Release Notes: Here's What's New in Your Ontic Platform (v18.0)
Release Date: April 15th, 2023
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- New Solutions
- Enhancements
- Platform
- Entities, Principals & Investigations
- Research
- Metrics
- Advanced Reporting
- Transition to Advanced Reporting and Deprecation of Basic Reports
- Create Incidents Templates and Reports
- Add Standard and Custom Fields to Table Widgets
- Sections Widget for Reports
- Add Business Objects to Reports
- Reporting Permissions
- Landing Page Dashboard of Shared Reports to Internal or External recipients
- Recall Links to Shared Reports
- Shared Report Link Activity
- Topics & Feeds
New Solutions
Crime Data
If you are interested in Crime Data, reach out to your Account Manager.
What it is: Crime Data is a new product offering which brings 3+ years of historical and ongoing crime data and is available as a data layer that can be toggled on/off. Coverage is mostly focused on the United States, although some global coverage is available.
Crime Data can be visualized as a heat map or displayed as a data signal where individual instances of crime are plotted on the map or in a data feed.
Historical Crime - Data Layer within Geo Risks
Note: Clients with Real-Time Threat Detection can access Crime Data through Geo Risks. For clients without, Crime Data is accessible through the Principal - Monitoring view. (See section below.)
The Crime Data heat map is initially displayed across states and as you zoom in will update to form heat maps of counties, cities, and more granular boundaries.
To drill down into crime details, click on an area within the heat map, then select the crime category on the side panel.
From here you can see the individual crimes that are logged and key attributes including approximate address, date, category, description, and the local authority that reported it.
You can also scroll down on the side panel to view Metrics on the crime data. Toggle through bar charts, trend charts, and heat maps to visualize regional data:
Principal View - Crime Data and Heat Map
To view the crime heat map in relation to your Principals: Open a Principal and navigate to the Monitoring tab. Enable the Crime Data layer to see the heat map, or toggle on Crime Data as a feed within Data Filters.
Within Principal Monitoring, crime data is also available as a data feed:
Why it matters: It is important for a wide variety of teams to have access to Crime Data in order to make better decisions that keep people safe. From planning travel for employees and executives, to evaluating locations to host a conference - there are many situations where people need access to crime data to make the best possible decisions.
Enable Crime Data as a Feed in a Custom Dashboard
What is it: When creating a custom dashboard, you can enable Crime Data as a Data Feed which will show individual crime incidents plotted on the map (as opposed to a heat map within the Standard Dashboard). You can enable Crime Data alongside other Feeds, and then apply Data Filters.
Add a new Dashboard and enable Crime Data as a source
When displaying the custom Dashboard, toggle on Crime Data within Feeds, and the data will be plotted on the map:
Note: Custom Geo Risks dashboards are only available for clients with Real-Time Threat Detection. Otherwise, to see Crime Data as a Feed, enable the Data Filter within the Principal - Monitoring view. (See separate notes section below.)
Why it matters: The Feed view of Crime Data gives Users an alternative way of visualizing the data more granularly than from a heat map. This is useful for deciphering analytics for specific neighborhoods and streets, as opposed to general statistics for larger regions.
Compare Areas for Crime Statistics
What is it: The ability to compare two or more areas for historical crime statistics.
When you have an area selected on the map, select “Compare Area”.
As you continue to select more areas on the map, they will be added into the comparison. In the top right corner, you can select the time horizon that you would like to compare: year by year, month by month, or a custom time range.
In the top right corner, you can enable full screen or toggle the time range of comparison.
Why it matters: Comparison analysis on Crime Data between locations is critical for decision making. “Compare Area” gives context behind the data and allows you to understand any trends that may occur at specific times a year. The ability to understand how crime is trending by area is critical for teams to make safe decisions involving travel, selecting hotels, opening new stores, along with many other use cases.
Metrics: Build Custom Widgets using Crime Data
What is it: The ability to build out custom Metrics widgets using Crime Data as a data source. In addition to the standard widgets available, you can also customize the widgets to account for specific use cases such as: visualize crime trends over time and sort by category. In addition to building out custom dashboards, you can also embed these widgets into Reports.
In addition to custom dashboards, you can also access the standard dashboard for Crime Data which has pre-built widgets that can be applied to any location. This includes crime breakdowns by week, month, and time of day.
