you wanted to look at trend for the current month, set the Start date to the first day of the month.

If you have Acrobat Reader installed, don't change the Output format. Otherwise, select a format you can use. (PDF is best suited for creating a readable Trend report.)

Select Schedule the report to run in the background and enter your email address in the Recipient email addresses field.

Also enter your email address in the Send failure notification to field to receive a message if the report can't run.

Click Run. The Job Queue window opens, showing the scheduled job for your new report.

When the Status column shows that the job is complete, the report email message is sent to all specified recipients. Unless the file is larger than the mail server limits allow, a copy of the report is attached. There message also includes a link to the report. (To use the link, there must be a network connection between your machine and TRITON management server machine.)

You can also view this and other scheduled reports on the Review Reports page.

Click the report name to open and view the report.

Here is the line chart created by the new report and executed against a small data sample.

This line chart is followed by a table of details indicating the actual numbers that are charted. The final page of the report is a bar chart showing the same values.

You can use this information to run additional reports to determine the source of the spike in Spyware requests, and assess whether there is any threat to your network.