Views

Introduction to views¶

Views are the different page layouts you see throughout the Brinqa platform, including reports. You can configure views to display exactly the information your team needs to see. This section will cover general information about views and how to create and modify them.

Views are associated with data models. Brinqa includes several data models out of the box with preconfigured views. There are three main views associated with a data model: show, list, and form. The list view displays a table of all of the instances of that data model (e.g. all hosts). The show view is the detailed view of a single data model instance with its associated attributes (e.g. the details about a particular host). The form view is used to create or edit a new instance of that data model manually via a form. By default, these views will contain a subset of attributes from the data model (e.g. IP address and operating system).

Creating a new data model and selecting the base model will create a list, form, and show view using the default template associated with the base model.

In addition to modifying the views that are created automatically, administrators can create additional views and place them in the left navigation bar of their Brinqa application.

Administration > User Interface > Views will take you to the Manage Views page, which displays a list view of views and allows for the creation of new ones.

Table 1: List view contents

Creating a view¶

While administrators will more often want to modify an existing view, they may want to create a new view in some circumstances. For example, if there’s a complex search query that’s frequently performed on vulnerabilities, building a list view that pre-filters results according to that query may save users time.

1. Navigate to Administration > User Interface > Views
2. Click Create View
3. Fill in the following and click Create:

Table 2. New view properties

Types of views¶

Table 3. Types of views

Once the view has been created, its layout and contents can be edited using the view builder UI.

Table 4: View builder UI

Buttons	Description
	Adds a row to the view
	Edit view details / Edit view source
	Add column to associated row in view
	Remove associated row from the view
	Add a single section or visualization to associated column. Section options listed below.
	Remove associated column from the view

Types of sections¶

Sections are the major components of a view and contain individual data visualizations. In addition to the data visualizations available on reports, other views can add list, form, and show sections. To see more in-depth information about visualizations, navigate to the Visualizations section of the documentation.

Table 5: View sections and data visualizations

Adding a list, form, or show section¶

1. Click the Add Section button associated with the column where you want the section to appear
2. Select List, Form, or Show from the section options
3. Enter a title for the section
4. Enter the data model the section should display information from
5. Click Add

Configuring section appearance¶

You can modify the appearance of list, form, and show sections, including what information they display, whether it's sortable, and how values render.

Each section will have a combination of the appearance settings listed below.

1. Click the edit button associated with the visualization
2. Select Display and fill in the following:

Table 6. Section display properties

Table 7. Column rendering options

Adding a visualization section¶

Visualization sections are usually used on dashboard or report views to provide a graphical representation of the current status or historical trends of data.

1. Click the Section button associated with the column where you want the visualization
2. Select a visualization type and fill in the following:

Table 6: New visualization properties

Measures¶

Measures and dimensions are how you choose exactly what information is displayed in your visualization.

Measures are calculations performed on objects within the system. In Brinqa applications, you select an aggregate function and the objects of that function are determined by the data model you select. So, for example, if you select the Ticket data model and Count function, the calculation you receive is the total number of tickets.

Table 7. Measure functions

Dimensions¶

Dimensions are how data from the selected measure will be grouped. For example, in a visualization of total tickets per month, “total tickets” is the measure and “per month” is the dimension. The count of total tickets is divided into groups according to the month in which they were created.

All attributes of a data model will be selectable as dimensions, but some will make more sense than others as sorting options. In general, the only ones that will never make good candidates for dimensions are completely unique attributes like ID.

Multiple dimensions can be selected for the same visualization. This allows you to display things like total vulnerabilities per business unit per quarter.

Transformation¶

Dimensions that use timestamp attributes will have a transformation option when you select them, which allows you to determine the granularity of the dimension. For timestamps this means whether you’d like to look at the year, quarter, month, week or day of the timestamp.

Buckets¶

Dimensions that use numeric attributes (including timestamps, which are stored as integers) will have a bucket option. Buckets allow you to set ranges for dimensions. For example, vulnerability risk scores run from 0 to 10 but could be put into buckets of low (0-2), medium (3-6), and high (7-10) if that was a more desirable way of viewing the information.  

