MES Quality Commander® (MQC)
Release Notes
8.1.0 - April 2025
Collect Data Directly from JFrog Artifactory
- Do you use JFrog Artifactory as long-term storage for your work products, including your tool reports?
- Configure a MQC DataSource to access the report files directly from JFrog Artifactory.
- Select your projects and repositories, filter and preview files, including zip archives, in an intuitive interface.
- Automatic monitoring keeps your MQC project up to date by detecting new, modified or deleted files.
Focus on Your Key Project Timeframes with Milestone-Based Views
- Use configured milestones as timeframes to focus your view, in addition to the existing date range options of weeks, months, years, and manual dates.
See the Changes in Your Project in the Way You Need to
- Use milestones as diff base to see changes since the end of the last milestone. This allows you to see what progress has been made in a milestone period.
- By linking the date range selection via option to the diff base, you only need to change the date range to get the corresponding diff view.
- Diffs for separate milestone sets and/or date ranges can also be configured. Select the appropriate diff base to quickly switch between your diff views.
Support for Zip Archives in Data Locations
- If tool reports are archived in zip files, MQC reads the files without further configuration.
Specific Location Information for Findings
- Clear and detailed information for the location of the finding are available in the List visualization.
- Findings of model-based source files can provide (e.g. for MXAM)
- FilePath
- ModelName
- ModelInnerPath
- Findings of code-based source files can provide (e.g. DotCover)
- FilePath
- ClassName
- Details with Method name, Line Numbers, Column Numbers and Code Snippet.
Improvements of code-based file readers
- DotCover File Reader
- You can configure if the file or the class is imported as the artifact.
- Findings can be created on the level of statements, methods, classes or files.
- JUnit File Reader
- The file-attribute is used as the artifact, if existing, otherwise the classname is used. If neither are found in the report, the testcase is ignored with a warning.
- A TestOf-property is read as the location className.
- Optional properties "Category", "Author" and "Severity" are included in the description.
- Warnings are supported by ´<system-out>´ and ´<system-err>´ tags inside a testcase.
User Experience
- Found errors during reading yaml configuration files are shown by highlighting the problematic parts of the source file, including line numbers.
- The Heatmap and Structure Visualizations now provides an Expand/Collapse All button for each Structure level, so that all elements of a structure level can be expanded or collapsed with one click.
8.0.0 - January 2025
Instant Insights With Ready-To-Use Dashboards
The new major release introduces ready-to-use dashboards tailored to common use cases, providing instant insights into project quality and progress.
The dashboards Project Status, Latest Changes, Developer Details, and Developer Status allow teams to quickly identify key areas of focus, track daily changes, and monitor specific tasks for various user groups.
In addition, the dashboards are fully customizable, allowing users to configure visualizations to meet their specific needs.
- Project Status Dashboard:
- Summarizes the main quality numbers of the project.
- Provides the quality trend for the current milestone.
- Shows the Quality of each model to identify areas of "special" interest.
- Allows a focused view of aggregated open issues and tasks.
- Latest Changes Dashboard:
- Shows changes in the project since the last daily meeting (usually yesterday).
- Supports to quickly zoom in on the list of new bugs.
- Status of the project findings concentrating on the topics the team is working on.
- Allows a focused view of the team's open issues and tasks.
- Developer Details Dashboard:
- Summarizes changes of issues for each of developer models.
- Highlights resolved and new bugs.
- Displays only the relevant tasks according to the project status for developer work.
- Provides a focused view of open issues and tasks.
- Developer Status Dashboard:
- Shows changes in the project since yesterday together with the current status.
- Focuses on one tool and shows the drill-down from Quality to Data to Data Details.
- Provides a focused view of open issues and tasks by drilling down from the Quality and Data.
- Displays only the relevant tasks according to the project status for developer work.
The pre-configured dashboards can be further customized. Dashboards can be configured from scratch as well.
- Various of the MQC visualizations are available for dashboards. Each visualization is configurable by size, position, shown data or quality values, show diff, marking dependencies and further specific parameters.
- Dashboard visualizations react on marking and filtering.
Heatmap Visualization with Interactive Structure
The heatmap visualization lets you see an overview of your project at the level of detail you need.
- New interactivity in the structures allows you to see aggregated levels next to details in 2 different layouts to help you quickly navigate and understand even the largest projects.
- By expanding only parts of the structure, such as an ECU in the artifact structure, you can focus on parts in detail while still seeing them in the context of the entire project.
- Each level of the structures can be shown or hidden in the structure tree of the heatmap and structure visualizations, even levels in the middle of a structure, so you can simplify your view even for complex structures.
- The redesigned structure visualizations are changed to a more compact and responsive layout. This helps you drilling down to details, especially when using trend, sunburst, treemap and list visualizations. The structure visualizations are much easier to navigate in large projects.
Dedicated Project Start and End configuration
- The date of Project Start and Project End can be directly configured. (Milestone do no longer define the project duration.)
- If the project start and/or end configuration is not defined, the respective values are calculated using the imported data.
API Connectors
- Passwords and Tokens are now masked.
- Differential Import is supported by the Jira API Connector. This speeds up consecutive data updates from Jira considerably.
- The caching and the overall performance of the Jira API Connector was improved.
User Experience
- List Visualization
- The grouped view shows the number of elements in a group. In Diff-view it shows the New and Gone numbers separatly.
- The expanding of groups persists when switching pages.
- Grouping by Diff is now available.
- New alert appears in the toolbar, if a marking is active for which no visualization in a page is visible.
- New Data Details Trend Line visualization available. It can be used on dashboards as well.
- Revision "marking" in trend visualization selects the revision only. No marking is performed. It's more intuitive when working with the trend for revision selection.
- Error messages were extended for API Connectors an the Git Connector. It is now more clear where a problem happened.
7.6.0 - September 2024
Read and Aggregate Issues, Tasks, and Changes directly from Jira
- Do you manage issues, tasks, and/or changes for your artifacts in Jira?
- Now you can combine your usual quality assurance data with your issues, tasks, and changes to see all information together in MQC.
- View the real progress of a whole Jira project including a detailed trend, aggregation on multiple levels, and diff according to your milestones. This provides additional and different perspectives on your project compared to the dashboards and reports available in Jira.
- However your Jira is configured, MQC is flexible enough to get the data you want. This is achieved by a new API Connectors using the Jira RESTful API.
- Only the data from Jira you need is imported and you can derive quality out of them.
- When adding or updating a Jira API data location the dynamic UI reacts to your selections and inputs to see only the relevant fields and options for filters and mapping. For a date field you get a date picker, for a priority field you see the priority options for this field, for an assignee you see the available users.
- A preview shows which findings would be read into MQC during configuration. The preview helps you during the configuration to see the effect of your settings and helps to validate your configuration.
- Your Jira project is monitored and the data in your MQC project is kept up to date by always fetching the newest changes from Jira.
Sorted Quality Structures in the Quality HeatMap
- Quality Structure (on top of the HeatMap) are now in the same order as configured in quality model configuration.
7.5.0 - June 2024
Powerful Access to Data Locations with RESTful API Connectors (beta)
- With RESTful APIs like the Gitlab API, you can access data from your Gitlab projects in a flexible and efficient way. MQC has now added new API connectors in addition to the standard file and git connectors. This allows you to retrieve e.g. artifacts directly from your pipeline using the Gitlab Pipeline Artifact API Connector.
- In the API connectors you can choose between either retrieving data directly or downloading files, which can be read by the enabled file readers afterwards.
- The provided Gitlab API API connectors allow you to access data from your Gitlab projects in a flexible and performant way:
- Gitlab Pipeline Artifacts API Connector: Fetch file artifacts from your pipeline, without having to store them in a file system or a git repository.
- Gitlab Pipeline JUnit API Connector: Fetch the coverage and test summary of your pipeline directly as data.
- Gitlab Repository API Connector: Fetch the files from commits in your Gitlab repository.
- Jenkins Pipeline Artifacts API Connector: Fetch file artifacts from your pipeline, without having to store them in a file system or a git repository.
- Jenkins Pipeline JUnit API Connector: Fetch the coverage and test summary of your pipeline directly as data.
- The usual caching of files, monitoring for changes, and the differential import of new data are available.
- You can create and use your own custom API connectors in MQC, similar to custom file readers. The provided API connectors are there as examples and are well documented for easy understanding. RestSharp is provided as a convenient library for accessing RESTful APIs.
