In the past, using TFS 2010/2012 I have been able to create extensive Excel Pivot Table reports for all things QA including Test Plan execution by Executed By, Test Case Priority, Execution trends, etc.
Now at a different place we recently implemented TFS2015 using the Scrum template. With this TFS instance using the Excel reports there are no possible report fields related to test case execution or test runs. I can use the web based charts within TFS-TEST but they are extremely limited, partially broken and the only trend report possible is from SSRS. The SSRS Test Plan Progress report is a pretty graph but it provides limited data points.
Has anyone figured out how to pull advanced data reports on test plans within TFS2015 or is this related to how our instance was implemented? I'm usually an advanced google-er and have had zero luck.
The Excel Reports can archive the feature you want. Reports you may need:
Test Team Productivity Excel Report
Test Team Progress Excel
Report
Test Plan Progress Excel Report
Related
We are using floating licenses for an older version of the IBM DOORs requirements management tool. It works great for requirements management, however it is not the right solution for our test procedures and automated test cases. We have recently selected testlink as a cost effective test managament tool to replace test planning in a spreadsheet and word documents. We aim to import our test procedures and to link to JIRA and Jenkins and PyWinAPI test automation. The dream is that Manual Tests can create JIRA tickets easily linked to the test step... and ultimately produce a dashboard of test reports that provide greater visibility on test coverage using live data for both manual and automated testing.
As for requirements, yes we can import the Requirements manualy from csv files. However we will have to do this manual import regularily making updates at each aproved requirement change in DOORS. I would prefer a longterm solution to connect DOORS to TestLink in one direction. And once a week an automation can run and feed new requirements or modified requirements into TestLink automatically to keep the two in synch.
We are building TestLink on top of mysql, and DOORS is also a database. Can we write some SQL and scripting that can pull the desired data from DOORS (new and updated) and push it to testlink. I am wondering if anyone has ever done this before or something similar? Thanks very much.
I'm a programmer (mostly C++) who has moved into a non-software workplace. However, I don't have much experience with database stuff at all.
TL;DR: If we compare Crystal Reports to just writing scripts that execute SQL queries and parse the results, is there anything that CR can do that isn't possible via SQL queries & scripts? I'm talking purely in terms of extracting data - not making pretty documents.
Detail:
At my workplace they have a process where you run a bunch of Crystal Reports, modify the date range to the current month, manually export each to excel, delete the rows and columns that aren't needed, and then cut and paste into a summary excel document that is used by management.
To me, this is pretty crazy and stupid. I'd like to automate/script most of it.
So I have two options:
Learn Crystal Reports and try to modify the existing reports to be more automated.
Dump CR and just learn SQL and do the whole thing programmatically with scripts working with CSV files or something.
I'd much rather learn SQL since it's more general and useful. But I need to be assured that I can get the data output that I need (without writing a million lines of code to reproduce CR myself.)
So yeah, I'm looking for an answer like, "The two are equivalent. Anything you can do in CR you can do easily via scripts and SQL," or "If you need to group records into categories based on a parameter and then sum their one of their fields, then CR will do it much more easily than raw code," to push me in one direction or another.
Edit:
Some additional detail. At the moment my crystal reports run a database query, and then crystal does things like, "don't display the records that are returned, instead group the records by Field A and then display the count of how many records in each group."
Is functionality like this difficult to reproduce via SQL coding? I wouldnt want to have to write a python (or whatever) script to parse and manipulate the data from plaintext CSV, for example.
You can't just compare SQL and CR - they have different purpose. SQL (in this context) is data source, CR is pretty output formatter. For excel you would need data, not formatted output. Excel combined with SQL can give you all CR options (dynamic crosstab reports, charts etc) what you can't get directly from SQL data.
BTW, creating SQL views or procedures is often needed to overcome CR limitations; from this standpoint SQL has lot of more options than CR.
I personally would go with SQL+Excel route. In our company we're using simply SQL+CR without postprocessing, sometimes SQL+Excel. Our customers are using different approaches.
But like said by other people, choice of tools depends on more things. Who has to redesign reports? Who will maintain these reports? How often requirements change? Are there more uses for CR reports besides sourcing Excel tables? Who will be waked up at night, if reports do not work?
Management perpective:
In many I will say mostly cases management does not know SQL. So if a manager for E.g.HR wants to know staus about something then how he will get that status?? This is where Crystal reports come into picture, Using crystal reports they do not have to worry about SQL; they will just enter required fields and get their data.
Programmer perspective:
Simple data outputs can be achieved through SQL but consider a scenario where you need to pull details as well as summary. I agree it can be done via SQL but consider the overhead of time and proficiency required to develop such output using sql. I bet it wont be that easy to develop such output using sql as compared to crystal. So I will say learn both SQL and crystal, you will get to choose the tool to apply for your requirement.
