Report Types
- Christopher Rushing (Unlicensed)
Contents
Overview
IT Audit Machine has a number of built-in report types that are designed to quickly bring the information needed for effective auditing and oversight to your finger tips. Although each report type brings you a different view of the available data, they do overlap in some areas and also share some features designed to make interacting with the reports more efficient and intuitive.
In this section we will discuss some of the shared report features in ITAM that facilitate manipulation of the report data as well as the different types of Reports and their purposes. For information on how to create a report for your data see the Report Manager section of the guide.
Report Features
There are a number of features shared across some Report Types that can assist you when viewing the data in a Report.
Data Sorting
The reports that present data in a table format allow for the data to be sorted by clicking on the title of a column. The direction of the sort will be indicated by a small blue arrow pointed up for ascending and down for descending. Clicking on the title of a column again will change the direction of the sort using that column.
Data Filtering / Search
The reports that present data in a table format allow for the data to be filtered by using the Search field on the top left of the data. Typing anything into the Search field will immediately filter the data by matches in any of the displayed fields.
Saving a data set while filtered will only save out the records included in the filter. If a report is providing more information that you desire, this is a great way to export just the data you are interested in seeing.
Export
All reports also have the ability to Export the report as a CSV file, regardless of whether it displays data in a table format. This export automatically packages the most appropriate data from the report, exports it to a CSV file and initiates a download. To export, click on the Export button on the top left of the report display.
Pagination
The reports that present data in a table format will often include pagination at the bottom of the report. When pagination is included in a report the data will be grouped in “pages” of data made up of 20 records. On the left the report will display which records are being displayed as well as the total number of available records. Any filtering affecting the results will be communicated as well. On the right the current page will be displayed as well as additional pages which represent navigation options to move to the represented pages. Simply click on the number of a page to move directly to that page of results.
For larger data sets, you may need to click on a number closer to the page you wish to view and then click on the actual page once it is displayed.
All reports have an option to print located in the top left of the displayed report. Clicking on the Print button will format the report for printing and engage your browsers typical printing interface, allowing the report to be printed as PDF or to a connected printer.
Save As
The reports that present data in a table format allow for the data to be exported in three main formats: CSV, Excel and PDF. To save in one of those formats, simply click on the appropriate Save as button and ITAM will generate an export in that format and initiate a download.
Exporting to CSV or Excel can be an excellent way to use an external spreadsheet program to further manipulate the data or to ingest it into another system.
Interactive Charts
Many of the reports include graphical elements and charts. These elements are often interactive, allowing you to gain more detailed information on an element or highlight a specific detail.
Report Header Summary
Many Reports display a header at the top which includes details about when the report was generated and what the source of the data was. This is meant to give additional context to the data in the report and to quickly allow you to verify that it conveys information from the intended data set.
Report Types
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There are ten (10) types of reports provided in the IT Audit Machine. Each is designed to provide an overview on compliance and/or answer common needs you might have in respect to the data in the forms you oversee or other relevant data in ITAM. The types of reports are listed below as well as an overview of what data and insights data and insights they provide to you.
Audit Dashboard
The Audit Dashboard report returns a detail of auditable actions by both Portal and Administrative users. It is designed to allow for quick review of the actions taken including the related timestamp and also has the ability to export the data for review outside of ITAM. There are separate views that detail actions by Administrative Users and Portal Users respectively.
Some of the uses for this report may be to determine who has taken a particular action in the system or to see what auditable actions a particular user did at a particular time. It can also be useful to determine whether a user complied with a deadline for adding/updating data or to provide evidence for other actions. It can also be useful to determine whether a user complied with a deadline for adding/updating data or to provide evidence for other actions.
Artifact Management
The Artifact Management Report lists the artifacts associated with the forms the user can access. An artifact is an external file which has been uploaded and associated with the form, like an image or document. It shows the file name of the artifact, the form with which it is associated, the field on the form, and contains a link to the field to view it directly. This report is designed to allow you to view, in a single place, all of the artifacts on a form, so you can quickly see if any artifacts are missing or find a particular artifact related to a specific form.
This report has some interactive features which are different than a number of the other reports. All of the artifact file names are represented as links. Clicking on the file link will display a preview of the file and give you an option to download it. The report also includes a Go To Field column for each row. Clicking on the link in that column will take you directly to the field in the form where the artifact was uploaded.