Improved Validation of Quality Model Configuration
- We have added more checks to make sure the quality model configuration is consistent when it is imported. If there are any discrepancies, warnings are raised so you can fix the configuration.
- Validation of the interaction between different options has been improved to support quick corrections.
File Reader for AbsInt Astrée Static Analysis Reports
- A new file reader for extracting data and findings from Astrée XML reports is included with MQC. (https://www.absint.com/astree)
- Rule Violations, Runtime Errors, Data Race, Flow Anomaly, and Error are read as data and aggregated measures based on rules, checks, and lines of code are created.
- Issue findings include the error message, file path, code snippet, and trace to pinpoint the problem directly in the MQC data details.
Extension of BTC Embedded Tester (ET) File Reader for older version
- The Embedded Tester file reader can handle version 2.11 ET HTML reports in addition to the 3.x HTML reports.
- The data set handled is identical for both versions.
Extension of TPT HTML and XML File Reader
- The alignment between the data and the corresponding data details has been improved. A message is displayed if differences are found.
- XML and HTML reports are also aligned when both are available, so that both produce the same result.
Data Details for the special SLReq File Reader
- Reading Data Details for requirements has been added to the special SLReq file reader.
7.4.0 - March 2024
Visualize BTC Embedded Tester (ET) Projects in MQC
- Monitor the quality of your models tested by BTC Embedded Tester (ET) with an adapter to read the data from ET HTML reports. The ET quality model calculates quality for the data regarding test cases, requirements, code coverage, domain checks, and robustness checks.
- MQC extracts the complete data set:
- TestCase result for MiL/SiL/B2B,
- Requirement result MiL/SiL,
- Testcase/Requirement Coverage and Requirement/TestCase Coverage,
- The many Code Coverage measures: Statement, Condition, Decision, MC/DC, Function and Function call, Relational Operator, Switch-case,
- Domain Checks: Valid Ranges and Invalid Ranges,
- Robustness Check: Division by Zero, Downcast.
- The corresponding findings/issues for test cases and requirements are extracted as well.
- The quality model for Embedded Tester is as similar as possible to the other dynamic test tools (especially TPT and MTest).
Relations Between Findings in Data Details
- Showing the connection between e.g. requirements, test cases, and assessments simplifies the process of identifying and addressing the underlying causes of issues. For example, if there is a finding for a test case with linked requirement(s), the relation directly provides the findings of the requirement(s) including the state of the relation.
- The relations between findings are extracted from data sources and visualized in the Data Details List. This enables you to view all related findings in one place.
- The attributes of findings have been partially renamed (Subject, Issue Message).
Performance Improvements for Marking in Large Projects
- The performance of marking has been improved. The reaction to marking is instant again, especially for large projects.
- When all elements are visible and you want to deselect one element, the Ctrl-click on this element now deselects as well.
Unified Naming of Base Measures of Dynamic Test Tools
- The naming of the base measures for the multiple supported dynamic test tools (i.e. TPT, ET, MTest, Tessy, jUnit, vTest, ...) was unified.
- The base measure naming employs a two-level structure: - TestCaseResult - TestCaseRequirement Coverage - RequirementResult - RequirementTestcase Coverage - Model CoveargeCondition - Code CoveragDecision - Code CoverageMC/DC and all the other metrics
- The same naming is used for the findings structure in Data Details.
Visualizations in Data Details Show NotLoaded and Missing
- Visualizations in Data Details indicate if data measures are NotLoaded and/or Missing.
- A finding is only missing if the corresponding data measure is missing and a subject path (e.g. specific MXAM Check or specific test case name) is available for the artifact in another revision.
User Experience
- The tooltip now appears after a short delay, when the mouse is stopped. The performance of the tooltip has been greatly enhanced, especially for the trend visualization. The new tooltip can show more information.
- When a custom AppDataPath (MQC temp folder) is configured but not available, a warning message is shown upon Startup. The default path is used as fallback.
- The Server Side Refresh of projects prevents conflicts between different runs.
- Checking configuration sources for updates in Git has been improved.
- The structure selection of findings in Data Details shows the different structures of data sources side by side. Selecting one level selects the same level for all the finding structures.
7.3.0 - December 2023
Improve Testing Insights with Data Details for Dynamic Testing
- Elevate your testing insights by combining static and dynamic test data in a unified view. MQC’s Data Details provide a comprehensive overview of issues, and seamless navigation through finding structures in an intuitive interface.
- Data Details are extracted for dynamic test (e.g. TPT). Detailed findings/issues regarding test cases, assesslets/assessments, requirements, and structural coverage information are read from the respective reports including information on the used plattforms (MiL, SiL, B2B, ...).
- The issues from static and dynamic test are visualized in an integrated view in the Data Details Heatmap. The differing finding structures (i.e. checks/guidelines/documents for static test and measurements for dynamic test) are shown side-by-side in a unified way.
- The Data Details Treemap visualizes the full finding structure over all artifacts or individually per artifact. For dynamic test findings the structure inside requirements, test cases, and assessments is visible in the treemap visualization. This structure can be used to drill-down into specific areas of the findings.
Track Project Changes with Data Details Diff Mode
- Efficiently monitor and address changes in your projects with the Data Details Diff Mode. Gain a clear understanding of new issues introduced and previous issues resolved, facilitating informed decision-making.
- The diff mode of Data Details concentrates on the changed issues in your project. On the one hand, you see the places where new issues occurred and on the other hand where previous issues were solved. Using this detailed information the developer can work on the issues.
- The number of new and solved findings are shown in the structure visualization directly. Tooltips provide detailed numbers in the heatmap, treemap, and structure visualization.
- The Data Details List shows the new and solved issues in diff mode. These issues can be sorted and grouped as usual.
- In the heatmap, treemap, and structure visualization the coloring directly shows, if the aggregated result over the respective findings/issues is improved (shades of green) or deteriorated (shades of red). If the aggregated result changes, the improvement or deterioration is labeled as major. Smaller changes are labeled as minor.
- The Diff Trend visualizes the number of solved and new issues per result type for the revisions. This provides a quick overview on the changes in the project over time.
Data Details Configuration
- The different aspects of Data Details can be configured to match the project's requirements. I.e. the configuration of expected findings/issues per data source.
- The colors and severity of the different finding results can be customized. On the one hand the severity is used to sort the findings in visualizations. On the other hand the aggregation of different finding types is performed according to the severity settings.
- Finding results can be to grouped together in bins. This enables the grouping of similar finding results from different tools into one group, i.e. Passed from MXAM together with Succeeded from TPT into one Passed bin. The severity and colors of bins can also be configured.
- The artifact substructure mapping can be configured on top of the general artifact mapping. This allows the collapsing of "unimportant parts" within the treemaps, i.e. MXAM artifact substructure levels that have not been analyzed.
- The Finding Structure for DataSources can be normalized to visualize different data sources side-by-side in heatmaps.
Extension of TPT Tool Adapter: Support for Data Details
- The TPT XML and HTML adapter now extract Data Details for each test case, assesslet/assessment and requirement.
- The structure of test cases and requirements is extracted too. This finding structure is visualized in the Data Details treemap.
- The details on structural coverage are available aggregated.
Extension of MTest Tool Adapter: Support for Data Details
- The MTest HTML adapter now extracts Data Details for each test case, assessment, and requirement. For each test case (or requirement) the coverage by requirements (or test cases) is included.
- The structure of test cases and requirements is extracted too. This finding structure is visualized in the Data Details treemap.
- The details on structural coverage are available aggregated.
User Experience
- The Data Details Treemap now has an option that can be toggled to display the distribution of findings within the finding structure, instead of the artifact structure. This highlights hierarchical areas with numerous issues (chapters in MXAM or test case groups in TPT/MTest). Give it a try in the diff view - it offers a fascinating overview and detailed information simultaneously.
- The treemap can be used in marking mode (default) and drill-down mode. Drill-down helps to focus on specific areas quickly, especially for large artifact or finding structures.
- The design of the Data Details List is more responsive and works much better on small screens. Sorting is supported for all columns. Up to two sortings can be applied at the same time. Issues can be grouped, allowing for quicker searching of long issue lists for specific issues.
