Report Library

The Report Library presents a detailed overview of the tests run within a selected period of time, including:

  • Statistical information for all listed tests
  • Historical breakdown of when tests failed
  • Table of all selected tests, including information on the parameters of the test run

For information on how to filter and group the view, see Focus on what's important to you.

This figure shows the Report Library grouped by device model.

Overview

The following sections explain how to read and use the different parts of the Report Library view.

The header bar across the top of the display (just below the top-level Test Analysis tabs) displays:

  • Saved view selector - Lists all views available to you. This includes views you saved yourself, views someone else shared with you, and predefined system views. A view is based on a selection of group and filter parameters. For more information on creating your own views, see Custom views.
  • Active filters - Lists all of the currently selected filters and groupings for the list.
  • Search field - Lets you search for keywords to display only tests with names that match the entered term.

The section just below the header bar includes statistical views of the listed tests:

  • Statistical Overview shows general statistics of the currently listed tests, split into the number of passed, failed, blocked, and other tests.
  • Run History provides an overview of dates when tests were run. The view is color-coded to show the number of passed, failed, blocked, and other tests for a particular date.

Use the Hide charts/Show charts link above the charts to toggle the display.

The table in the Report Library view lists the following information for all test reports.

Note:

Not all columns are displayed by default. You can configure columns by clicking the pliers icon above the table.

Column

Sub-column

Description

Displayed by default

Report Name


The script name as supplied in the PerfectoReportiumClient testStart() method. The column includes a checkbox that you can use to select test reports for the Cross Report view.

You can copy the report name by moving the pointer over the respective field and clicking the copy icon .

Yes

Status


The final status reported by the specific test run. The test status is one of: Passed, Failed, Blocked, Unknown.

Yes

Cross Report


Indicates if the test report is part of a cross-report.

Yes

History


Indicates when this test run was executed relative to other runs of the same test. (See below for more detail.)

Yes

Failure / Blocked Reason


Indicates a reason detected, either automatically by Smart Reporting heuristics or by the testers (see Implement the reporting framework), why the test failed.

Yes

Platform


Indicates if tests were executed on Mobile or Web devices. May include an indication of the number of devices executed on.

Yes

Form factor

Icon that identifies if the testing device was a Mobile or Desktop Web device.

Yes

Device model

List of devices used in the test, with each device separated by comma.

Yes

Device ID

For mobile devices, provides the ID number of the testing device.

No

Browser

Browser version for Web devices.

Yes

OS

List of operating system versions, coordinated with devices list.

Yes

Resolution

List of device resolutions, coordinated with devices list.

No

Job


Details of the CI Job reported for this test.

No

Name

Job name as reported in the execution context. 

No

#Number

Job number as reported in the execution context.

No

Branch

Job branch as reported in the execution context. 

No

Time


Provides details of when test was run and its duration.

Yes

Start

Start time of the test run.

Yes

Duration

Duration time of the test.

Yes

Tags


Indicates the number of tags associated with the test run.

Yes

Failed / blocked exception

 

Provides information on the exception that caused the test to fail.

You can copy the exception by moving the pointer over the respective field and clicking the copy icon .

  

Exception Summary

A cleaned-up version of the exception that occurred. To extract the code of the exception, Perfecto looks for specific strings in the stack trace.

You can search this column by using the Exception summary field in the Configuration pane on the right. Perfecto searches across all available reports, not only the ones currently loaded in the UI.

No

 

Exception Details

The full text of the exception that occurred. This information should help you pinpoint the exact location in your test case that threw the exception so that you can go back and fix it. This may well be the most important column for you to work with.

No

Lab


Indicates if test was run in a Perfecto CQ Lab.

No

Automation Framework


Indicates the automation framework used by the automation script. For tests run manually, this column displays the value Interactive. For tests run through Scriptless Web, the value is Scriptless Web. For tests run through Scriptless Mobile, the value is Scriptless Mobile. In all other cases, the value displayed is the name of the respective automation framework, such as Selenium, XCUITest, or Cypress.

