Smoothwall Cloud Reporting

[soapyfish]

We currently have a local Smoothwall installation and having recently seen a demo of the cloud reporting feature I am keen to set this up to allow our DSL's to generate and run their own reports in a friendly format. However there seem to be a couple of issues and I am wondering how other schools handle them,

 

1) There does not seem to be tiered access for users, which means that any users can see the reports generated by any other user, This is a potential problem because if there is a need to run a report on the browsing history of a staff member as part of an HR investigation then this is available to all users of the system. 

 

2) Log files are no longer stored on the local Smoothwall which means that we cannot use the local Smoothwall for reporting separately to avoid the above issue.

 

How are other schools handling this? 

 

Thanks 

Edited November 17, 2025 by soapyfish

[synaesthesia]

I'm still unclear, as you've now added a 3rd "option". We were told originally that Cloud Reporting would make it easier for our DSLs , however in practice and from a support call with SW it was apparent it only works for Smoothwall Cloud devices (i.e. chromebooks) and not on-site devices. I haven't heard about it taking over the on-site (it definitely doesn't but then again may be related to the issues I've mentioned)

 

For 1) though, there should never be any reason any member of staff other than DSL would need to run such a report, that isn't anyone's job other than the DSL or their deputies. Here it's just me, DSL and DDSL, both of whom are SLT.

 

 

[tom_newton]

No, it works for on prem logs too

[robintech]

5 hours ago, soapyfish said:

1) There does not seem to be tiered access for users, which means that any users can see the reports generated by any other user

 

I didn't realise that

[synaesthesia]

Again though, why would anyone other than SLT and specifically the DSL need access?

I don't know this for sure (so open question), in the case of a possible safeguarding issue concerning your head teacher's internet use, the DSL would be first point of contact anyway?

[DGardiner]

weve piped our reports into haloitsm and then have a ticketing/approval flow that makes the school conduct an investigation and then closes/escalates to IT as required.

 

Weve built some basic reports off the back of it but its helped us alot

[synaesthesia]

16 hours ago, DGardiner said:

weve piped our reports into haloitsm and then have a ticketing/approval flow that makes the school conduct an investigation and then closes/escalates to IT as required.

 

Weve built some basic reports off the back of it but its helped us alot

How's that working out with your false positives, or have you got the staff well trained? We get at least a dozen a day and they would *all* have had to be escalated to us with a message along the lines of "WTF is "furaffinity.net" and why are our pupils searching for it?"

I could sit down and discuss Rule 34 until I'm blue in the face, but it's far easier & faster for IT to discern context & false positives than for investigations to take place for every single one, however wary this may open us up with liability a bit - otherwise leveraging Halo seems like a good idea!

[soapyfish]

21 hours ago, synaesthesia said:

I am going to meet with our HR manager and work through some scenario's and see exactly how this fits together.

 

[5tu]

Just got Smoothwall Cloud Reporting enabled.  Looks good but have quickly stumbled across an issue...

 

We utilise on-prem appliance filtering for school desktop computers and the cloud filtering for laptops/ipads.
 
In the Smoothwall filtering logs, users are identified by <domain>\<username> when filtering is carried out by the on-prem appliance, and <email address> when cloud filtering is used.

 
When creating a Safeguarding report in the Cloud Reporting portal, I am only able to specify a single username OR email address.  Therefore, I am unable to capture all data for a single user in one report that covers both on-prem filtered activity and cloud filtered activity.
 
We use Smoothwall’s IDex Agent to identify users on desktop devices.  Does anyone know if this can be configured to identify users in the <email address> format rather than <domain>\<username> to standardise user identification across both on-prem and cloud filters?
 

[Joeloman]

If you currently only use Cloud Reporting, there is a version 2 of the IDex agent that works for Cloud.
https://monitorhelp.smoothwall.com/hc/en-us/articles/21885529160988-Set-up-IDex-Agent-to-sync-Active-Directory-for-Cloud-only-setups

 

It's been a while since we used IDex, so check with support how to deal with the old one, etc.

[5tu]

Thanks for the response @Joeloman.  We're still using a hybrid setup and using Safeguarding reports / instant alerts so this isn't an option.

[Joeloman]

You can now have all reports in Cloud Reporting and the handling of Safeguarding reports / instant alerts is easier and more secure via the cloud.

Many have hybrid but all reports and alarms via the cloud. 

[5tu]

Good to hear that Safeguarding reports / instant alerts can be configured by the cloud.  However, the article you linked to above says it only applies to "cloud only" setups.

[Joeloman]

I don't think there should be any problem, but it's probably more about IDex not being able to be used simultaneously for both On premise and Cloud, but as I wrote:

"It's been a while since we used IDex, so check with support how to deal with the old one, etc."