When creating a new Metrics dashboard, select Dashboard Type ‘Crime Data’:
Within Field and Measures, input your X-axis. Crime Category is the label to show the breakdown between classifications (Assault, Burglary, Vandalism, etc). In the Value field, “Crime News Signal Count” can be applied to count specific instances of crime within your filters.
Important: When building your widgets, it’s important to apply the location coordinates attribute within the Filters section to the area where you want to pull data. You can enter a location (Ex. New York, New York) and apply a custom radius around the location. This can be applied to multiple locations within a single widget (Ex. A filter applied for each office/Principal location).
In Chart Preview, toggle between the different graphs:
Add multiple widgets to a custom Crime dashboard:
You can embed these widgets when building a custom report:
Why it matters: Understanding the historical context and trends for crime data are critical for making the best possible decisions to keep people safe. Support for Crime Data within Metrics allows you to turn data into meaningful insights so you can make the best possible decisions.
Create Geo Map Widgets
What is it: The ability to embed snapshots of the Crime Data heat map and Metrics widgets into Reports.
When creating a new widget, select Geo Map Charts:
In the map view, search your location and toggle the heat map using the buttons in the bottom right corner. You can select up to 4 heat map blocks which will be reflected in the crime comparison statistics. This will be the default view when launching a new dashboard.
Once you select your blocks and save, this will become the default location when launching the dashboard.
These widgets are also able to be embedded into a custom report.
Why it matters: Support for Crime Data within Reports gives the User the ability to provide context to their analysis. Teams can add explanations, security instructions and analysis side-by-side with the Crime Data captured.
Intake Forms
If you are interested in Intake Forms, reach out to your Account Manager.
What it is: Intake forms are custom forms that allow Users to customize ingesting data into Ontic that would normally be hosted on an external form system. Through intake forms, you can customize and expose a template with a unique URL, share the form, and then store responses in Ontic.
From there, you can leverage the power of the Ontic platform to assign tasks, create a custom workflow and then launch custom reports to show the results.
Building the Form
To access Intake Forms, go to the 9–dot menu → Administration → Intake Forms:
Click on ‘Create Form’ to launch the form builder, then add a title, description, or even a custom logo to be displayed on the header of the form.
Click on ‘+ Section’ to begin building the body of the Intake Form.
Once you create a section, give it a title and a description which will be displayed to the person filling out the form to describe its purpose.
Once you have created a section, you have three options to consider. You can create a question, sub-section, or create another section of the form altogether.
Questions: Enter the questions that should be captured from the form and these will all be ingested and stored within Ontic each time the form is submitted.
When creating a question, consider the following criteria for responses:
Required - activate the checkbox in the lower right corner if this question will be required to submit the form.
Answer type - select the best suitable option to optimize the consistency of the data. For example, when asking a question regarding date, use the Date answer type. This will avoid getting responses in an inconsistent form, such as utilizing a Short Answer type field where individuals completing the form could enter differing answers for the same thing (ie. April 15, 2023, or April 15, or 4/15/23). The following input options are available for Questions:
Click the 3-dot menu in the bottom right corner of a question to launch a sub-menu where you can add further customizations to the questions:
Show Description: add a more detailed description to a question to provide further context
Show Tooltip: adding a tooltip will allow you to hover over the question and see tip/comment
Add Remark: a Remark is a way for you to add additional context to the question in a free text format, when the question itself is in a different format. For example, if you input a date, you can add in the remark “This date is only a best guess.”
Sharing Intake Forms
What is it: All Intake Forms can be customized with individual sharing options. This gives you the flexibility to:
Share a publicly available link
Share with specific Ontic Users that need access
Restrict to an email domain (just within your organization)
Limit access by IP address for added security
Enhancements
Platform
Default and Customized Templates for Email Alerts
What it is: The ability to configure the Ontic generated email templates and apply them to specific Signals. Examples of these Signals include:
OSINT signal received
LPR signal received
New Incident created
Why it matters: You now have control over the content included in the email alerts generated by the platform.
How it works - Rules: Navigate to Administration → Email Templates to view where all historic templates are housed as well as where any new templates can be created.
Click the blue Create Template button in the top right corner
Here you can identify what object you want to build a template for (i.e. Incident) and drill down to the specific event the template should apply to (i.e. Incident Created).