Configuring appearance¶

Once a visualization has been created users can modify its appearance, including the colors, grid lines, max values, and how the data stacks.

Most visualizations have the same appearance options, but tables and single value visualizations have slightly different modals. The tables below will cover each version of appearance modification.

1. Click the edit button associated with the visualization
2. Select Display and fill in the following:

Table 8. Display properties for line, area, column, bar, pie, donut, heatmap, and treemap charts

Single value and angular gauge appearance¶

Table 9. Appearance properties for single value and angular gauge visualizations

Table appearance¶

Tables have one central appearance setting, which is how values in columns render. There are a number of ways to render values including as links, icons, star ratings, and sparklines. You can also set simpler rendering options, like how many decimal places appear for numeric values.

Table 10. Table column rendering options

Using filters¶

The Filter option allows you to fine-tune the data that appears in a visualization, showing only relavant subsets.

1. Click the edit button associated with the view
2. Select Filters.
3. Add filters using the filter clause interface:

Table 11. Filter clause interface

Adding a view to navigation¶

Once a new view has been finalized, it should be added to the left navigation bar so users can access it.

1. Navigate to the Brinqa Platform application
2. Navigate to Administration > User Interface > Navigation Menus
3. Click the JSON file associated with the application whose navigation you want to modify
4. Insert a modified version of the following code into the appropriate place:

   
          {
             "items": [
               {
                 "link": {
                   "model": "datamodel_reference_name",
                   "type": "VIEWTYPE"
                 },
                 "options": {
                   "icons": {
                     "16": "Font Awesome icon name",
                     "48": "Larger Font Awesome icon name",
                     "128": "Even larger Font Awesome icon name"
                   }
                 },
                 "order": 1,
                 "title": "Link Title",
                 "visibility": {
                   "active": true,
                   "roles": "System Administrator"
                 }
               }
             ],
             "order": numeric rank relative to other links,
             "title": "Page Title"
           }
   

TUTORIALS: Modifying existing views¶

Administrators may want to modify views to change their layouts, what information they display, or how it’s ordered. Below are some common modifications and how to perform them.

Moving a section on a view¶

1. Navigate to Administration > User Interface > Views
2. Navigate to view you want to edit
3. (Optional) Create a new row or column to move the section to
4. Grab and drag the section to the desired location
5. Click Done to save the changes
   
   

Adding/removing columns from a list section¶

1. Navigate to Administration > User Interface > Views
2. Navigate to view you want to edit
3. Click the Edit button associated with the list section on the view
4. Select Appearance/Display from the drop down menu
5. Select the Columns tab
6. Check/uncheck "Enabled" for the desired columns
7. Click Update
8. Click Done to save the changes
   
   

Changing the order of columns on a list section¶

1. Navigate to Administration > User Interface > Views
2. Navigate to view you want to edit
3. Click the Edit button associated with the list section on the view
4. Select Appearance/Display from the drop down menu
5. Select the Columns tab
6. Click and drag columns to change their order
7. Click Update
8. Click Done to save the changes
   
   

Changing the sortability of columns on a list section¶

1. Navigate to Administration > User Interface > Views
2. Navigate to view you want to edit
3. Click the Edit button associated with the list section on the view
4. Select Appearance/Display from the drop down menu
5. Select the Columns tab
6. Check/uncheck "Sorting" for the desired columns
7. Click Update
8. Click Done to save the changes
   
   

Changing the number of pages displayed on a list view¶

1. Navigate to Administration > User Interface > Views
2. Navigate to view you want to edit
3. Click the Edit button associated with the list section on the view
4. Select Appearance/Display from the drop down menu
5. Select the General tab
6. Change the Page Size field to the desired number
7. Click Update
8. Click Done to save the changes
   
   

Adding/removing fields on a form section¶

1. Navigate to Administration > User Interface > Views
2. Navigate to view you want to edit
3. Click the Edit button associated with the form section on the view
4. Select Appearance/Display from the drop down menu
5. Select the Columns tab
6. Check/uncheck "Enabled" for the desired fields
7. Click Update
8. Click Done to save the changes