Unifying Reporting Data

Barracuda Networks offers cloud-first security solutions to protect email, networks, applications, and data from cyber threats. By using their cybersecurity products, organizations can collect and utilize data to enhance their security posture. To provide customers with a comprehensive view of their security status, I proposed developing a reporting system that covers all security vectors and gives a 360-degree overview.

Role

Lead Product Designer

Functions

Research, Interaction, Visual Design, Prototyping, Testing

Time

3 weeks

01.

Understanding Customer Problems

I needed to understand the current perceptions and needs around our pre-existing reporting solutions. This would inform my design decisions and provide a starting point for defining success.

Method

Qualitative Interview

Particpants

9

Findings

  • “We want to inform our users how attackers impersonate our people so they can identify attacks.”
  • “We’ve been asked [by executives] to get an overall security posture report.”
  • “Where can I schedule a report?”
  • “You can tell then that this account (pointing to the top 1 attacked user) has a lot of attacks. And then you start wondering why this person is getting a bunch of attacks.”
  • “I come in, and I go over the reports [referring to dashboards] and see if something is going on that we need to take a look at.”
  • “What do you mean by reports? The graphs in the dashboard?”

Insights

  • Customers don’t think we have reports – IT admins refer to dashboards when we ask how useful they find the reporting page.
  • Users need reports with granular data to make decisions – IT admins value the data they can see in reports.
  • Flexibility and control are most important for our customers – Users also value flexibility in the amount of data they can see in reports.

Use Cases

  • IT Admins – View relevant, timely & actionable data to perform daily tasks.
  • IT Managers – Track system activity and IT productivity.
  • Upper management & MSP – Demonstrate Barracuda product value.
02.

Auditing the Current Solution

The product portfolio offered multiple options to extract and display data across various security solutions. However, this experience needed to be more cohesive for customers who used multiple products.

03.

Brainstorming

Customers needed a solution that could meet their diverse requirements for using product data. This involved examining all the product offerings and creating a versatile and expandable solution that could be integrated into any product.

Data reporting that is tailored to the users' needs

Dashboard

What's happening right now?

  • Reflecting the current state of the system
  • Showing what needs the IT admin’s attention
  • Allow users to configure their dashboard by taking charts from reports

Report Builder

What happened historically?

  • Digging into the organization’s cybersecurity trends
  • Reporting what the system did to keep the organization safe
  • Allow users to save their search queries, filters, and more.

Report Scheduler

What do I need to watch on the future?

  • Maintaining visibility on reports that are scheduled
  • Providing unified reports with proper labeling and branding
  • Allow users to save their search queries, filters, and more
04.

Report Builder (Phase 1)

Our users had an urgent requirement to create custom reports with flexibility. Starting with the report builder was a wise decision as it was an essential element to deliver the solutions our customers were looking for.

Structure

  • Pre-created reports
  • Ability to save custom reports
  • Data visualizations
  • Raw datatable view

Datatable

  • Searching
  • Filtering
  • Sorting
  • Column picker
  • Stick columns
  • Row grouping
05.

Scheduled reports (Phase 2)

Users prefer spending minimal time in the product UI and only log in when necessary for security and monitoring. A comprehensive mechanism to send relevant data at regular intervals will provide a regular cadence to compare and monitor data. Reports sent out will give regular benchmarks for informed decisions and monitoring ROI and security posture.

List of scheduled reports

  • View details
  • Schedule new
  • Edit
  • Delete

Schedule a report

  • Type of report
  • Time range of report
  • Format of report
  • Frequency
  • Recipients

Reports received through email

  • PDF attachment
  • CSV attachment
06.

Dashboard (Phase 3)

A customizable dashboard would allow our users to quickly comprehend what is important to them in the moment.

Adding new dashboard widgets

Customizing the dashboard’s appearance and data is crucial for our customers’ efficiency.

  • Add default reports
  • Add custom-created reports
  • Customize size of widget

Mechanisms allowing direct interaction with widgets in the dashboard would enable easier customization and more efficient data analysis.

Inline Controls

Visualizations

Bar Charts

Distribution/Comparison

Line charts

Represent data over time

Stats/Trends

Track metrics for data points/goals

07.

Release & Future Plans

Phase 1’s report builder was the first portion of the unified reporting system to be released to customers and had an overall positive reception. I created a feedback program with a set of beta customers to get continuous feedback on their usage.

Feedback

Feedback was from a select group of beta test customers.

  • Difficulty selecting standard date ranges (ex., 7 days) as specific dates had to be chosen every time.
  • Dark mode version to reduce eye strain
  • Theming support to control visualization colors
  • Ability to choose which visualization could be used for the data
  • Share custom reports with other people

Future Considerations

  • More visualization choices
  • Visualization color palette
  • Live data feedback
  • Dashboard drill-downs