You can write SQL and drop it into the Crystal Report. Best of both worlds, and possibly faster performance than the drag-and-drop Crystal functionality.
You will see some response time lag when the report runs.
There are actually a few things that Crystal Reports can do that are very tricky using plain SQL Queries as Crystal Reports can access the entire dataset in a single formula and can do things at runtime.
However unless you have some really crazy complex Crystal Reports I would recommend building a tool in Excel that can one click the info straight into a new sheet.
I did this and it got me a promotion, not kidding :P
I have a custom Excel Addin I can give you code to that basically does this:
On open, connects to the database and downloads a list of menu options connected to views and procedures
Adds these menu options into a new Ribbon tab within Excel
When one is clicked, runs the view and dumps the entire dataset (properly formatted) into a new sheet
Advantage of this is you can update the main menu list and each view it references without making any changes to the file or re-issuing anything to everyone.
Crystal could be helpful if you want to create a document with a specific layout , logos etc. and show some data on it. Export to excel from Crystal repot is not easy - usually there are a lot of empty columns and rows and each report should be tweaked to avoid that.
If you need to export some data from a SQLServer database to excel your best option will be SSIS ( I guess you have a license for SQL Server). If you don't have license for SSIS or you are using for example Access database there are also some inexpensive tools, which can retrieve data from any database ( not just SQLServer) and export it to excel. I would suggest you to check this one: http://www.r-tag.com. It can run Crystal reports and SQL reports so you can start using your crystal reports immediately and start transforming them to SQL reports whenever you have time for that. Both reports could be exported to excel.
i fixed this by editing excel sql, Left(Column_maxLength, 250)
this resolved my issue
in my case if even if i read left 250 character is enough
I am a newbie in Cognos. I am trying to create a report using report studio, I have the required package, and I want to create a report using a complex SQL query which has joins between three tables. Can anyone please give a suggestion to start building the report? Thanks!
How to write SQL for Cognos reports
FM is to create complex models. If you need a quick-and-dirty report you can specify custom SQL as the tutorial shows.
It would depend on how the data you see in Report Studio is modelled, typically a tool called Framework Manager is used connect to and model the source tables and views. Framework Manager creates the packages that you see in Report Studio, it can define relationships between entities like tables (if they're not already defined in the source database).
Not sure how to tell from Report Studio if the relationship has been defined properly other than trying to pull over fields from each table into the same Report Studio Query. It is best to talk to whoever designed the Framework Manager model or look at the model itself.
I am in the process of evaluiting Ad-Hoc reporting tool on top SQL Server 2008 R2. I would like to know what are the limitations around the Report Builder 3.0 which comes with SQL server.
What reports we can do in VS 2008 with BIDS and which we can not do in Report Builder 3.0 We are trying to answer what can be done what can be done with Report Builder.
Please share your real time experiance
We went through this same evaluation not that long ago. Basically BIDS and Report Builder 2/3 allow you to do the same thing. Report Builder is for those users who want to create or modify their own reports without needing to install BIDS. Report Builder has a Microsoft Office look and feel. It has the ribbon controls similar to Excel and Word. The same .RDL or .RDLC is generated by both. However, Report Builder 3 only targets SSRS 2008 R2. The .RDL format has changed for SSRS 2008 R2.
Either way the report can be deployed to an SSRS server, Sharepoint or the Microsoft Report Viewer (for .RDLC files).
As you may or may not know, there is no BIDS for Visual Studio 2010 (yet). If you want to use BIDS, you'll need to use VS 2008, which targets SQL Server 2008.
I think for a Power User who already has gone through tools like Cognos and Business Objects, the reprot builder 3.0 seems to lack lot of features while reporting against the cube. Here are the main.
I cannot create a variable which I can use in multiple tables in the report. I thought I could use "calculated member" but it does not let me use any kind of aggregate function on any of the objects against the cube as it treats everything as aggregate objects.
I cannot use a simple "OR" statement in the query filter.
Power user while building the report need to always pay attention to "row group", which I think is frustrating. In other tools the measure or fact groups it only groups by the dimension u have in the table.
Row limitations while exporting to excel.
I'm having this problem:
The SQL Server holds a said value, let's say 990.30, the Reporting Services Report show a different value (948.33) when viewed online, in the brower and a third value (912.22) when the report is exported to Excel.
There are no formulas on Excel, just plain values.
Also, there's no formula on the layout of the report.
The code shows only a simple select that, when run on the SQL Server Management Studio, returns me the original value (990.30).
How on earth shall I start to troubleshoot this ?
I've never heard of this kind of problem before. I would recommend submitting a ticket to Microsoft and provide them with screen shots of the errors, the RDL file, a sample output of the stored procedure, etc.
To troubleshoot this on your own, I would recommend creating a new report that just has a simple table that returns all the details from your stored procedure or query to validate the values are consisten across all interfaces. From there, just start adding on complexity until you get the report to look like it is today.