It’s been a very busy month for Purple. We have released a number of new features and reports within the platform and have introduced some great updates to enhance our current reporting suite.
Here’s what we have been working on.
New features & reports
Custom field selection
Custom field selection allows users to create a dropdown list of predefined answers to a question within a custom WiFi access form. This means users can now give end-users a dropdown list to select from when answering questions within the access form.
Not only does this improve the UX from an end-user perspective, it also reduces the chance of typos and incorrect information being entered. There is also no limit to the number of custom fields users can create. If users want to create a dropdown that lists all of the countries in the world, they can.
Unauthenticated data into analytics
Presence is the current way of viewing unauthenticated data, and previously, our analytics reports have only included authenticated data. This has now changed. We have now integrated unauthenticated data into our analytics reports, to give users a true picture of overall visits.
Now, within our analytics reports, users have the option to view authenticated data, unauthenticated data, or all data using the filter options available within the global filter drop down.
Presence dashboard
As we have combined presence data into our analytics reports, we have ‘sunsetted’ the presence section of the portal. This means users are no longer able to access the report from the presence tab within the side navigation.
Instead, we have created a new presence dashboard. This dashboard closely recreates some of the former reports found in the presence section of the portal. The new dashboard is available to all scopes (company, group, venue etc.) that have a valid presence license.
Visitor interaction report (VIR)
The VIR gives users insight into visitor interaction within their venues through combining metrics from multiple reports such as average visit duration, number of new visitors, and number of authenticated visitors.
Through combining this data into one report – previously spread across numerous – users can now easily get a holistic overview of visitor interaction, allowing them to quickly identify trends and patterns in their data. There will be two variations of the report – ‘authenticated’ and ‘combined’. Users will be redirected to either the authenticated or the combined version depending on their license type.
Licensing management improvements
The previous license management page had been a source of frustration for many users due to a lack of filtering capabilities. We have completely rewritten the license management page with a number of new features and filters to make narrowing down to a particular license or set of licenses a much easier task. These include:
- New column layout
- Text based searching
- Date range/ license type filter
- License to AP assignment
- Overall performance improvements
Features in the ‘spotlight’
Throughout the month of October, we have also showcased a number of existing features within the portal. These include:
Hardware AP filtering
The hardware AP filter is available across all analytics reports, and allows users to filter report data based on the APs end-users use to authenticate onto the WiFi network.
The filter is available at customer, group or venue level. Viewing the report at customer or group level will mean the user will see a list of all venues, along with the venue APs. Viewing at venue level will mean the user will see only the APs listed under that specific venue. Users are able to select individual or multiple APs when using this filter.
Password policies
Purple offer a number of password features that increase portal security, some of which can be customized by whitelabel partners. Features include:
- Password restrictions: Users cannot enter their username or email address as a password.
- Password expiration: By default, a user’s password will expire and they will be prompted to change it after 180 days. Whitelabel partners have the ability to change the password expiration date to meet their security requirements.
- Password length: By default, a user’s password must be a minimum of 8 characters long. Whitelabel partners also have the ability to change the minimum password length.
- Password validation: Passwords must be 8 characters long (unless set otherwise by a whitelabel partner), must contain at least 1 uppercase letter, at least 1 lowercase letter, 1 number and 1 special character (!@#$%^&).
Concurrent users report
The concurrent users report gives users a view of how many concurrent users (both authenticated users and unauthenticated devices seen), are active on the WiFi network at a given time. The report counts WiFi users and unauthenticated devices based on session duration; counting the user or device once within each hour, day, week or year, dependent on the report time selected by the user. The aim of the report is to help users understand how many WiFi users and unauthenticated devices are actively on the network within a given time period.
For more information, and access to the release notes for these features, please contact your Purple account manager. Alternatively, if you want to check them out for yourself, click here to login.