7.2.0 - September 2023
Collection and Aggregation of Data Details
- MQC collects Data (number of passed/failed guidelines, passed/failed test cases, etc.) and calculates Quality out of these data points.
- Now MQC collects Data Details too. These Data Details are the findings in a static model analysis, the results of each test case, or the non-covered requirements in dynamic testing and so on. Data Details provide detailed information on each Data point and facilitates the understanding of the source of quality deficits.
- Data Details are collected for MES Model Examiner (MXAM) so far. The information about documents, chapters, guidelines, and checks down to findings is available in MQC.
- A new page shows all artifacts' Data Details in interactive visualizations providing different perspectives of the data.
- The amount of the most critical findings per check is visualized in the Data Details heatmap. By simply changing the aggregation level you can switch to see the findings per guideline or even per document.
- To view specific findings you use the Data Details Findings list. Each of the visible findings and their most important attributes are shown in this list. If desired, more attributes (i.e. description) can be shown. A link into the respective tool report is provided (for MXAM directly to the respective check).
- The distribution of findings within the structure of an artifact is visualized in the Data Details treemap. This allows you to view the inside of an artifact recognizing the parts that have issues.
- If you want to focus on specific parts of your project, just use Marking as usual.
- Data Details are propagated in the same way as the related data points (variables of base measures).
- The Data Details visualizations (heatmap, treemap, list) can be displayed on the Quality and the Data page as well. When marking a quality property, quality bin, or measure, you will see the related findings in e.g. the Data Details Findings list or Data Details heatmap.
- The use of Data Details must be switched on (Import data details in Settings, default: off). The extent of Data Details can be configured:
- All: all Data Details of all artifacts and all revisions -> loads of data
- Last YY revisions: load Data Details of all artifacts for the specified number of revisions
- On Demand: load Data Details by selecting which artifacts of which revisions you want to further analyze
Read Configuration Files from Git
- MQC configuration files (Project structure, Quality Model, Annotations, etc.) can be read directly from a Git repository. This can be the same repository as the report files or separate one(s).
- The configured Git repositories are preserved and can be re-used for the comfortable configuration of report and configuration files.
Extension for Adapter API and Adapter Options
- The adapter API was extended and streamlined to facilitate the import of Data Details.
- The location of the human-readable report can be configured by an adapter option. This enables a more flexible setup of the repository, i.e. by saving the TPT HTML report in a directory parallel to the XML report.
Extension of MXAM Tool Adapter: Support for Data Details
- The MXAM tool adapter can read Data Details from MXMR reports. Findings including related checks, guidelines, chapters, and documents (finding structure) are extracted and imported.
User Experience
- Cloning Git repositories, with sparse, was improved for huge repositories.
7.1.0 - June 2023
Multiple Sets of Milestones
- Different areas of large projects often require many milestones which now can be defined as multiple sets in the project structure. Milestone sets can be grouped on different levels, allowing for a clearer overview and more focused visualizations.
- Each set of milestones is a consecutive list of dates. Milestones from different sets can overlap or even have the same date.
- The various milestone sets can be organized in a tree structure to simplify the navigation of numerous sets and to quickly enable or disable them.
- The toolbar allows the selection of all, one or more sets, or individual milestones. The selected milestones are displayed in the trend visualization. If more than one milestones is visible between two revision, only one line is shown. A tooltip gives detailed information about all milestones at that date.
General Adapter Options for All Adapters
Many tool reports support the flexible configuration of content, meaning that the location and presentation of the same information may vary across different projects.
- To facilitate the seamless import of reports, tool adapters support the configuration of FilePath based Adapter Options for the ReportDateTime, ArtifactPath, DataSourceName and MeasurementName.
The values for these fields can be extracted from the report file path with regex expressions.
- The TPT xml tool adapter additionally supports the configuration of a MeasureNameMapping and MeasurementNameFromXml.
The MeasureNameMapping allows you to map MeasureNames from the xml to your Quality Model.
The MeasurementNameFromXml allows you to define xml paths and matching conditions to read the MeasurementName from a text or attribute of an element in the xml.
User Preferences for Display Options
- When reopening a project from the library, the user’s previously chosen display options are applied in the background and the project adopts the same state of display options as before.
- MQC now automatically saves these options per user and per project on the server.
Extended MXAM Tool Adapter: Support for Compressed MXMR Files
With MXAM v. 9.1, MXMR report files may be provided as zip archives.
- MQC can detect this and imports data from zipped reports without the need for the user to uncompress the archives beforehand.
This also applies when opening compressed MXMR reports to view the data origins.
Tool Adapter for JUnit, DotCover and CodeClimate
- The XML report in the JUnit format is supported.
The adapter reads all test cases and counts the total, failures, errors, and skipped tests as measures. The classname is used for the ArtifactPath while the timestamp is used to read the report datetime.
- The XML report of dotCover by JetBrains is supported.
The adapter reads all types within every namespace and takes the CoveragePercent as the measure. The namespace and type combination is used for the ArtifactPath.
- The JSON report in the CodeClimat format is supported. This format is the default code quality format for GitLab.
The adapter reads all issues and counts the severities as measures. The filePath of the issue is used for the ArtifactPath.
Additional Visualization Options for Heatmap, Sunburst, and Trend
New display options are available for the Heatmap, Sunburst, and Trend visualizations.
Heatmap:
- Weights By enabling weights, the columns and rows of the heatmap are sized according to the defined artifact and quality property weights. If the option is disabled, all columns and rows are shown in the same size. The quality calculation does not change based on this option.
- Scrolling When there are numerous artifacts, scrolling can be enabled to activate a vertical scrollbar. If the option is disabled, the visualization is condensed to fit within the available space.
- Labels The visibility of the labels can be changed with this option.
Sunburst:
- Interaction Should a click go into more details (Drilldown) or should it mark the items.
- Labels The visibility of the labels can be changed with this option.
- Values The visibility of the values inside the colored areas can be changed with this option.
Trend:
- Date Group Revisions can be grouped by Weeks, Months, Quarters or Years. The revisions can be collapsed or focused on based on these groupings.
Improved Visualization Performance for Huge Projects
- The status and trend visualizations render faster and are more responsive. This was achieved by adding a unique id-column to the database tables and using these ids instead of relying on generating ids in Javascript.
- The performance of the heatmap was further improved through the use of an index instead of nested loops in the rendering process.
- The trend visualization’s rendering time has been significantly reduced as a result of the earlier preprocessing of relevant visible data.
- The creation of a filter-index instead of re-querying from the database has accelerated the application of the revision marking and data range selection.
User Experience
- Revision indicator added for all trend visualizations.
- Measure indicator added for measures structure visualization on data page.
- Legend items in Trend are grouped by Measures (incl. Measurement) and Artifacts.
- Diff colors in dark mode were adjusted to be more saturated.
- The file browser in MQC is faster for network paths, by optimizing the used WMI query with specific fields and a scope. If the request is unresponsive, the query is cancelled by a timeout.
- Cloning Git repositories, without sparse, was improved for huge repositories. The cloning progress is indicated and issues regarding timeout, long file paths, and NTFS were resolved.
7.0.0 - March 2023
Multiple Visualizations on Quality and Data Page (Interactive Page Layout)
- All visualizations for a topic, i.e. quality or data, can be arranged on one page. Out-of-the-box, MQC provides predefined layouts for the quality, availability, and data page.
- To narrow the focus to specific diagrams and visualizations can be minimized to a sidebar on the left. The remaining visualizations fill the freed space. Minimized elements can be reopened later. Additionally, each visualization can be maximized.
- All visualizations can be arranged by drag and drop. Possible drop areas are shown when dragging a visualization. This allows an individual page layout to have different visualizations, selectable as tabs or shown together in a side-by-side or stacked layout.
- Based on your use case you can select the visualizations and their position. Multiple visualizations (heatmap, sunburst, trend, ...) can be arranged beside each other. The flexible layout allows the selection of specific visualizations and the arrangement of the visualizations according to the convenience of the user.
Saving, Loading, and Switching Page Layouts
- The active page layout can be saved for later reuse.
- Per page, multiple page layouts can be loaded to support different use cases. You can easily switch between these page layouts.
- Out-of-the-box, MQC provides multiple page layouts for both the quality and data page: one for status and one for trend.
Compact Toolbar with Actions, Options, and Information
- The actions from the left-side menu have been moved to a toolbar at the top of the page. By hiding the left-side menu, there is more space for visualizations.