Additionally, here is where you can name and describe the template.
Next, you can configure the content and layout of the email template including the subject line and body. Using the { } operators, you can include variables in the email subject or email message section.
A preview of the email template will be shown on the right hand side of the screen.
Once the template is saved, you can include that template in an alert configured in the Rules section.
Navigate to Administration → Rules → and click the blue Create Rule button in the top right corner.
By selecting the matching event conditions (i.e. Incident Created) you will see that a drop down appears when the Send Email alert type is selected. Here is where you can identify which template to use for this alert. Only templates that match the criteria of the rule will be shown.
How it works - GeoRisks: When on a GeoRisk dashboard, you can leverage custom email templates to quickly push Signal information out to the necessary people.
After clicking on a Signal, find the Notify icon by hovering over the Signal card on the right hand side.
Clicking on the Notify icon will allow you to choose:
Who to push the alert to; internal or external
Which email template to use
Edit the order of the content in the email message
Once the above items are set, select Notify to send the alert.
Dashboard Spotlights
What it is: Add custom spotlight metrics to dashboards while in the create dashboard experience you can:
Add metrics widgets to Entity, Investigation and Incident from standard dashboards or custom dashboards
View spotlight widgets in grid & list view for Entities, column & list views for Investigations and Incidents
Filter the dashboard by simply clicking on the spotlight widgets to narrow down to the relevant data
Toggle spotlight on and off based on User preference
Why it matters: Different Users have different priorities and information that is relevant to them. Dashboard Spotlights provide the ability to easily customize your view to bring relevant data front and center to gather and understand insights faster.
How it works: Any standard dashboard for Entities, Investigations, or Incidents will have a toggle labeled Spotlight to expose or hide the Spotlight widgets. When creating a new dashboard or editing an existing dashboard, you can configure the dashboard to include the spotlight widgets, via the Configure Dashboard Widgets.
Applying filter using Spotlight widget on Entity dashboard:
Applied filters are visible like standard filters on dashboards:
Change your Spotlight user widgets by clicking on the 3-dot dropdown:
Ability to Filter Dashboards Using Time Fields
What it is: The ability to filter dashboards using various time fields like created time and updated time. All other custom and standard fields with type date, time are also visible in the filter. This filter can be used independently or in combination with other dashboard filters and are available across all dashboards including Metrics.
Why it matters: Whenever a a dashboard time filter is applied it works on creation time but, if you needed to filter the dashboard using the “updated time” field, it was not previously available.
How it works: Go to a dashboard, and click on the timeframe to the right of 'Showing for:'. A popup will show:
Click on 'Select Time Field' to choose between the options available:
Rules - Field Change Notifications
What it is: The ability to trigger a rule whenever there is a change in Standard Fields for Entity Standard Objects.
Why it Matters: It improves the usability experience and any change in standard fields for Entities can now be identified via Rules.
How it works: In the When section of Rules within Entity Rules, there is now an additional option for Entity Standard Field Changed, which can act as a condition for triggering actions.
Sample Use Cases:
IF RFI of these Entities change; THEN notify these people
IF this custom field of these Entities change; THEN update these other fields, put the Entity on BOLO, and notify these people
Field Workflow - Copy Incident Creator to Assignee
What it is: The ability to set the creator of an Incident as an Assignee.
Why it matters: Perviously, it was only possible to set a User’s manager as an Assignee. Now, when an Incident creator creates an incident and assigns it to their manager for approval, the manager can assign the Incident back to the creator for them to add more information such as supporting evidence, documents, etc.
How it works: Go to Incident Field Workflow → Configure Transition → Condition. Click on Asset Update. Set configuration as shown in the image below:
Entities, Principals & Investigations
Field Value Change Filters for Entity & Investigation Standard Fields
What it is: It is now possible to monitor or keep track of data values that are entered into specific fields. By default, field value tracking is enabled for below standard fields:
Entity
RFI Changed
Threat Changed
Tags Changed
On Lookout
Investigation
Priority
Status
Incident/Signal
Status
Priority
*Users can also enable ‘field value tracking’ while creating a field in the Admin section.
Why it matters: This feature empowers Users to gain strategic insight into value changes in fields at a dashboard level and obtain a comprehensive overview of these changes and trends through creating Metrics widgets.
