What is MQC?

MES Quality Commander^® is a monitoring and management tool for the comprehensive quality assessment of model-based software development. User-friendly visualizations, evaluations, and data capturing assist the user to assess the current quality of artifacts and provide a status overview of the overall project quality. In addition, MQC shows the quality trend, which provides information about the progress of the project. MQC can be seamlessly integrated into any development environment or Continuous Integration.

What's New?

► Read about all new features in the release notes

Highlights in latest versions of MES Quality Commander^® (MQC) v.6.3

Accelerated Data Import from GIT Repositories Using the Sparse Checkout
MQC now supports GIT’s sparse checkout allowing the user to filter only relevant files and directories to be downloaded from the remote source.
Along with this, the time filter for commits has been further improved, allowing the independent selection of start and end dates to align with the project milestone configuration.

Validating a Setup Configuration in the Create Project Dialog
When creating a project in MQC, a setup configuration can be loaded upfront. The setup is checked for misconfigurations, tips are provided to correct them.

Dark Mode Option Available for the Whole Interface
The new dark mode provides an additional option for users to enhance readability based on preference.

Installation

MQC Editor:

• Extract the MQC zip file into a target folder with write access.
• Navigate to the MES_MQC_SpotfireAnalyst11-4-2_single_user_win\Products\TIBCO Spotfire Installer directory
• Execute the setup file (.exe)
• Follow the installation instructions provided by the MQC User Guide.

Update to the Latest Version

MQC Editor:

• On startup choose to login to the MQC Server instead of working offline.
• In case of available updates, you will be automatically prompted to update.
• Confirming the update will install the latest version of MQC.

For further information, please, check the installation instructions provided by the MQC User Guide.

System Requirements

The following system requirements must be in place to use MQC:

MQC Editor:

• Windows (7 + 8 + 10 - 64-bit versions)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6 (or higher)
• Microsoft Office 2010 (or higher)

Read more about detailed hardware requirements in the MQC User Guide.

Quick Start

The MQC User Guide includes a Quick Start Guide, which gives you an introduction into the functionality of the MES Quality Commander^®. It shows you how to use MQC to analyse your project quality and data. You are guided in detail and will learn how to:

• Open the sample project shipped with MQC
• Work with MQC by navigating through the different pages
• Check the availability of the loaded data
• Check the status of project KPIs and quality
• Identify root causes of insufficient quality

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions to help us improve the MES Quality Commander^® (MQC), please do not hesitate to contact us:
Email: mqc@model-engineers.com

User Instruction

User Guide

The MQC User Guide presents clear instructions on how to work with the MES Quality Commander^® (MQC). It provides users with information about getting started and working with MQC.

Release Notes - MQC v.6.3 (December 2022)

Support for Git sparse checkout (Beta)

• MQC supports a sparse checkout of Git repositories. The use of this feature provides considerable improvements regarding disk space usage and checkout speed for huge repositories containing only a limited amount of files relevant for an MQC project.
• With sparse checkout no full clone of the git repository is performed. Only the relevant files and directories based on the defined filters are downloaded from remote.
• The sparse checkout has to be enabled by an administrator. The configuration documentation is part of the Server Administration Guide.
• As a prerequisite, the Git hosting has to support the partial clone feature that was introduced with Git 2.25 (2020).

Load Setup Configuration into Create Project Dialog

• The Create Project dialog is capable of loading a setup configuration. As such, an existing or saved setup configuration can be checked and extended before creating the project.
• The complete configuration of the Create Project dialog is validated and helpful hints are provided to correct misconfigurations.

Dark Mode for the whole User Interface

• A dark mode is available for MQC. All visualizations and UI elements are switched to a dark theme. The colors are adapted to be easily distinguishable and recognizable. At the same time the dark mode is pleasant on the eyes.
• The theme setting is a user setting. Thus, each user sees its theme when viewing any project.
• The report generation uses the light mode theme at all times.

Improved Accessibility and Authentication Checks for Git Repositories

• The handling of multiple Git repositories configured as one data source using the same configuration was improved. Each repository is checked separately for accessibility. The branches of multiple repositories are fetched in parallel (asynchronously).
• Problems and errors (esp. authentication) are shown next to each repository as a status icon and with descriptive error messages as notifications.
• Repositories added by http/https prompt the user with a login dialog, if no authentication info was found in the credentials manager. Any login information entered into MQC is stored in the Windows credential manager.

Extended Git Commit Filters

• The previously default behaviour of the git checkout can now be changed by a new setting. While the diff mode is still recommended for fetching files, by disabling this setting it is now possible to request every file available in a commit, instead of only the added or changed files. This can solve problems that can occur when using data files that do not contain a report date (e.g. csv) if not using propagation for the whole project.
• The time filter for commits was improved. It is now possible to define the "From" and the "To" date by independently chosing a selected date via a time picker or to align the filter with the project milestone configuration.

Background Updates of Git Repositories upon Opening Saved MQC Projects

• The monitoring of git repositories has been improved, so that upon opening an MQC project the checks for new commits run in the background and no longer impacts the usability of MQC. Additionally, the handling of git lock files has been improved to better handle parallel usage on the web player.

Descriptions for Artifacts, Quality Properties and Their Structures

• Descriptions have been added to the quality model and project structure configuration schemas. After adding descriptions to the configurations they become visible in the MQC UI.
• Use these descriptions to explain and document the definition and background of the quality properties, artifacts, or structuring elements. This makes it easier for users to understand these elements during everyday use.
• KPIs, Sunburst and Heatmap visualizations show the descriptions inside their tooltips.

Saving of Dashboard Configuration

• The configuration of the dashboard can be saved to a yaml file. This configuration can be used in a setup configuration.

Save As for Annotations

• Annotations can be saved as yaml files. Multiple annotation files can be loaded into a MQC project.
• This enables the organization of annotations in multiple annotation files. Annotation files can be shared simultaneously between MQC projects.
• There will be a notification within the UI for any unsaved changes to annotations created or edited inside MQC.

Memory Consumption during Data Import Decreased

• By memory profiling we found a way to decrease the memory consumption during file import and implemented it. This enables the handling of even larger projects.

OpenID Authentication Support

• Users can also be authenticated by OpenID (besides LDAP). The description's full configuration is part of the Server Administration Guide.

User Experience

• The icon buttons in all configuration dialogs are provided with tooltips showing the functionality behind the button, e.g. to distinguish between "Save" and "Save As".
• Configuration source files shown in dialogs are displayed in a way that the file name is always visible. File paths that are too long are shortened in the middle to still show the most important information.
• If a loaded configuration source file is no longer accessible by MQC, because it was e.g. removed from the file system, a respective notification is provided within the corresponding dialog. The source file then can be recreated via the export functionality.
• For each configuration source, MQC has a notification for when the file in the file system was modified and probably should be reloaded.
• The main project information shown in the top left of most pages is more responsive with regard to size changes. The displayed information has been adapted so as not to show duplicated information.
• The default MQC working directory (C:MQCTemp) can be changed by an administrator if for instance access to the C drive can not be granted for security reasons. The configuration description is contained within the Server Administration Guide.
• If a stored MQC project is opened in a Web browser, it will directly start in Edit mode for Editor Users, not in View mode.