- The toolbar shows selected options and information relevant to the page. At the same time, it is possible to change these options.
- The toolbar contains structure level selections, revision selection, active marking, data import status, view mode, time range, etc.
- The toolbar is responsive, depending on available space. On small screens some of the options are collapsed into a sub menu.
Diff Pages Integrated into View Mode
- Each page can be switched between the default view, showing quality or availability, and the diff view mode.
- Switching to diff mode changes all visualizations on the current page to show the difference of e.g. the quality of the current revision and another revision depending on the selected diff base (previous revision or previous milestone).
- Additionally, MQC allows to switch the mode for single visualiations on a page.
Marking information and reset
- Marking selections in visualizations are shown in the toolbar. This provides a comprehensive check, which element types are marked.
- The different markings can be reset separately in the toolbar.
Unified Visualization Options
- Per default all options for all visualizations are set to the corresponding (global) toolbar option, e.g. structure level selection or view mode.
- Global selections can be overriden by local selections for each visualization, which are indicated in the visualization header.
Time Range Selection for Trend Visualizations
- For long lasting projects with lots of revisions, MQC offers a time range selection. This limits the number of shown revisons in trend visualizations to a selected period of time, e.g. last week, last month, last quarter, etc. Individual time ranges may be defined using start and end date.
- Additionally, it is possible to move the chosen time range, e.g. go one week back or forth.
Improved Speed for File Import
- Before the actual data file import starts, a pre-check of the files contained in a directory data location is necessary to detect reports, which are valid for an MQC project. This valid file detection has been accelerated. This is particularly relevant to directories containing tens of thousands of files not relevant to an MQC project and saves a considerable amount of time.
Added Descriptions for TPT and MXAM Quality Model
- Custom descriptions for the TPT quality properties have been added to the TPT quality model.
6.3.0 - 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 location 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 impact 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.
- Structure, 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.
6.2.0 - September 2022
New Distribution Visualization including Milestones and Overall Quality/Availability
- The new distribution visualization now shows the milestones as vertical lines. This eases the temporal recognition of the quality or availability distribution over time.
- All revisions before a milestone can be collapsed. The new distribution visualization then shows the last revision before that milestone. Collapsing revisions provides a streamlined trend (quality or availability) especially for long running projects with many revisions.
- With the improved distribution visualization it is possible to switch between a bin view, which shows the distribution of e.g. the computed quality according to categories like "good," "acceptable," and "bad" per revision, and an overall quality or availability view per revision.
- As part of the bin view, the new distribution visualization shows the overall quality or availability as an additional trend line.
- The new quality distribution visualization reflects the current scope of quality assessment, which can be absolute, available or relative quality. By default the absolute quality is shown.
- The reimplementation of the bin distribution visualization facilitates improved formatting of labels, axes, and more consistent marking and tooltips.
Automatic Data Update of Projects on MQC Server
- MQC projects stored within the library of an MQC Server can be periodically updated to automatically fetch the latest data changes. This ensures that all projects are always up to date upon opening, without the need to run an import in the client.
- The serverside automatic update can be enabled or disabled in the project without changing any configuration in the server.
- Serverside updates are only executed if new or changed data was detected.
Generic CSV / Excel Sheet Data Import Through Configuration
- The Generic Data Sheet Adapter can read data from any CSV file or Excel sheet. The adapter can be configured with adapter options, which are defined in Yaml files, that can be added in the Adapter Dialog.
- The Adapter Options for the Generic Data Sheet Adapter contain the configuration of the files to read, how the rows are filtered and aggregated, and how the column values are mapped to revisions, artifacts, and measures.
Multiple Annotation Files supported
- Annotations created (or modified) within MQC can now be assigned to a source file and later saved in the corresponding source file. The source file format is Yaml.
- Multiple annotation source files are supported.
User Experience
- The quality heatmap visualization was improved by centering the x-axis labels and removing the white lines between cells when there are many artifacts and quality properties.
6.1.0 - June 2022
Artifacts and Quality in flexible structures
- Typical development projects are often structured in various ways, i.e. by product architectures, by product platforms, even by roles and responsibilities. As a result, the artifact and quality model structures in MQC now support multiple flexible levels and freely configurable naming.
- Appropriate filtering and marking now allow you to focus on many specific aspects of artifacts or quality properties, in addition to a general overview.
Selectable scope for visual quality assessment
- The scope of quality assessment that is shown in different visualizations includes all quality properties by default (=absolute quality). However, it is now possible to adjust that scope by e.g. ignoring all missing quality properties (=available quality) or by adapting the assessment in relation to defined target values (=relative quality). This allows a more differentiated view on project quality at any time during project runtime.
Faster Data Import from Git
- Now faster data import works for Git repositories as well. MQC detects new commits and imports only data contained in these commits. New data can therefore be imported into an existing project much faster.
- In case some hidden changes were made in your Git repository, you can force refresh reading the data from the Git repository (which may take quite some time).
- Use of commit time as report time is now a configuration of the Git data source, which can be found inside the data location dialog.
Predefined User Roles on MQC Server
- The MQC server solution automatically comes with two user groups: MQC Editor and MQC User.
- MQC Editors are able to create and configure (new) MQC projects and MQC Users are able to load and view existing projects, but not create or edit them.
General Table Adapter for Doors/DoorsNG Data Exports (Beta)
- The Excel export of Doors/DoorsNG modules by IBM is supported by a configurable adapter. The adapter allows the flexible analysis of DOORS(NG) data based on various criteria.
- This General Table Adapter filters rows of data by configurable filter criteria for specific columns. The filtered data can be summarized or counted.
Updated Heatmap and Sunburst Visualizations
- The heatmap visualization displays the quality aggregation for the artifact structure, in addition to the aggregation of the quality model structure. The reimplementation of the heatmap facilitates more consistent marking and tooltips, as well as being considerably quicker.
- For large projects the heatmap can be switched to scrolling mode. This provides more visual space for the elements and clearly displays details.
- The sunburst reimplementation adds an interactive drill down mode and improves marking and label recognition.
Separation of Model Architecture Guideline Results in MXAM MXMR Adapter
- MQC provides the possibility to separate the Model architecture guideline results from MXAM MXMR reports as separate base measures.
- In this way the model architecture base measures (formerly known as MXRAY) can be shown as a separate quality property in MQC, alongside the standard Guideline Compliance. The respective quality model is part of MQC.
Loading and Exporting Project Structure and Target Configuration in Yaml
- MQC introduces Yaml as the recommended format for the load and export of project structures and target configurations.
- Your overall project structure can be configured using multiple (smaller) project structure configurations. This improves the handling, maintenance, and particularly the extension of the respective definitions.
User Experience
- Multiple options in one section of a dialog can simultaneously be checked or unchecked, accelerating the config change in large selections.
- The dirty state for dialogs (did anything change) is more consistent now. When trying to leave a dialog with changes, a confirmation dialog appears, where you confirm or cancel the change. When making changes in a dialog and then changing back to the original state, the dirty state is switched off, because nothing was changed.
- The dialogs to configure MQC show a unified layout and the visual impression has been improved to enhance readability and differentiate between sections.
- Above the main visualization we have added drop down menus to change the information shown in the respective visualization. The revision can be directly selected for status visualizations. On all main visualizations the structures and the respective levels of these structures can be selected. For example, on the quality status visualization you can select the artifact structure and level, as well as the quality structure and the respective level. For the main visualization, a different structure to that of the structure visualizations on the left can be used. This provides additional ways to view, slice, and dive into the data/quality values.
- When exporting files, the user can now choose the location of the exported file (it is no longer saved in the default download path).
- The culture info e.g. calendar week is determined during project creation, but can be changed in the settings. This means, that projects used in different time zones have a consistent use of dates and calendar weeks.
6.0.0 - March 2022
Multiple Quality Models
- Your overall quality model can be configured out of multiple (smaller) quality models. This improves the handling, maintenance, and especially the extension of the quality model definition.
- We recommend defining each data source in its own quality model. The quality models we provide with MQC follow this recommendation.
- Even if there is no overall quality model defined, MQC recognizes the data sources used and loads the provided initial quality models.
Faster File Import and Transformations
- Now MQC detects new data files and imports only the new data. In this way, importing new data into an already existing project happens much faster.
