• Summary of Changes
• Important Security Note
• Retrieving CSV files

We have finished the second step of converting our Web Reports on our new client site. Following is a list of changes that have been made:

• Reports are no longer stored on the actual web server. Instead, the programs that run our client web site retrieve each report from a server that is not exposed to the internet. We believe this increases the security of the reports since an attack against the web server would not directly provide access to the report directories.
• Each school's administrator can now determine which users will receive access to the reports. The school-wide "ECSI Internet Account" no longer gives access to the reports, preventing users from circumventing the security available in our new client site.
• If Microsoft Excel is configured as the default application for CSV files on your computer, CSV files will now invoke the full version of Excel rather than opening the CSV file in your browser. (More Info)

If you use Internet Explorer to view your reports, you may notice some differences in the way our Web Reports feature works.

When viewing a PDF report, you may receive the following message:

Pressing either the [Yes] or [No] button will present your PDF reports.

Pressing the [Yes] button may not display the lock icon at the bottom of Internet Explorer indicating the page is secure. Pressing the [No] button will display the page with the familiar lock at the bottom of the IE window. No matter which button is pressed ([Yes] or [No]), the page properties dialog box shows that the page is indeed using a secure connection to our web server. (To display the page properties dialog box, click on the File menu, then on Properties.)

We have used a packet sniffer to analyze the conversation between Internet Explorer and our web server and are satisfied that the reports are passed encrypted (using the secure https protocol) regardless of the choice you make. If you desire the lock to appear, always select [No] to the warning message.

We believe this to be a bug in Internet Explorer and have reported it to Microsoft. Users of other browsers (e.g., Firefox) will not notice any difference. Firefox works as expected. This issue appears to be limited to only Internet Explorer and the Adobe Acrobat plug-in. We will continue to work on a solution which removes the extra prompt.

When you select a CSV file from the list of reports, a dialog box will now appear:

If you press [Open], Internet Explorer will attempt to have Microsoft Excel open the CSV file as a spreadsheet (assuming you have Excel configured as the default applicaton for the CSV file type). Previously, IE tried to open a plug-in version of Excel inside the browser window. This Excel plug-in was missing many of the features that users expected.

Pressing [Save] will allow you to store the CSV file on your hard drive for use at a later time.