No
Trigger Type   Indicates if the test was run as part of a development cycle, manual test, monitoring, user tests, and more. The possible values are: Manual (tests initiated manually by the user), Scheduled (jobs initiated by the scheduler), and CI/CD (jobs initiated by external CI/CD tools/command line interface). No

Test history information

The history graph in the History column shows a series of nodes. Each node represents a single run of the test.

The History mechanism defines test similarity by test name and execution capabilities. If there is a difference in either the name or the capabilities (for example, the osVersion capability is included in one test run but not in another), the tests are considered 'not similar'. As a result, they are not connected in history.

The test run whose details are described in this report is displayed as a double-ring in the history (). This makes it easier to identify when this test run was executed relative to other test runs. When reading the history graph, keep in mind that: 

  • The latest test run is always represented by the right-most node.
  • No more than five nodes appear in the history graph. If the specific run occurred prior to the five latest runs, the graph shows a break represented by three dots ().
  • The color of the node represents the test result status for that particular run, where green means 'passed', yellow means 'blocked, and red means 'failed' ().

  • Move the pointer over a node to display a tooltip with details for that run.

  • Arrows around an icon () identify test runs with scheduled retries that have been collapsed into a single test report.

    The Scheduled Retries is turned off by default. To turn it on in your cloud instance, contact Perfecto Support.

    For a test to be considered a retry, it must share the same parameters and CI job name and number or be part of the same execution. Perfecto does not list a test that is considered a retry in the table and does not take it into account when calculating statistics. Only the last test in a retry series makes it into the statistics. For more information, see STR.

Failure/blocked reason

Smart Reporting is designed to provide the test data from your test runs, but also to allow you - the tester or the test manager - to better understand the results of your tests. If your test ends with a success status, then you know that all is well. However, when a test fails, Smart Reporting may analyze the test data and provide a failure reason that indicates what caused the test to fail.

The Smart Reporting system provides functionality that supports generating this failure reason classification, either:

  • Manually by the test script, based on the stage in the script execution when the test is determined to have failed.
  • Automatically. Smart Reporting analyzes the entire test information and generates the reason based on a heuristic classification.

In either case, the failure reason is color-coded (where green means 'passed', yellow means 'blocked, and red means 'failed') and displayed in the table of the test reports, in the Failure/Blocked Reason column, to allow a quick overview of the different failed tests. If a test fails without reporting a failure reason, the Status column will show a red icon, but the Failure/Blocked Reason column will be blank.

The Smart Reporting system automatically identifies instances when the test failed before the test was able to start. When these failures occur, the report is marked with a blocked failure reason (that will appear in the table as the Failure Reason, color of reason in yellow) and the Status column will show a Blocked status (). These blocked failure reasons are completely controlled (failure reason text and color) by the Smart Reporting system. Some examples of blocked failure reasons include:

  • Device in use

  • Device not connected

  • Device not found

Tags column

You can move the pointer over the tag icon in the Tags column for a specific test to display a tooltip that lists all tags associated with the test.

This tooltip is an active tooltip. Clicking a tag filters the table to show only tests associated with that tag.

Use the sidebar on the right to:

  • Filter the list of displayed test runs, to limit the list to those that comply with the selected parameters or time frame.

  • Create groups of test runs to display in the groups overview.

For more information on the sidebar, read here.

Focus on what's important to you

The following sections explain how you can group and filter information in the Report Library to narrow your focus on the details you need to see. For additional information, see Group of filter reports.

When the Report Library includes a wide variety of tests, you can use the Search field at the top to focus on the set of tests you are interested in.

To search reports:

  1. Start typing the name (or any sub-string of the name). Smart Reporting presents a list of suggested available test names.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Select the test name from the list of suggestions.

    • Complete typing the requested name and press enter.

