Find the most popular sites for a Category using Cloud Reports

This article applies to organisations with a Cloud setup, and those with a 'Hybrid' setup (both On-Premise Appliance and Cloud).

 

You can use the Category Report to investigate web access requests for specific types of content. It’ll show you the most popular types of websites and the top websites in these categories visited. You can’t report on the most popular sites overall.

You can use this information to help:

  • Find out what websites users are using, such as which AI tool (for example, ChatGPT).
  • Inform curriculum planning and organisational policies. If many students are accessing AI tools, you might decide to run an assembly on acceptable usage.
  • Decide whether access to this content should be blocked using Web Filter Policies.

You can then use the Domain Report to drill further into the specific websites users are accessing.

Run a Category Report

  1. Sign in to the Cloud Portal and go to Reports > New Filter Report.
  2. Select the Category Report tab.
  3. Enter a Report Name.
  4. If you are part of a multi-tenant environment, you’ll see a Tenant field:
    • If you are an Administrator, select one or more Tenant checkboxes or the All Tenants option.
    • If you have Reporting access, the tenant you are linked with will be selected.

    Tip

    Check the Multi-tenant Report requirements if you can’t see the Tenant field.

  5. For the Category field, enter at least one letter to open a drop-down of default and Custom Categories. Select up to five to include in the report.
  1. Select a start and an end Date and Time.

    Note

    • You can select a date range of up to 31 days.
    • You can select dates from the past 90 days. Only data from when you started using Smoothwall will show in your reports.
  2. Select Run Report. You’ll be taken back to the Reports page, where you’ll see your report is generating with the status of In Progress.
  3. You’ll receive an email letting you know when the report is ready. Select View report now.

 

View the report

  1. To access the report, you can:
    • Refresh your page if you are waiting for it to move from In Progress to Ready.
    • Select the View report now button in the email.
    • Sign in to the Cloud Portal and select Reports.
  2. Select between the Filter Reports or Multi Tenant Filter Reports tab if you have access to Multi Tenant reports.
  3. If you selected the Filter Reports tab and have a multi-tenant environment, select the Tenant the report was generated for at the top right of the page.
  4. Select the report to view the Report Overview and Report Data tabs, export and share the data or find out why you might not be able to view a report.

 

Use the Category Report

Report Overview

The Report Overview tab provides high-level summary graphs and charts of:

  • Traffic Over Time: The amount of traffic blocked and allowed each day for the categories selected. Please note we know of an issue where you may see the data split.
  • Top Websites Visited: The top 10 websites in these categories visited, including the Level.
  • User Hits Count: The number of access requests for content in the categories selected for each user.
  • Safeguarding Alerts: The number of breaches with each Safeguarding theme, including the Severity.

Tip

Select a bar in the Traffic Over Time, Top Websites Visited or User Hits Count chart to see filtered Report Data.

 

Report Data

The Report Data tab gives you line-by-line full browsing activity. 

  • Use the Column Selector to customise the columns shown in the table. You can’t remove the Username, Url or Action columns.
  • Use the magnifying glass to search within a column. Searching for a Top Level Domain will show results from subdomains, but entering a subdomain won’t show results for the Top Level Domain.
  • You can see the timestamp for each access request. The most recent events are shown at the top.