History, snapshots and reports
Live monitoring answers "how is the network now?". Snapshots and reports answer the rest: how it was before, what changed, and how do I show it to someone else.
Saving a snapshot
Save snapshot (Ctrl+H) captures the complete state of the moment: stations and APs with their metrics, the diagnosis verdict, the references you had set, each device's session state — and also your Others inventory, with the names you gave them and whether they answered the watch. The capture lands on the snapshot strip, with its date.
- A project keeps up to 10 snapshots: saving the eleventh silently removes the oldest.
- They travel inside the
.sscopefile — backing up the project backs up the history.
A good habit: save one while the network is healthy (after maintenance, for example). That is the comparison point worth gold months later.
Viewing a capture
When you open a snapshot, the tables show that moment in read-only mode — the session says "Historical" — and each row adds Δ vs current: how much that station's signal changed between the capture and this instant, if the device has a session now. It is the fastest way to answer "was this link like this last week?".
Comparing two moments
The snapshot compare tool crosses two captures — or one capture against the live state — and lists additions, removals and changes per device. Changes come out as chips grouped by what causes them, which is what matters when reading:
- Someone changed it — firmware, AP, frequency, channel width: configuration changes, not the air.
- The physical link changed — the signal moved more than a few dB: it rained, the wind moved the dish.
- The network was being used differently — quality, air time, capacity: they describe each capture's instant. These are enabled per metric, because they are the noisiest.
It also flags the Ethernet port (cable unplugged or reconnected, duplex and speed changes, cable errors) and sessions dropped or recovered between one capture and the other.
Why doesn't it compare traffic or uptime?
Traffic is the customer's consumption at that instant — that they were downloading in one capture and idle in the other says nothing about the link. And reboots or reassociations happen every day on a real WISP (customers who turn their antenna off at night, power cuts): flagging them would fill every row with notices and bury what does matter. Link capacity is compared — that is health, not consumption.
PDF, Excel and CSV reports
The Report button exports what is on screen — the live state or, if you have a snapshot in view, that capture with its date in the header. Three formats that say exactly the same thing (they come from the same data): PDF to hand over, Excel to work with, and CSV meant to open with a double click in a Spanish-locale Excel, no import wizard. Five scopes:
| Type | What it includes |
|---|---|
| General | The whole network: stations + APs. |
| Critical | Only stations in critical state. |
| Critical + Attention | The technician's work list. |
| Stations only | Every station, without the AP table. |
| APs only | Access points alone. |
Two details meant to make the report defensible:
- The summary is always of the whole network, even when the report is trimmed — next to the "Filter: Critical · 25 of 199 stations" line, it makes the cut auditable.
- Each row's verdict is the same as the on-screen diagnosis: the report never contradicts what the app shows.
When it is generated, the notice carries an Open button that launches the file directly.
And for sharing
A snapshot can also be exported as a .ssnap file that another SignalScope opens in viewer mode, with the option to protect sensitive data before sending it. That has its own guide: Sharing.