For example, if you want to see which Entities have had their threat level changed from low to high in the last 7 days in the Entity dashboard or Metrics dashboard, you can go to dashboard filters and apply this filter to narrow down those Entities.
How it works: When creating a custom field, click on Mark Field as Trackable to enable this capability (standard fields are trackable by default).
Entity dashboard filters → More filters → Field Value Level time tracked
Example: View all Entities with a threat level change from low to high in the last 7 days
Customize Help Text In the Investigation Creation Steps
What it is: Ability to customize the help text that is exposed in the Investigation creation steps.
Why it matters: Every organization will have different requirements and information that will be included in the Investigation creation steps. Now you can include text that guides Users through steps to meet the task at hand.
How does it work: From the main menu navigate to Layouts → Investigation layouts → Creation Form Layout. There are 4 steps for Investigation creation, each step will have a help text box, where the standard messaging can be edited.
Once the changes are made, the created help text can be viewed by navigating to the blue Add button in the header and selecting Add Investigation. The edited text will be displayed on the right side of the page under the image.
Show Intelligence Details in Investigation Association Details
What it is: Exposing the Entity Research Lifecycle status in an Investigation association details
Why it matters: Exposes additional information upfront in the Investigation overview about the research status of Entities associated with an Investigation. It also brings parity with information that is exposed in Entity pages and associations with an Entity.
How does it work: These are exposed by default in the Investigation associations section of the Investigation overview. To adjust or hide this data, navigate from the Main Menu → Layout → Investigation Layout → Overview Layout tab.
Click on the configuration button in the Investigation association widget.
Click on Show to add the intelligence details columns in the Investigation association widget.
Open any Investigation. Click on the Entity tab in the Investigation association widget.
Bulk Actions on Entity Feeds & Dashboards
Please reach out to your success manager if you are interested in learning more about this feature.
What it is: Ability to do a bulk update to specific fields for Entities in an Entity dashboard or an Entity feed.
Why it matters: This provides efficiency and time savings being able to make updates to a specific field for multiple Entities at once instead of having to go into each individual Entity in order to update the same information.
How it works:
From either an Entity Dashboard or an Entity Feed in a Feeds Dashboard, select each Entity for which a bulk update needs to be performed.
The Batch Action permission has been enabled for the role performing this action. Once enabled the Batch Action option will be visible on three dots of the dashboard.
Click on Update Field to update any field in bulk entities.
Select the Entity fields that need to be updated for all of the selected Entities.
Archive Principal
What it is: The ability to archive and delete Principals from grid and details view from Principal dashboard.
If a Principal is archived, Sub-principals will also be archived
Archive filters are available in the dashboard filters
Archived Principals will not be shown on dashboards
Archived Principals will not be shown as associations or on Geo Risk dashboards
Rules associated with archived Principal will not be executed.
If there are multiple Principals in a single rule, then archived Principals will be excluded from the rule
Topics exclusively associated with archived Principals will be automatically paused
Why it matters: Archiving Principals will help to keep the data associated with the Principal and all Sub-principals while stopping any new signals or alerts related to them.
How it works: Manage → Principal
Principal Dashboard Filter
Research
Conduct vehicle cold research
What it is: Cold research option to check if there has been a vehicle sightings of a specific vehicle within the last 12 months.
Why it matters: Your may not want to create an Entity if only having a license plate and vehicle description and without knowing more about where a specific vehicle has previously been spotted.
How it works: From the Main Menu navigate to → Research → Vehicle Sightings Search. The search screen will open and you can add any vehicle description information that is available to run a search.
The search can only be conducted if you have a vehicle’s License Plate information and the State; these fields are required and a search can not be conducted without it.
The additional description information is not factored into the search, but does allow you to have reference information when reviewing the vehicle sighting signals that are returned.
While Information is being entered, you do have the opportunity to view if the data entered has already been used for a previous search in Ontic, or, if the data entered already appears in an Entity, Profile, Incident, or Investigation.
The search will take about 5 minutes to return results and the User who ran the search will receive a notification when sightings are available.
Research Exposing Matching Results within Ontic
What it is: Discover if information entered within a search already exists within Ontic as an object (Entity, Investigation, Incident) or, has previously been used to conduct research.
Why it matters: Ease of access to locate connected data.
How it works: This is an ease of use function added to research sections of the platform and enabled for all that can perform research.
