A Custom Incident Reporting System for a Physical Security Advisory Firm

Summary

INNERLUXES engineered a custom incident reporting system for a UAE-based physical security advisory company, enabling real-time physical threat monitoring, trend analysis, and instant alerts. After auditing a failing vendor build, INNERLUXES rebuilt the solution on a solid foundation and delivered a fully custom, scalable system in nine months.

About the Client

The Client is a UAE-based company specializing in qualitative and quantitative physical security threat reporting and analysis. It serves corporate, non-profit, and government entities operating in high-risk environments, and continuously enhances its technological infrastructure to provide world-class services and lead in physical threat consulting.

The Challenge: A Data-Visualization Tool That Couldn't Scale

Historically, the Client used Power BI to visualize threat-incident data and generate customer reports. But, like any platform-based solution, it limited the functionality the Client could implement — and as the company grew and expanded its services, this began hampering its plans. The Client made a strategic decision to invest in a fully custom incident reporting system tailored to its and its customers' unique requirements, eliminating future bottlenecks.

Laying a Scalable Foundation

The Client initially partnered with another vendor, but early-stage results fell short, so it turned to INNERLUXES for an independent assessment. A comprehensive code audit uncovered suboptimal design patterns and significant code-quality issues that would hinder scalability and performance. Given their extent, the Client decided to restart the project with INNERLUXES on a solid foundation.

Discovery. INNERLUXES assembled a business analyst, a Python architect, and a test engineer to explore the previous vendor's code, analyze the Client's existing Power BI system, workflows, and user pain points, define key functionality and improvements, and document a comprehensive functional specification. The team delivered a system description, architecture design, and permission matrix, plus functional blueprints (planned features, wireframes), testing documentation (checklists, protocols, result reports), and project-planning documents with estimates and a roadmap.

Refactoring the initial code. Where elements of the previous vendor's code were salvageable, INNERLUXES eliminated technical debt, fixed incomplete or malfunctioning features, rebuilt the architecture for scalability and performance, and improved maintainability and efficiency.

Building the Web-Based Incident Reporting System

Using an Agile approach to handle feedback and changing requirements, INNERLUXES's dedicated team — a project manager, a business analyst, a UI designer, a front-end developer, a back-end Python developer, a QA engineer, and a DevOps specialist — built a comprehensive incident reporting system:

• Advanced filtering and search. Filter incidents by country, state, date range, type, and more, with frequently used filters saved for quick access.
• Tailorable incident tracking. Incidents on customizable maps (standard/satellite for open-source maps, standard for Google Maps) with rich filters (type, subtype, target, state/governorate, militant group); manually defined areas of interest (polygons, colors, permissions) and toggleable overlays; company-linked zones; real-time heat maps with historical trends; role-based access; shared collaboration; and tooltip guidance.
• Real-time alerts. New incidents in areas of interest flash on the map, with immediate email, SMS, or WhatsApp notifications, all configurable so only relevant updates reach each user.
• Comprehensive incident summaries. Detailed breakdowns (type, location, date, images, essence), with incidents linked to show their sequence and relationships.
• Customizable reporting and visualization. Reports for specific areas over selectable time frames (e.g., 30 or 90 days), PDF/CSV export with incident limits, specialized PDF reports for predefined areas, and visual analytics (pie, bar, and line charts).
• APIs. Robust API access for integration with external systems and real-time synchronization.

Optimized for field use. Because the Client's customers often operate in remote, high-risk environments, INNERLUXES added caching and JavaScript/CSS compression to minimize load times even on slow connections, and a fully responsive UI usable across phones, tablets, and large monitors.

Key Outcomes for the Client

• The Client's business users accessed the new system within just nine months of INNERLUXES joining the project.
• The Client and its customers gained powerful tools to monitor threats, analyze historical trends, and receive immediate alerts — enhancing decision-making and risk mitigation, strengthening existing client relationships, attracting new business, and reinforcing the Client's reputation in high-stakes environments.
• With a fully custom solution, the Client can now evolve its services and reporting software without third-party-tool limitations.

Technologies and Tools

Back end: Python, Django, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, OpenAPI 3, Pytest, Docker, Docker Compose, Kubernetes, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, Amazon EKS, GeoJSON.

Front end: React, Redux, TypeScript, MUI, Leaflet, Recharts.