The list refreshes to display only tests with names that match the search term. If no tests match the search term, a 'No reports found' message appears.

You can use the Statistical Overview area to focus on reports with a selected final status:

  • Click a counter (Failed, Passed, Blocked, Unknown) to filter the list to show only those reports with the selected status.
  • Click Tests to list all test reports.

For example, if 26 tests have a status of Blocked, clicking the Blocked counter filters the list to display only the 26 reports that are currently blocked.

The table may show information that is not relevant at the moment. You can configure it to hide or show columns as needed.

To configure columns:

  1. Click the pliers icon  above the table to display a menu of columns you can configure to appear in the Report Library table.

    Custom fields defined in a test appear as column names at the end of the list.

  2. Select the check box next to a column you want to include in the table or clear the check box of columns you do not want to display.

    Note:

    The Report Name and Status columns are not configurable. They are always visible.

Use the custom fields defined at the different context classes or as part of the JVM command line parameters (with CI) to refine your results beyond built-in filter categories and tags. Custom fields are <name, value> pairs, so they allow for an additional level of segregation. You can filter and group by custom fields. In addition, you can add a custom field as a column to the report table (see Configure columns).

To filter by custom fields:

  1. In the sidebar, under Filter, click ADD FILTER GROUP and select a value from the list. You may need to scroll down to find the field you are looking for.
    The custom field is added as a filter category.
  2. From the list that opens below the custom field, select a value and whether you want to include or exclude this value.
    The list of reports refreshes to show the updated filter settings.

To group by custom fields:

  • In the sidebar, under Group By, select the required custom field from the list.

Best Practice: For greater flexibility and more refined filter and group results, we recommend the use of custom fields.

Use the tags defined by the different context classes to better focus the analysis of the test results by filtering the tests to the subset of interest. 

Note:

Perfecto tracks up to 3000 tags. If the number of tags in your system exceeds 3000, Perfecto may not find a tag if you try to filter by it.

See Tag-driven reports (RTDD workflow) on how to optimize your test tags for efficient test analysis. 

To filter by tags, do one of the following:

  • In the Tag column, click the tag icon. In the tooltip that displays, click the tag you want to filter by.
  • In the sidebar, under Filter, expand the Tags section and select one or more relevant tags.

The following figure shows the table filtered by the tags iPhone 7 and XCTest. Note the indications of the filtering in the right pane. 

Update multiple failure reasons

Perfecto lets you update the failure reason for up to 1000 reports at once. Such a bulk update is helpful if several reports failed for the same reason. Applying the same failure reason to such reports enhances failure analysis and eases the investigation.

Watch this short video to see how to perform a bulk-update. Detailed steps follow.

If you only need to update the failure reason for a single report, you can do this in the Single Test Report.

To update multiple failure reasons:

  1. Click the FAILED category to display the list of failed tests.

  2. On the toolbar that appears above the table, click Set failure reason.

  3. From the list that opens, select the failure reason to set.

  4. Confirm the selection.

Export content to a CSV file

You can export the content of the Report Library to a comma-seperated values (CSV) file based on the selected filter parameters. For example, if you have selected a filter that includes 1,000 tests, the resulting CSV file will include:

  • An entry for each of these tests (while the Report Library may only display 50 of these tests at once)

  • All available columns (and not only the columns displayed in the Report Library)

  • Additional columns, such as owner, project name, and project version

  • The start time in UTC

  • Columns with multiple values (concatenated by comma), such as tags or the platform or device ID for tests executed on multiple platforms or several devices

Note:

To be able to open the file properly, make sure to use a comma as a separator between list items. If your machine is set up to use a different List Separator (Windows) or Decimal Seperator (Mac), such as a colon or semi-colon, you must change that separator to a comma.

Watch this short video to see how it works. Detailed steps follow.

For information on downloading a CSV file through the API, see CSV files.

To export to a CSV file:

  • Click the download icon  above the table.