Content Flexibility. While our reports can be very comprehensive, they also can be easily configured to restrict the information displayed. Restrictable parameters include: (a) categories displayed, (b) number of users displayed, (c) time frame covered, and (d) groups or users to be covered. With this flexibility, recipients can get only the information they want and need.
Automatic Abuse Detection (“Thresholding”). Another form of restriction is “Abuse-thresholding.” With this feature enabled, selected Wavecrest reports can be configured to detect abuse automatically---using your own organization’s abuse-threshold criteria. Thresholds can be set---by category---on the basis of the number of ‘acceptable’ visits per user in a 24-hour period.
Each of the eighteen reports is described briefly below.
To help the user derive maximum benefit from the reports, and to help ensure accurate interpretation of results, a glossary of terms is provided at the end of this set of report descriptions.
Features. This report depicts Web-use activity only within categories classified or rated as "Acceptable." By category, it shows total number of visits made by individual users.
Benefits. Management can quickly determine the amount of Acceptable activity. This can be done by individual category or on a summary basis for all Acceptable categories.
Features. This is a tabularized report that depicts each user's activity from a high-level "acceptability" perspective. For each user, this report shows the download time and total number of visits that have been classified as "acceptable," "unacceptable," and "neutral."
Benefits. This reports presents management with a "quick-look" view of the number of acceptable and unacceptable visits made by each individual user.
Features. This report contains only Legal Liability Web activity. Only visits to the Cults, Drugs, Gambling, Hate and Crime, Pornography, and Public Proxy categories are presented. Information is presented by category and by individual user.
Benefits. As indicated above, only "Legal Liability" Web-use is presented. This means that smaller, more focused reports are available to facilitate analyses, investigations and audits related to legal liability issues.
Features. This report provides Web-use activity only for categories classified as "Neutral." By category, it shows the total number of visits made by each individual user.
Benefits. Management can quickly determine the level and type of "Neutral" activity.
Features. This report depicts the same Web site visits three different ways:
Benefits. The Site Analysis report looks at the same visits from three different perspectives, i.e., "acceptability," "category volume," and "user visits within categories." It can be used by all levels of management and by network administrators to perform audits and analyses of activity in either broad or focused areas.
Features. This report lists the top users by visits, hits, and bytes read. If Abuse Thresholding is enabled, it will also show the user names that go over the threshold settings.
Benefits. This report can be used by administrators to get a quick, summarized look at Internet activity on the network. It lists the users with the highest volume of activity, be it acceptable or otherwise.
Features. This report depicts Unacceptable activity only. It does this in several ways. The report first provides an uncategorized total of visits to Unacceptable sites. It also provides a section, subdivided by category, that lists each individual user and the number of visits that each made within each category.
Benefits. This type of report supports "Management by Exception" techniques. That is, the report itself analyzes the activity and presents management with only the "unacceptable" visits.
Features. This report focuses on a single category by either hits or visits. That is, it provides a detailed analysis of all covered users' Web activity in a particular category that you select, e.g., pornography. It identifies each user and the URL. This report offers the option to view all Hits or Visits only.
Benefits. This report is very useful for identifying the most active users (and the most heavily visited sites and pages) in a selected category. This makes it an excellent tool for conducting detailed audits and investigations of possible misuse of Web-access resources.
Features. This report provides a synopsized audit on a particular category. The report lists the domain and the number of visits to each. A hyperlink to each domain is provided.
Benefits. This report is very useful for quick-look determination of whether or not Web-access abuse is taking place in a particular category, e.g., pornography. If the information tells you that a true problem exists, you can drill down deeper and pinpoint the source via a Category Audit Detail Report or a User Audit Detail Report.
Features. This report focuses on specified Web site(s) by either hits or visits. Every hit or visit made to the specified URL(s) are listed separately by user. Hits or visits are listed chronologically by date and time. Information included for each hit or visit consists of the user, category and full URL.
Benefits. Management has a complete yet concise view of all users that visited the specified Web site(s). This information can be used for personnel appraisal purposes, usage audits, etc.
Features. This report focuses on a single user by either hits or visits. Every hit or visit generated by the user's Web activity is listed separately in the main body of the report. Hits or visits are listed chronologically by date and time. Information included for each hit or visit consists of the site's URL and its category. A summary total of hits or visits by category is also provided.
Benefits. Management has a concise but complete view of every URL the user has clicked. This information can be used for personnel appraisal purposes, usage audits, etc.
Features. The report indicates the number of visits to each category, visits by hour and kilobytes by hour. In addition, this report lists all the domains and the number of visits made by a single user during the reporting period. A hyperlink to each domain is provided to facilitate further review by management.
Benefits. Management is provided with reliable information to use in evaluating an individual user's Web activity.
Features. This report depicts Web-use in Custom Categories only (if configured). That is, it shows which users visited which custom categories.