- The time needed for calculations and transformation of the data is now reduced by half. This was achieved through improvements in the data flow and reducing the internal memory consumption.
- As a result of the improved data handling MQC is more responsive and gives you more intermediate status updates of running calculations.
- The adapter framework is faster now and was modified to reduce complexity. The GUI now focuses on showing only the standard adapters by default. However, the full set of adapters is still available with MQC.
Project Creation with Complete Configuration
- We added an advanced mode to project creation, in which all necessary configurations for your project i.e. Project Structure, Quality Models, Settings, Adapters, etc. can be configured before creating the project. This facilitates a fast and comprehensive setup process.
Loading and Exporting Quality Models in Yaml
- MQC introduces Yaml as recommended format for the load and export of quality models.
- MQC continues to support quality models defined in Excel.
- All quality models shipped with MQC are provided in both Yaml and Excel format.
Tool Adapter for SL Requirement and SLReq Quality Model
- The HTML report of SL Requirement (SLReq) by The Mathworks is supported.
- The adapter extracts the Implementation Status with the following variables: Implemented, Justified, None, and Total.
- The SLRequirements quality model includes all the extracted measures and provides the "Requirements Coverage" quality property.
User Experience
- The extended file browser shows a number of predefined places depending on the current use case. When adding quality models you have direct access to the provided quality models as well as the one in the MQC Showcase. When adding custom adapters all provided adapters are directly accessible.
- The Bin configuration can be configured directly in MQC's GUI instead of defining it in a quality model.
5.3.0 - December 2021
New Project Creation with Interactive Configuration
- MQC streamlined the new project creation. When you select "Create new project" a dialog asks for the location of your data (source) and the revision granularity. After confirming the dialog the project will be set up.
- With the new dialog less steps are needed to set up your project and you can provide data earlier. The overall setup process is quicker, because you can import your data directly during the setup.
Multiple Git Repositories as one Data Location
- If you have a high number of similar Git repositories containing your data, you can now configure these as one data location.
- One Git configuration (branches, commits, time range, etc.) can be used for a list of Git repositories with a similar structure (e.g. when each artifact is contained in its own repository).
- This considerably reduces the configuration effort for Git data locations.
Direct Access to MQC Showcase
- The MQC Showcase project is now shipped with MQC and can be accessed with one click from the landing page in the web player or the client.
- The MQC Showcase is a ready to use MQC project where you get the full MQC experience and try out the features for yourself.
MQC Server Installation Documentation
- The new MQC Server Installation documentation provides you with concise information on the requirements and procedures for the server installation on your own system.
- The documentation is easy to understand and contains the recommended installation parameters and steps.
- Installation scripts, configuration files with recommended settings, and a manual on how to install a SSL certificate ensures a smooth and easy installation process.
User Authentication by LDAP
- The MQC server supports a variety of authentication providers, the default being the local database.
- LDAP is now officially supported. By configuring the use of LDAP for authentication LDAP users and/or user groups can be given access to MQC. The user permissions are configured individually or by inheriting from generic user groups provided by MQC.
- The LDAP configuration is part of the Server Installation documentation.
User Experience
- Annotations are now part of the created report. All Annotations and all quality modifications are listed.
- The diff pages were improved by changing the order of the structures (Deteriorations > Improvements > No Changes). The visualizations now show a decimal for values lower than 10. Even miniscule changes are shown as at least +/- 0.1.
5.2.0 - September 2021
Visualization and Aggregation by Artifact Structure Levels
- To get a better overview of larger projects (hundreds of artifacts) the visualized elements can be switched from artifacts to higher levels of the artifact structure (i.e. StructureElement, StructureGroup, and StructureRoot). Instead of showing hundreds of artifacts, switching to higher levels of the artifact structure improves the visualization, so that you can recognize the StructureElements or the StructureGroups. At the same time this higher level visualization directly shows the aggregation of the respective qualitative values of the StructureElements or the StructureGroups. Together with a well-defined artifact structure you get a comprehensive view of your project on the different levels answering questions like what is the quality of this component or this ECU. At the same time you can see the elements in comparison to each of the other elements on the same level.
- This structural level visualization works on all quality pages and the data availability page for artifact structure, quality model structure, and data structure. You can select a level in the hierarchy of the structure, defined by the Project Structure or the Quality Model, in the dropdown above the respective structure visualization.
- Different main visualizations (status matrix, heatmap, and trend chart) respect the structural level selection in the structure visualizations and show the same aggregated view.
- If you are on one of the higher structural levels you can expand/collapse the underlying elements to see more details. The selection 'Groups - Artifacts' shows groups in the structure visualization, which you can expand down to the artifact level. The main visualization on the right-hand side shows the artifact level. This allows you to quickly and easily mark the higher structural levels while viewing the detailed level on the main visualization.
Sorting and Searching in Visualization
- Sorting and searching were added to the structure visualizations for Artifacts, Quality Properties, and Measures.
- Now you can sort these structure visualizations using a dropdown. Different sorting options are quality ascending/descending, name ascending/descending, availability ascending/descending, and propagation ascending/descending.
- Use the search function to reduce the amount of tiles shown and to display the relevant tiles.
Improvements for Annotations
- Annotations are more prominently displayed in the main visualization on the Quality Status page. An "A"-Indicator highlights annotated quality points. The tooltip for an annotated quality point shows the title, description, and the change of quality, if defined.
- The Annotation UI dialog was further improved and streamlined. In addition to the grouped viewing mode, a flat viewing mode was added to meet different preferences. Now it is possible to see a list of all the annotations.
- The Import and Export features were replaced by a more advanced toolbar. With this new toolbar it is possible to load, reload and save from/to the file system or a network drive. The Load dialog supports either the loading of a file (while keeping a reference to the data) or the uploading of a file, which allows the use of local files on the web player. Saving replaces a referenced file, saves as a new file or downloads as a file. All these allow web player users to save the file locally.
- Adding a new annotation comes with more preselected fields based on the current marking, either in the artifact structure, quality properties structure, bin distribution or the main visualization. Additionally to quality properties and artifacts, the quality, bins, and revision start and end dates will be prefilled now.
- It is now possible to define annotations without a change of quality or bin target, so that you can only enter a comment.
- The transformations for annotations have been improved. When adding, modifying or deleting annotations only the necessary transformations will run, significantly reducing the execution time.
Tool Adapter for RTRT HTML Report and RTRT Quality Model
- The HTML report of Rational Test RealTime (RTRT) by IBM is supported. Together with the QAC adapter, MQC supports code based projects now.
- The adapter reads the test case status and the available code coverage metrics.
- The RTRT quality model contains all the read measures and quality properties for code coverage and the test case compliance.
Extension of QAC XML Adapter
- The QAC adapter was extended to read different rule sets as measurements. The read measures were renamed to Guidelines (aka rules) and Findings (aka violations). In this way the static analysis measures are named similarly for the different static analysis tools (MXAM, SL Check, QAC, etc.).
Extension of TPT Adapter
- The TPT tool adapter for the TPT HTML overview report now supports handling multiple variants of the presentation of the results.
- The robustness of the XML and HTML adapters have been improved.
User Experience
- The performance of the Git implementation was improved, especially for background monitoring.
Only necessary files are fetched when importing and updating data locations. A time filter was added to allow only specific time frames to be loaded from Git.
The verbosity of the Git operations was increased to show the status during checkout. This is especially helpful during large checkouts.
- The MXRAY tool page presents the Stateflow Global Complexity values now. They are included in the Global Complexity visualization. The Stateflow values are shown as a sub-element of the overall Global Complexity values. In this way, Stateflow and Simulink Global Complexity are directly visible for the R0/R1/RN values.
- MQC improved the performance of reading HTML reports by not loading unrelated HTML documents.
- The pattern(s) for artifact mappings are applied after the import of the project structure on unmatched artifacts now.
The export of the extended artifact mapping contains all mapped artifacts now. Notifications during artifact mapping application (e.g. after importing a project structure) were corrected and extended to report only unmatched artifacts. Additionally, the comprehensibility of notifications was improved.
5.1.0 - June 2021
Annotations for Quality Properties (Beta)
- MQC added the possibility to adapt quality values in a direct and documented way. These annotations adapt quality property values per artifact.
- Annotations can change the quality bin (i.e. from bad to acceptable) or the quality value directly (i.e. from 74% to 93%).