When entering data into the research fields, Ontic will scan previous search historys for matching searches based on any of those search parameters such as name, phone, email, or address, etc.
You can also double check if the entered search information already exists within Ontic objects such as Entities, Profiles, Investigations, or Incidents.
Metrics
Create Annotations and Send Alert to Mentioned Users
What it is: Users are now able to add annotations on charts, by clicking on a data point and choosing Add Annotation.
Why it matters: Chart annotations allow you to provide extra detail and highlight points of interest for specific data points. Additionally, they support collaboration, as alerts could also be sent to mentioned Users.
How it works: Annotation is only supported for Line trend and vertical bar charts.
To Add Annotations, a User needs the following permissions:
“Edit Metrics Dashboard” permission AND
Standard Dashboard OR Dashboard Created By User Or Dashboard shared with Edit/Share Permission to User
How to add an Annotation: Click on the data point in the chart
Options will be visible
Click on Add Annotation
Create your annotation, using @ mentions and rich formatting. Click Save when complete.
How to edit or delete an Annotation: only the creator of an Annotation can edit/delete the Annotation:
Hover over the annotation you created
An ‘edit’ and ‘delete’ button will appear over the annotation
Click on edit to change the annotation, or delete to delete it.
Metrics “Further Distribution” to dive into the data (aka “click drill”)
What it is: The ability to click on data points to drill into the data and explore a selected dataset in greater detail.
Why it matters: With “Further Distribution” functionality, you can view an overview of data upfront and then expand deeper to uncover more detailed views of metric data on a specific chart. This feature allows you to quickly gain a high-level understanding of data before exploring specific areas of interest in greater depth.
How it works: The ability to view these options are available upon clicking on a bar/ point within a widget is currently only available for a specific widget types:
Vertical Bar Chart
Horizontal Bar Chart
Pie Chart
Line Chart
Area Chart
Note: This feature is not applicable on “Combination” dashboard.
Click on a vertical/horizontal bar chart.
Click on Further Distribution - this enables Users to drill down further.
Select any field that you want to drill down into for further exploration. For example, if you click on "Created by", the following distribution will be shown:
Further drill down can be done by clicking on a bar.
You can add new widgets that have been filtered by clicking on the three dots icon located on the widget, and then selecting the option to add it to the main dashboard.
Conditional Formatting in Multi-Asset Table Charts
What it is: The ability to configure a condition to highlight the data points in a column. Currently only supported for Multi-Asset table charts.
Why it matters: This feature can help make certain data points more apparent (ie, large, concerning numbers can be bolded with red font).
How it works: Create a Multi-asset table chart. Click on button on top of each column.
Clicking on the gear will open the conditional format rules for that column.
First, choose the appropriate ‘formula rule’ (ie, if a cell is empty, if a cell is larger or smaller than a certain value, etc).
Next, choose the appropriate formatting for font color, background color, bold, italicized or underline, and font size.
Click ‘Done’ when complete. You can do this for the other columns in your table.
Column Summary Values in Multi-Asset Table
What it is: The ability to see the sum/average/minimum/maximum of all the values in any column of a table.
Why it matters: Viewing statistical function values for specific datasets can provide a way to more quickly understand and interpret the range of information and any outliers that may impact your overall metrics.
How it works: The last row to show the sum/average/minimum/maximum value comes by default when a multi-asset table is being created.
Click on the last row of the table to choose the appropriate options (sum, average, minimum and maximum).
OSINT Signal Data by Hourly Time Frames
What it is: You can now view OSINT Signal data in a Line Trend widget by an hourly time frame
Why it matters: Previously, the ability to only view daily time frames limited the scope of detail for users when analyzing specific data. Now, being able to view signal data by an hourly time frame allows for a more granular view which is especially useful when building reports looking at a single day or a span of a few hours.
How it works: When Chart type is ‘Line trend’, chart type is ‘Signal’ and Show trend is ‘Yes’. Select the time frame as ‘Hourly’.
Advanced Reporting
The following Advanced Reporting updates are specific to the 18.0 release. If you have not yet leveraged the powerful and time saving features of Advanced reporting, a complete user guide / full release notes on the functionality is available for review here.
Transition to Advanced Reporting and Deprecation of Basic Reports
What it is: Advanced Reporting is now the default report functionality, and we are removing links to the original reporting framework.