Benefits. This report provides very concise, very reliable Web-use information focused strictly on subjects of specific interest to the enterprise, specified by the enterprise itself. For example, management can use this information to determine if users are properly using particular Intranet sites, Human Resources sites, supplier sites, customer sites, etc.
Features. By category, this report shows which users were denied access to Web sites or a page on a Web site. Individual users are identified but specific URLs are not. Each attempt is displayed in the category attempted. "Denied" attempts for a Web page can signify the user may not be authorized to receive the page, the page may not have been found by the Web server or the page may have been blocked for access.
Benefits. If blocking at the proxy is used, this report can verify that it's working. It also indicates the number and type of blocked attempts. This report is a very useful supplementary tool for individual user audits.
Features. This report depicts total visits per classification, category, hourly total visits and total kilobytes read. It also shows download times (see definition in appendix to report).
Benefits. This report is a powerful tool for Network Administrators. It serves as a valuable aid for managing bandwidth utilization.
Features. Similar in structure to "Site Analysis" report, this report focuses on bandwidth consumption instead of visits. It breaks down bandwidth usage first by acceptability classification, then by category within each classification, and then by user within each category.
Benefits. This report provides IT personnel with a comprehensive, categorized picture of how and when Web-access is being used, and it does so while identifying the most active users in each category. This depiction is very helpful for managing bandwidth usage and advising management on corrective action measures.
Features. This report lists top bandwidth-consuming domains by category and kilobytes used. A hyperlink to each domain is provided.
Benefits. This report can be used by administrators to get a quick listing of the top bandwidth-consuming domains.
Features. This report shows, by domain, the number of visits made to each during the reporting period. Each domain's category is shown alongside the number of visits made. The list is sorted in descending numerical order by the number of visits; this enables quick determination of site "popularity." Individual user ID's are not shown on this report. Hyperlinks to all visited Web sites are provided to facilitate further analysis.
Benefits. This report "highlights" the Web sites that were visited most by the audited group during the reporting period.
Features. This report shows all unidentified hit activity, i.e., all URLs that were routed to the "Other" category. Therefore, the report reflects all "extraneous" images, banners, ads, multimedia items, etc., as well as bona fide visits. The report shows the number of hits to each URL. Individual user ID's are not shown. The list is sorted in descending numerical order by number of hits. A hyperlink to each URL is also provided.
Benefits. This report can be used by administrators to help identify any intranet sites that perhaps should be added to a "Company Intranet" custom category. A further benefit can be derived from this report by sending it to Sites@wavecrest.net for research by the Wavecrest staff. Upon receipt, the staff will identify, research and categorize the "Other" URL's and incorporate them into the Wavecrest® URL List. Inclusion of these URL's in the Wavecrest® URL List will greatly improve future reports.
Abuse. This term refers to a level of Web use (in a designated category) that is totally unacceptable to the enterprise. Automatic abuse-detection is an optional feature within the in reporting system. It is based on enterprise-specified criteria. If abuse-detection is chosen, the enterprise decides which categories to monitor and specifies the levels (thresholds) at which usage becomes abusive.
Category. This term refers to the sorting of URLs into logical groups on the basis of the URL's content. Examples of categories include shopping, sports, pornography, entertainment, financial, etc.
Classification. This term refers to the designation or labeling of a category as "Acceptable", "Unacceptable" or "Neutral".
Denied. This term refers to a failed attempt to access a Web site. For the most part this occurs because the user is not authorized to access the site, i.e., his access has been "blocked." However, a "denied" indication can also be caused by technical anomalies, e.g., "page not found by server", etc. Domain. A "name" that is part of a URL (Web site address). More readable and memorable than a numerical address.
Download Time. Download time is only a best-guess, rough indicator of time spent on the Internet. As used in the reports, Download Time equates to the product of (a) the smallest (average) amount of time required to download a typical Web page, multiplied by (b) the number of visits. For report purposes, "time to download" is set to 10 seconds. Here's an example calculation: "100 Web pages multiplied by 10 seconds each = 1,000 seconds = 16 minutes and 40 seconds."
Hit. A hit is any type of viewable or usable data transmission that is triggered by a visit to a Web site and is received by the computer user's browser. Such transmissions can be in the form of a file, message, object, graphic, link, banner, ad, or push item. Note that visits constitute a subset of hits.
Threshold. This term refers to the level at which usage becomes abusive within a designated category. Thresholds are set by the enterprise on the basis of its Web access policy or guidelines.
URL. Universal Resource Locator. The full address of a Web site. Includes protocol designator (e.g., http), domain name (e.g., www.amazon.com), and directory or file name (e.g., /index.html).
Visit. A visit is defined as a click on a Web page that requires a deliberate action on the part of the user. In these reports, visit totals do not include multi-media URLs such as graphics or audio pages, banners and ads, "push" traffic, etc. Because downloads require deliberate clicks, they are counted as visits.