- A user interface aides the creation and update of single or multiple annotations.
- Each annotation contains a title (short) and a description (long) to document the reasons for the change in quality. It also contains the author of the annotation, the creation date, and the (last) modification date.
- The validity of an annotation can be defined for a specific time frame (by date).
Multiple Human Readable Reports per Data File
- The connection between data location files (i.e. XML files) and accompanying human readable reports (i.e. HTML files) was extended to handle multiple human readable reports per data location file. For example, in this way the adapters support separate MiL and SiL HTML reports for one XML file containing combined test results for MiL and SiL.
Extension of TPT Adapter
- The TPT tool adapter for the TPT HTML overview report supports handling multiple variants of the overall result visualization.
Propagated Derived Measures
- Derived measures that use propagated base measures are propagated now as well. This makes the information in the Data Availability more consistent.
User Experience
- The Git service fixed a condition that prevented using a Git data location on its own without another data location.
- The Project Quality Heatmap and the Quality Sunburst were improved to keep a selected revision in the main visualization even after switching back from another page.
- The Setup Configuration includes a new setting to apply annotations.
- At multiple places MQC was made more robust to handle user interruptions.
5.0.0 - March 2021
Git as Source for Data (Beta)
- MQC can use Git as a direct source for data files. By configuring the Git server, user, and repository now all commits are available as a source for data files.
- Filters are available for commits, tags, author, directories, and files. These filters can be include or exclude. Simple text pattern up to full regular expressions can be used for defining the filters.
- An option in settings allows the user to use the commit date and time of data files instead of the date inside the report file. The report date and time is set as default.
- Employing the current functionality all data files can be directly taken from the version control system. In addition, the analysis by MQC can be constrained to a defined set of commits, directories, files depending on the project and what is needed.
- MQC detects updates in the Git repository. The user is notified to refresh the data. If configured, the refresh happens automatically.
Calculation and Visualization of Quality Differences
- MQC now directly calculates and visualizes the changes/differences in quality and availability between revisions. The comparison base can be selected and separate Diff pages are available to visualize quality and availability changes/differences.
- Diffs can be calculated in comparison to the previous revision or previous milestone. It is also possible to compare all revisions with a specific revision.
- Separate Diff pages are available with difference specific visualization adaptions. These pages use percentage points to make the kind of changes clear. There is differentiation between positive (+) and negative (-) changes/differences. The titles of the visualizations describe the nature of the visualized data.
- A Diff page is shown for a specific page (e.g. Quality Status page), when choosing "Show Diff View" in the Action Panel. Diff pages can also be managed via the "Manage Pages" menu.
- The difference calculations and visualizations depend on the filter panel selection.
Quality Bin Configuration
- The quality bins used on quality pages of MQC can be configured by name, color, and the used quality boundaries/thresholds. The number of bins is flexible. In this way a project might use specific names instead of good/acceptable/bad and the respective colors green/yellow/red.
- An optional new sheet to define the parameters of bins is available in the Quality Model configuration. These parameters are used throughout all quality pages. The previously used configuration is still the default configuration in MQC.
Tool Adapter for TPT HTML Report Added
- A TPT tool adapter for the TPT HTML overview report was added. The TPT HTML adapter produces the same measures as the XML adapter (on the same project).
- The (structural) coverage (model coverage or code coverage) information is taken directly from the HTML overview file (if available).
- The Requirements Status and Requirements Count are read from the HTML file, if a requirements section is available (requirements.html). The requirements covered by test cases (Testable Requirements with Test Cases) and assesslets (Testable Requirements with Assesslets) are counted.
- The provided Quality Model for TPT was extended to reflect the new measures and quality properties.
Tool Adapter for TargetLink Code Coverage HTML Report Added
- The TL Code Coverage adapter reads the base coverage measures (total/reached/unreached branches) and the already calculated code coverage measure for statement and branch/decision coverage. Only the overall values of each HTML report are read.
- The TL Code Coverage Quality Model contains quality properties for the supported code coverages.
Tool Adapter for Simulink Design Verifier HTML Report Added
- The Objectives Count results can be read from the SL Design Verifier HTML report.
- A quality property SL Design Verifier Compliance is contained in the SL Design Verifier Quality Model taking into account the number of Passed and Failed objectives.
Tool Adapter for MXAM Excel Report Files Extended
- If the report contains data of multiple subsystems of the same artifact, then these are aggregated. Possible measurements (documents or objectives) are taken into account.
Extended Quality Model Suggestions
- The provided Quality Models for TPT, Embedded Tester, and MTest were extended to be as similar and comparable by quality properties as possible.
- The provided Quality Model for PolySpace was extended by more measures and the accompanying quality properties.
User Experience
- The Report Generation was extended to contain an artifact specific quality heatmap (in the complete variant). This provides artifact specific sub/characteristics and overall quality at the same time.
- The Project Quality Heatmap in the Report output was improved with more labels inside the tiles and a more even scaling of the tiles to enhance readability.
- On the Dashboard the Project Information tile now includes the number of artifacts. The layout of this tile was optimized to improve readability on smaller screens.
- The Setup Configuration includes the new settings (use Git report time, diff revision base, and the Git data locations including filters and patterns).
4.5.0 - December 2020
Configurable Dashboard
- The dashboard for a quick overview of the project can be configured to your needs. Tiles can be added from a list of available tiles, removed, resized, and moved around using drag and drop.
- The configuration of the dashboard is saved as part of the project.
- Most of the visualizations on the standard pages are available as tiles for the dashboard too.
Tool Adapter for TPT XML Report and TPT Quality Model Extended
- The TPT tool adapter for the XML summary file reads more measures from the file if they are present.
- The (structural) coverage (model coverage or code coverage) information is directly taken from the XML file. An example of the measures for CTC++ is contained in the provided TPT quality model.
- The Requirements Status and Requirements Count are read from the XML file. The requirements covered by test cases (Testable Requirements with Test Cases) and assesslets (Testable Requirements with Assesslets) are counted. Currently, Requirements Counts.Testable is not available inside the xml file. Thus, Testable Requirements with Test Cases is used internally.
- Quality properties using the new base measures are provided in the TPT quality model: many Coverage CTC quality properties, Requirements Compliance, Testable Requirements with Assesslets, Testable Requirements with Test Cases in addition to the already available Test Sequence Compliance and Test Sequence Progress.
Fuzzy Rules for Action Calculation
- The calculation of actions from quality properties can be implemented by fuzzy rules as well. This provides extended possibilities to define multi-level dependencies between quality properties and actions. The fuzzy rules are implemented by the Fuzzy markup Language (FML) ISO standard.
- The direct action definition in the quality model and the fuzzy definition can be used at the same time and can even be mixed.
- Using a Sankey diagram on the Action List page shows the dependencies between quality properties and actions.
Git as Source for Data (Alpha)
- MQC can use Git as a direct source for data files. By configuring the Git server, user, and repository the head is checked out and used by MQC as the source for data files. Similarly, the configuration can be done directly in MQC and at the same place as the definition of directories for data files.
- This is a first step into the direct usage of source control systems (aka application lifecycle management (ALM)) as source for files and data.
Tool Adapter for Simulink Check (Model Advisor) HTML Report Added
- The Guideline Count results can be read from the SL Check aka the Model Advisor HTML report.
- A quality property Guideline Compliance is contained in the SL Check quality model. (Please note that this Guideline Compliance must be much simpler and not that fine granular than the one from the Model Examiner - information on the number of findings per guideline is not available as numbers in the SL Check report.)
User Experience
- The placement of the Sunburst labels was improved to avoid overlays.
- The ordering of the overall quality lines is adapted to always show the Absolute Quality on top.
- The font sizes in the report were aligned for better readability.
- In the quality property detail section of the report the base measures are reported even when only derived measures were used for quality property calculation.
Extension of the MQC Show Case
- The MQC Show Case was extended to show the new and updated features and possibilities. The folder structure of the data files reflects the recommendation to save files for the combination of data files and readable report files. Please refer to the user guide for the downloading of data and configuration files.
4.4.0 - September 2020
Action List (Beta)
- MQC now recommends actions to improve quality by solving deficits in a project. Each action is related to a particular artifact with a priority from 'Very High' to 'Very Low' according to the corresponding quality measure value. The list of actions is then sorted according to the priorities, which helps the user to easily identify the most urgent actions to be taken next.