Compliance Dashboard
The Compliance Dashboard report displays an entity’s calculated compliance percentages against the selected forms both as a current snapshot and over time. Compliance is based on the status of the fields in the selected forms. Each field in a form can be set to be in one of four statuses: Pending (Gray), In Remediation (Red) , In Progress (Yellow), Compliant (Green). For more information about status indicators and how they are used see the Form Status Indicators section of the guide.
The report consists of a header and three (3) main views of the compliance history and status for the chosen entity against the chosen forms against the chosen forms. When you create a Compliance Dashboard, you must first select the Entity and Forms about which you desire you desire the form m too display data.
Once the report has been generated, you can open it to view the provided data. Below the header the report will display two summary graphs and a detail section for each form.
The top summary graph shows the overall compliance status over time so you can get a high-level view of the entities progress toward compliance. The top line represents the Maturity score and the bottom is the Risk Score. Each line can be hidden or displayed by clicking on the the field in the legend under the chart.
The second summary graph shows the current compliance status in graphical form. The Status Score displays the number of fields in each status and the score is the ratio compliant fields to the to total number of fields. Risk is calculated based on the score of compliant controls (green) vs less compliant scores. Maturity is a calculation involving risk percentage and the number of compliant fields.
Finally at the bottom is a accordion type detail which allows for viewing the fields which are in each status state, displayed by the color associated with that status.
Expanding a status will allow you to view the fields in that status.
See the Form Status Indicators page for more details about each status.
Executive Overview
The Executive Overview Report is a high-level version of the Compliance Dashboard, giving the big picture of compliance for the forms selected without the field-level detail. Similar to the Compliance Dashboard, when you create an Executive Overview you will presented the option to select an Entity and one or more forms to include in the report.
Once you select the Entity and Forms to include, the Executive Report will be generated giving an overview of Compliance. The report will consist of a section for each selected form giving a timeline and summary of the compliance status. See the section on the Compliance Report for more detail about each chart.
Field Data
The Field Data Report lets you take one or more field(s) and chart the aggregate value across the chosen fields over time. You can select the type of aggregation desired (Average, Mean or Sum) and the type of chart you want to use to visualize the data and the report will display a timeline of the data as well as a chart of the different calculated data points.
A good use of this report would be to look a group of key numerical fields which taken together give a good indicator of progress. This report can aggregate the values of those fields and show how that aggregate value has been changed over time.
Action ITAM
The Action ITAM Report provides a detail of the Action ITAMs created for a form. This report actually serves two purposes. One is to provide you with a quick way to review and download a copy of the Action ITAMs on one or more forms. This can be helpful to review an overview of the Action ITAMs or share them with a colleague. The second is interactive and allows you to jump directly to the fields with Action ITAMs on them and either update the field or update the Action ITAM on the field.
In addition, the form can be configured, using the Send This Action ITAM Report To Users option, to send it to one or more users one time or on a recurring schedule. This can be a helpful way to interact with portal users to maintain forward progress on their compliance effort and to give them a quick summary of remaining actions needed. You can choose the frequency that the report is sent depending on your needs.
Maturity
The Maturity report gives a look at the Maturity score and the other scores which impact it.
It displays graphs of the Status, Risk and Maturity scores for the forms selected as well as a detail section displaying the score for each field and a representative risk percentage, which is one of the key metrics for maturity.
Risk Scores
The Risk Scores Report gives a more detailed look at the risk scores on one or more forms. In addition to the typical header, the report includes a section for each form displaying a line graph of the chosen type plotting the risk scores, and also a chart with the related data.
Status Indicators
The Status Indicators Report displays and charts the various states of the status indicators from the forms selected. The top graph and chart compare the number of fields in each status type using the type of graph selected for the report. The accordion control on the bottom of the report allow you to view the specific fields in each status as desired.
This report gives a good overview of the comparative status of the fields with the ability to dig into detail.
Template Code Report
The Template Code Report provides a list of the template codes for the selected forms that can easily be downloaded as a reference or for later use. Templates are used to create downloadable documents from the form data, and template codes are used to inject data from the report into a template. The Template Code Report can create a handy reference for creating or modifying templates for various forms.
In this section we discussed the Report Types and their purposes as well as some of their common features as well as some of their common features. In the next section we will discuss the Theme Manager and how to use it to change the way your forms look at feel to your users.
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