Why it matters: Direct and default access to the new Reporting functionality as the original reporting framework is being depreciated. Advanced Reporting was introduced in January 2023. A transition period from the original reports to the new reports was established to provide for the necessary adjustments.
How does it work: From within Investigations or Entities the new reporting icon will be displayed at the top header. Clicking on this icon will start the creation of a new report. Within Investigations and Entities, the new reporting creation will no longer appear in the 3 dot menu.
Create Incidents Templates and Reports
What it is: The ability to create multiple templates, each customized for any specific widgets, standard fields and custom fields you want to display in Incident reports. After entering an Incident, select the appropriate report templates to generate an Incident report.
Why it matters: Templates help save time by standardizing configuration options, widgets and sharing defaults. Maintain governance and consistency across reports. With new functionality to also add additional context and share a report with other platform users or external recipients shared from within Ontic.
How it works: Ensure that the properties are enabled for Reports in the role and permission section. From the main menu navigate to Role → Action Permission → Incidents, and select role permissions.
Upon selecting create report, the report can be published as is or select Continue Editing, to edit information or add additional content.
Upon completion of editing, and publishing the report, you will have the ability to download or share the report with other platform users or external recipients.
Within an Incident, previously created reports are visible from the Incident Report History selection. This can be used to access incident reports that were saved but not published, or, share reports that were already distributed.
Add Standard and Custom Fields to Table Widgets
What it is: Ability to generate an information table, where the heading row or leading column is defined by any Ontic asset field (standard, custom, or business object), and the subsequent row or column would be the associated data.
Why it matters: Enhancing configurations to contain standard or contemporaneous tables extends the flexibility and professionalism of reporting the work done within Ontic.
How it works:
Choose the Table widget from the basic widgets.
With the Table widget in the report, the information can be displayed vertically or horizontally by clicking on the table preferences.
Additional rows and or columns can be added to the table by clicking on the three dots in the column or the row. The rows or columns can also be deleted using the same.
Ontic field data can be displayed in the table. Select Add Field from the three dot menu to choose a field to display. The field name will be displayed in the heading and corresponding data in the following row or column depending on the orientation of the table.
Sections Widget for Reports
What it is: A configurable widget to create content sections within a report which will have a section header and ability to add ontic fields into that section
Why it matters: Increases configuration options to reports created from Ontic content.
How it works: While creating a template or editing a report. Select Add Widget, then from the Basic Widgets section select Section.
Once the Section widget is added to the report, click on the widget to start the configuration process of that widget. From the configuration you can add a title to the section and then begin to add fields to the section. Multiple fields can be selected at once or added one at a time. The fields can also be moved around within the section from the configuration window on the right side of the screen.
Add Business Objects to Reports
What it is: Ability to add a Business Object field for the respective asset (eg. Entity, Investigation, Incident) into the report.
Why it matters: Business objects are a powerful way to customize data within Ontic. Having access to these details within a report will make the report more insightful, thorough, and customized for what you care about.
How it works: From within the Add Widgets configuration box for reports. Select Business Objects and the appropriate field can be selected from that section or if you know the name of the field it can be typed in the search widgets box.
Reporting Permissions
What it is: The ability to establish different permission settings for report templates, individual report creation, sharing, and downloading.
Why it matters: Reporting permissions provide a way to set specific access to functions and/or visibility for users based on their specific role and responsibilities.
How it works: For Users with Administrator rights. From the main menu navigate to Administration → Roles. Then, within the individual roles under Action (Permissions) the sections: Entity, Principal, Investigation, Signal, and Custom Report will have applicable permissions for reporting.
Entity - There are two separate permissions for Entities. One permission is for Entity Reports and one is for Entity Assessment reports. Entity Reports displayed below.
Investigation - There are two separate permissions for Investigations. One permission is for Investigation Reports and one is for Investigation Assessment reports. Investigation Reports displayed below.
Signals → Incident → Reports
Custom Report (please contact your success manager to enable custom reports)
Full Access = All permissions
View = Only the ability to view reports that have been created and saved to the assetEdit = Ability to edit reports that have been created
Create = Ability to create an asset report
Share = Ability to share reports that have been published and saved
Download Report = Ability to download a report after it has been published/shared
Delete = Ability to delete published reports.