- A new Action List page is provided which gives an overview about the actions for the current or a selected revision. Filtering and marking may be used to focus on details like particular artifacts.
Data Origins (Imported Data and Report Files)
- MQC provides access to human-readable reports, for example in HTML or PDF format, if available. The underlying data reports, whether originally imported and/or human-readable, can be opened directly through MQC. The marking and filtering on the quality and data pages reduces the list of reports in the data origins accordingly.
- Using the new entry Show Data Origin in the MQC Action panel, makes it easy to crosscheck the original file source for a particular piece of data.
- MQC supports the user in finding the correct file data location by adapting the list of imported files according to the data/quality filtered or marked.
Dashboard For Quick Overview (Beta)
- The new dashboard gives a quick overview of the aspects of the current project from project information, overall quality trend, quality and availability status, aggregated information to changes from the last revision. The user can jump to the respective pages for more in-depth information and details.
- The dashboard is the entry page and first stop for the user to get a picture of the status, trend, diffs, and actions to do.
Extended Overall Quality Visualization
- There's a new quality trend visualization in the MQC Dashboard that shows three aspects of the overall quality of the project and how it evolves over time.
- Absolute Quality: This overall project quality is calculated using all data including missing data.
- Available Quality: This overall project quality is calculated using the available data only, excluding missing data. This directly shows the quality of what has already been done.
- Relative Quality: The third quality trend line shows the overall project quality in relation to targets configured for particular milestones. An absolute current quality of only 50 % is quite inadequate, but if the plan was to achieve that 50 % at that point in time, it is excellent (100%). If no specific targets were imported, Absolute Quality and Relative Quality show the same trend lines.
- The Overall Quality Visualization shows the defined milestones making comparisons regarding milestones easy.
More Compact Artifact Mapping
- By using patterns the artifact mapping (derive artifact name shown inside MQC from the artifact path defined in the adapter) can be configured for many artifacts at once. The patterns follow standard regular expressions with all the usual possibilities. The patterns can be defined in the setup configuration and in the settings. A preview of the result of mapping using the current artifacts is provided in the settings dialog.
- The Project Structure configuration was improved. The Artifact Structure sheet now contains a column with the Artifact Paths, while the Artifact Mapping sheet was removed from the Excel configuration. Previous formats of the Project Structure configuration still work.
Tool Adapter for MXAM Excel Report Added
- The MES Model Examiner MXAM Excel report can be used as a data location for MQC as well. The same measures are taken from the Excel report as for the mxmr report.
- The MXAM Excel adapter implements two methods for measurements: 1. Each document is a measurement. Thus, if you organize your MXAM guidelines into multiple documents, you can manage the results of the documents separately in your quality model. 2. The objectives of each guideline define the measurement. In this way guidelines with objective 'functionality' can get a different (higher) weighting than guidelines with objective 'readability'. The default case of this adapter uses the second method for measurements. If present the objective functionality is used, or else the objective readability is used if available. Otherwise, the first objective of the guideline is used.
User Experience
- The size of the structure visualization elements are now responsive. If the number of elements increases, the size decreases to accommodate more elements on the available space. At the same time the displayed information per element was optimized to use the available space more efficiently.
- The Sunburst visualization was extended to show labels of the quality properties. When hovering over the sub characteristics or the characteristics the respective labels are shown.
Create New Project from MQC Web player
- A new MQC project can now be created in the MQC web player as well. This option "Create new Project" is directly available in the standard File menu.
- All the (legacy) options from the Tool menu are no longer needed and were removed.
Export of the Setup Configuration
- The settings and configuration options can be exported from the Settings Dialog into a Setup Configuration (Excel). This can be used to reuse the same settings for another (new) project or to recreate a project.
Export of Manual Excel Import Template
- When some data must be provided in a manual way, the respective Excel template file can be created preconfigured with the current artifacts and measures. The configuration of the included elements can be defined by marking or by filtering otherwise all elements are contained in the Excel template.
4.3.0 - June 2020
Tool Adapter API to Allow Custom Adapter Implementation
- Tool Adapters can be added when working with MQC using the new API. In this way the import capabilities of MQC can be easily extended.
- Adapters can be written in C# and (Iron)Python.
- Examples for adapters reading XML, HTML, Excel, and CSV/TXT are available including all currently available tool adapters.
- All adapters can be enabled/disabled inside the MQC panel.
- Custom adapters can be added, reloaded, and removed inside the MQC panel. Adapters can be directly tested with a single report file to preview the import results. Warnings/errors are shown in order to support the adapter development as well.
Tool Adapters for MXSuite, CTC++, and QAC Added
- Code coverage data from CTC++ can be imported from XML and HTML reports. In addition to the code coverage data (statement/decision/... coverage) the number of source lines and measurement points are read as well.
- Static analysis data from QAC can be imported from XML and HTML reports.
- Test result data from MXSuite can be imported using MXSuite XML reports.
- Quality model definitions for these tools are added as usual for all tool adapters.
Significant Performance Improvement of Data Transformation Flow
- The data transformations are now executed in a specific order, which is controlled and triggered in such a way as to prevent duplicate transformations. This improvement reduces the time needed for the transformations by up to half.
User Experience
- The selection of measures on data pages was improved by using measurements in the structure charts. Associated measures from the same measurement or data source are selected/marked together on the first click.
- The name of the milestone is shown in the heading of visualizations next to the revision name, if a revision is the last one before a milestone.
- Measure values as labels in visualizations can be enabled for custom pages. Check the corresponding option in the settings dialog of the MQC panel.
- The number of structure visualization elements is no longer limited and can exceed the previous maximum of 50.
Extended Configuration Dialogs
- The options in the settings dialog have been renamed and rearranged to facilitate easier understanding and use.
Project Status Report Supports Multiple Measurements
- The status report supports the usage of multiple measurements for one data source.
MQC Branding and Landing Page
- The design of the MQC has been improved to reflect the brand of MQC, not only after opening an analysis but for the whole application. The unified color scheme, font sizes, and user interface elements make for a better user experience, which is also present in the web player.
- When no analysis is loaded, the application now presents the user with a landing page containing information such as the MQC version and links to the user guide, sample data, the support page, and more.
Backward Compatibility
- If an older and previously incompatible analysis (4.0, 4.1, 4.2) is opened, it will now be converted on the fly to the new version of MQC with all configurations and data transferred.
4.2.0 - March 2020
Significant Import Time and Memory Reduction for Huge Data
- The import of huge sets of data files and complete directories of files is much faster now. In addition, the memory consumption was reduced considerably.
- The mechanism of monitoring for file and directory changes was reworked to detect changes safe and with less computing resources. Due to the adapted caching mechanism the reimport of changed files is much faster now as well.
User Experience
- The marking in the bin distribution is more intuitive now. Revisions on status pages can be selected with just one click. Similarly, a quality bin on trend pages can be selected for all revisions with one click.
- The extension of marking when combining marking on bin distribution and in structure visualizations are more intuitive now.
- The showing of the structure visualizations and the calculations inside are fully dynamic now and reflect the marking on the other visualization of the page.
- Artifact and revision marking on quality or data pages is directly reflected on other quality and data pages.
Availability of MQC Server and MQC Web Viewer/Editor
- The MQC Server is now available for on-premise installation and setup. Now you can have a secure library of your analysis including access to your local network (and data).
- With this availability of the internal library you can easily create a shared analysis (and some tasks can run regularly on the server, i.e. to update an analysis with new data)
- Together with the MQC Server, the MQC Web Viewer/Editor is now available. It provides the functionality of the client directly in a browser while the analysis is opened/running on the MQC Server.
New Setup Configuration to define all configuration options
- The new Setup Configuration enables the setup of the current configuration options of an MQC analysis. When loading/opening this setup configuration the full MQC analysis is created.
Improved Configuration of Quality Model and Project Structures
- The functionality of the Measurement element in the configuration of the quality model was extended. In the derived measure configuration the same four elements as in the base measure configuration can be used. Now derived measures are very similar to base measures in definition. In the measurement function calculation measurements can be used in more ways. Please have a look to the MQC User Guide Section Quality Model Configuration for full details and examples.
- When setting up an analysis it is now possible to export an initial artifact structure and mapping. This export uses as many information as already available from importing artifacts. In this way an initial project structure (especially artifact structure and artifact mapping) can be created in a few minutes.
