PART 1: REASONS FOR THE NEW BVQ° DESIGN

Originally developed for internal use, the applications within BVQ° have constantly grown, changed and been expanded with additional functions since their market launch. The focus has always been on customer requirements and optimization efforts. However, further development has been accompanied by a significant increase in the complexity and size of the software, which brings with it new challenges, particularly in terms of usability.
In this blog series, we present a deep dive into the new BVQ° design, show helpful functions and options, best practices and the new workflow of our new optimized interface.
The first part explains the changes to the home screen in more detail, followed by a presentation of the LDAP integration, the filter, search and tagging functions and the guided creation of alert rules.

The UI of the BVQ° server has been completely revised, "streamlined" and improved in many ways. Many new functions have been added and placed in optimal positions, making it easier and more targeted to use.

• Why did we go down this path with the BVQ° server?
• Who helped with this process?
• What advantages does it offer our customers?

The individual BVQ° functions (e.g.: System Health Map, Alerting, Reporting) were initially developed and implemented. Nevertheless, the handling of the BVQ° server was familiar to most customers and users, and many steps and settings have become familiar.
However, when supporting our customers, it became apparent time and again that some points were not very clearly laid out and that some settings could only be found by searching for a long time. Thanks to an intensive customer survey and feedback from support, we were able to work out some optimization potential and implement it in the current version 2024.H1.1.

The new BVQ° Server is characterized by a clear, very well laid out presentation. The top priority was to make the applications and their setting options very easy to access. If possible, a guided instruction should produce the desired result (e.g. an alert rule).
The "overview bar", which can be found in green on the left-hand side, was reduced to the four main areas of use:

• Configuration of the home screen
• Setting the scanners
• Working with alerting and the SHM (Systems Health Map)
• Dealing with reporting

Things that are not used on a daily basis have now been moved slightly down from the field of vision to the "Support" and "Admin" sections.

One of the main aspects of the redesign was the improvement of the home screen. Here in particular, the user now has the option of creating and using individual displays. This means that every user can have their own access to a dashboard and source of information tailored to their needs. Users can choose between a display in light or dark mode:

Fig.: Actual. Default setting of the BVQ° server with a new home screen. This offers an individual design and therefore a very good overview and source of information for the individual user.

This overview can be designed with very freely definable "widgets" according to specific wishes and saved for the respective user. When the UI is restarted, this customized home screen is opened again. Different widget sizes and presets are currently available for this.
The widgets can contain content, such as a simple link to a website, but also somewhat more complex displays. For example, the SHM can be provided with individual filters in order to obtain the most relevant and important information at first glance. Nevertheless, these settings for the widgets remain simple and intuitive.
The following image „SHM display with filters“ also shows the new possible use oft he tag. This tagging makes it easier, for example, to search for a specific rule or rule set and allows sorting by different quantities.

Fig.: Display of the System Health Map with different filter options

Many important new functions and options have been added to the BVQ° Server. We will explain these features and other useful tips and tricks in the next posts.
The upcoming topics:

• Alerting & System Health Map
• LDAP integration
• Documentation
• Targeted creation of rules and reports
• Tagging
• Search function in all areas

If you have any questions about the new BVQ° Server UI or the various setting options, please contact us. You can find more details and further blog posts on our BVQ° WIKI.