Landing Page Dashboard of Shared Reports to Internal or External recipients
What it is: A dashboard of all of the reports shared with an Ontic platform (internal) user or an external recipient of a shared report.
Why it matters: Having all of the reports you have access to makes it easier and quicker to get to those reports. For example – previously, reports on a specific entity could only be accessed within that entity’s report tab. Now, you can access those reports with fewer clicks, from the home page.
How it works:
For Ontic platform users: Upon logging into Ontic, navigate to the Home Page → then the Quick Links section → Links shared with me selection.
Upon clicking on Links shared with me, the User will be directed to the following dashboard.
For external recipients (non-platform users): Once clicking on the valid reporting link provided, they will also be able to navigate to the shared dashboard to review other reports that have been shared with them.
Recall Links to Shared Reports
What it is: Ability to deactivate access to all shared recipients of the URL link for the report.
Why it matters: Oftentimes, a report that is ‘out in the wild’ needs to be recalled, so that anyone previously with access to that report can have access removed. For example, an entity featured in a BOLO you shared last week, may not be on BOLO anymore.
How it works:
Navigate to an asset (Entity, Investigation, or Incident), then to the reports dashboard for that asset.
On the right side of the dashboard each row will have a three dot action menu.
Select the three dot action menu, and select the Recall button.
A confirmation screen will appear to confirm that the report should be recalled.
Shared Report Link Activity
What it is: A detailed view of any report recipients that have viewed and or downloaded the shared report.
Why it matters: To support compliance and provide a confirmation mechanism that provides visibility into shared reports and if they are being reviewed and/or action taken upon them.
How it works: Navigate to an asset (eg. Entity, Investigation, Incident), then to the reports dashboard for that asset:
On the right side of the dashboard each report that has been shared will have a View Activity selection in the Link Activity column.
Select View Activity, which opens a new window, displaying:
Counts of recipients the report was shared with
Number of views and downloads
Details of report activity shown as follows:
Topics & Feeds
Nomenclature change - Real Time Events are now Public Events
What it is: The use of “Real Time Events” will now be re-labled to as “Public Events”, This change will take place across the platform – feeds, signals, etc.
Why it matters: A key source of Geo Risk data offered as part of Ontic’s Real-Time Threat Detection solution are public events and news alerts curated by analysts and using the label “Public Events” better represents the information displayed. The events surfaced in this feed and data layer are not impacted by the label change.
Old:
New:
Dashboard Feed Refresh Rate
What it is: The ability to set the dashboard feed to refresh automatically within a designated time period to populate new signals to appear on the feed.
Why it matters: When a new signal comes in, it appears on the feed without manual effort of clicking on ‘X new Results’ where X is the number of new signals.
How it works: Go to Feeds → Edit Dashboard.
Click on Configure Dashboard
Preferences will now open up another window with refresh possibilities
You have the option to set the refresh rate.
Feeds will automatically be refreshed.
Increase Number of Fields Displayed in Incident Feed Compact View
What it is: The previous card structure in a Feed would provide limited information requiring extra clicks from a User. Now, 5 standard fields and 2 custom fields are displayed.
Why it matters: Provides greater visibility of information displayed on a card for users to gain additional context more quickly and without additional clicks
How it works: By adding an Incident Feed to a Feeds dashboard, incident cards will automatically display/encompass the additional fields.
Show Attachment as a Chip in Incident Feed Card
What it is: Ability to show an attachment as a chip for a compact view in an Incident Feed card.
If an Incident contains any file attachment upload type of custom field, then any files uploaded are shown as hyperlinks in a Feed card
When clicked, users can see a preview
Why it matters : It helps in better Feed card space utilization and minimize scrolling.
Bulk Updates in Entity Feed
What it is: Batch action support for Entity Feeds (similar to Entity Dashboard batch action support).
Why it matters: A bulk action can be performed on multiple Entities at a time.
For example, if you want to assign multiple Entities to a team member for analysis or update any Workflow Fields for Entities in bulk, this can be achieved by this feature.
How it works: Go to the Feed Dashboard → Click on three dot → Batch Action
Go to Feeds → then go to an Entity feed column
Click the entities you want to apply the bulk update to
Choose the option at the top of the screen based upon the action you want to apply
* * You cannot make a batch update on both an entity and a signal at the same time. You can batch action multiple entities, or multiple signals, with separate actions. * *