- A new validation of the data configuration was added. This provides hints at configured but not used elements (i.e. imported artifact but not configured in artifact structure). See Validation of Configuration in the MQC User Guide for more information.
Data Details Drill Down Extended
- The extended marking possibilities (described above in User Experience) improve the selection of quality data for data details drill down a lot.
- A new data details menu item (Data of the Quality) in the left menu provides a link button to quickly jump to the respective data page.
- The data details selections can be adapted in the data details menu item. This provides an additional way to select the data for detailed information by using check boxes instead of marking. This menu is available on the data pages as well to check the current selection used.
Extended Configuration Dialogs
- The configuration dialogs in the left menu received an overhaul. All actions (data refresh, create report, data details) are separated from the configurations (i.e. quality model, project structure, settings).
- All current settings of the configuration went into a centralized settings dialog (i.e. Show Target Values).
Project Status Report Export to PDF and Made More Compact
- The status report received a modernized styling and is more fluid and responsive now. The pdf and html versions are more similar now.
4.1.0 - December 2019
Extended Configuration Dialogs
- The user interface to configure MQC settings was reworked. All file and directory selections were redesigned for better usability. In addition, these dialogs are able to run in the web viewer as well as in the MQC editor. The formerly known data management panel is now the configuration panel.
- The MQC page handling moved to the configuration panel as well (Pages section). All available standard, tool and user configured pages can now be opened, reopened or closed via the configuration panel.
- The filter panel (on the right-hand side of the MQC pages) was redesigned for improved availability of necessary filtering options. The different structures of MQC (artifact, quality model, data, and milestone structure) are presented in a consistent layout.
- The MQC toolbar (to switch on/off configuration and filter panel, and to access the MQC User Guide) moved to the top right (on top of the filter panel) without taking up any additional space.
Fine grained Configuration of Context Categories
- Context categories are defined in the quality model configuration (sheet ContextCategory). Each context category can contain (white list) and exclude (black list) data sources, measurements and base measures. In the artifact structure configuration of the project configuration the context categories can be assigned to artifacts.
- Extended the notification of the import of excluded data (by means of context categories).
Project Status Report Export to PDF and Made More Compact
- The project status report can now be generated in PDF format as well. All formats from the HTML are retained as far as possible.
- The information in the project status report is now more compact than before. One example is the table of missing data per artifact. If all base measures of a measurement or data source are missing, only this measurement or data source is mentioned. Another example is graphics without "information". These are replaced by a short informative note, which in many cases makes the report much shorter while still providing the same information.
Availability of Data Depends on Project Configuration
- The availability of project data now depends on the project configuration (if applied). In this way the availability reflects from the beginning the full status of the project.
- If no project configuration is applied, the availability depends on the imported artifacts only (implicit project configuration).
Visualization Enhancements
- The minimal sizing of slices in the sunburst visualization was changed to allow smaller but still visible slices, which is especially handy for a large number of quality properties.
- Sunburst and hierarchical heatmap per revision now appear by page (similar to the other visualizations). This also vastly improves the response of the visualization.
4.0.0 - September 2019
Generating a project status report in HTML
- A status report containing all the information of an MQC project can be generated in HTML. Using the graphics from the interactive MQC pages, the structured report starts with a quality overview, shows data availability, configured report pages and details on artifacts and quality properties. Beside the graphics, context specific information is collated in informative tables.
- The amount of information in the status report can be configured regarding: the time (revision) to be used for status information, the data selection, e.g. all artifacts, specific use cases, the extent of information in the report sections (full, compact, short), and the filtering used in the filter panel of the interactive MQC.
Context categories to configure expected data
- By default, all (configured) base measures are expected for all artifacts. This can produce some missing data. By using context categories, you can assign data sources to artifacts, thus defining which data (data sources) is expected for specific artifacts. In this way, data previously stated as "missing" (bad quality) is treated as "excluded" data (ignored in availability and quality calculation). MQC provides a notification if excluded data (by means of context categories) is imported.
- The application of the configured context categories can be switched on in the Project Structure section of the Data Management panel.
Extended tool adapter: PolySpace (The Mathworks)
- The CSV/TXT data export from PolySpace can be imported into MQC in addition to the already available xml data import. The following measures from the csv/txt or xml file are imported: Run-Time Checks (Major/Red, Moderate/Orange, Minor/Gray, Good/Green), MISRA-C Checker (number of violations), and Global Variables (Used non-shared variables and Unused variables).
- An example base measure definition including defaults and quality model file is provided.
Additional tool page: PolySpace (The Mathworks)
- A new tool page for PolySpace was added. All the data from the PolySpace adapters (xml and csv/txt) is visualized in compact charts. The bin distribution (top) and Structure visualizations (left) provide a quick overview of the number of artifacts with issues and the overall number of issues.
Extended tool adapter: Time Partition Testing TPT (XML summary files)
- TPT xml summary files provide data for test results for an artifact. It is now possible to differentiate between MiL and SiL (and PiL) results by looking for the pattern _MiL_/_SiL_/_PiL_. If found, the results are assigned to the respective measurement MiL/SiL/PiL. The pattern is first searched for in the file name. If not found, the platform tag is analyzed for the same pattern. In this way, the adapter may handle different simulation platforms.
- The TPT xml adapter imports the following base measures: TestCount (Errors, Failed, Inconclusive, Succeeded, Tests)
- An example base measure definition including defaults and quality model file is provided.
Usability enhancements
- During data import the Data section of the Data Management panel will display which file is currently being imported (67 of 78 files). If an internal data update (transformation) is necessary (due to data or config changes), you will see this in a status message in the same location. If auto-update is not enabled, you will get a message that a refresh is needed.
- The Project Structure section and the Quality Model section in the Data Management panel now contain a Reload button to quickly reload the current (changed) configuration. The tooltip of the Reload button shows the file name and path of the respective configuration file.
3.5.0 - June 2019
Drill down from quality to detailed data
- From the quality pages you can drill down to the respective data details. Select quality properties and/or artifacts in the structure visualization selector on the left and right click data details. MQC then switches to the data status or data trend page, where the base or derived measures producing the selected quality values are marked. In this way, a quick and detailed view on the base data is provided.
- The data details drill down via the structure visualizations (left) works on the quality status and quality trend pages. Then all data for the selected quality properties and artifacts are shown as data details. Data details drill down is also available for selected tiles of the heatmap on the quality status page. Only data belonging exactly to these tiles are shown as data details.
- Data details can be shown on the data status page or the data trend page. The data details marking is applied to both pages (as usual).
Artifact weighting in quality property aggregation
- For each artifact a weight can be defined to be used in the aggregation of artifacts to quality properties in the structure of the quality model. In this way, the different "sizes" of artifacts can be utilized in the aggregation of the artifact quality properties to the overall quality property values.
- The artifact weights are defined in the Artifact Structure of the project structure configuration (column ArtifactWeight).
Quality status and quality model visualized by hierarchical heatmap
- An additional quality status page employs the Hierarchical Heatmap visualization. This is a combination of the standard heatmap combined with the quality model aggregation information and the artifact aggregation.
- Additionally the tiles are sized by (relative) quality property weight and by (relative) artifact weight.
Extended tool adapter: MES M-XRAY (XML files)
- MXRAY xml files provide data for metrics for each artifact analyzed directly.
- In addition to the standard metrics configured as quality metrics in MXRAY (often Local Complexity and Level, sometimes Inports, Outports, Cyclomatic Complexity, ...) the adapter also reads the following base measures:
- Global Complexity values (Ref0, Ref1, RefN)
- Clone Groups (Number of uniques cloned subsystems (bad), number of good subsystems (good))
- (Lower) Boundary values for Local complexity (can/will be used for (relative) model size calculations)
Additional tool page: MES M-XRAY
- A new tool page for M-XRAY was added. All the data from the MXRAY adapter are visualized in compact charts, status and trend at the same time. The bin distribution (top) and structure visualizations (left) provide a quick overview of the number of artifacts with issues and the overall number of issues/severe issues.
Additional tool page: MES Model Test Manager MTest
- A new tool page for MTest was added. The data visualized is structured by requirements, test sequences, assessments, and structural coverage.
Extended tool adapter: Embedded Tester XML (BTC Embedded Systems)
- The ET XML data export from BTC Embedded Tester can be imported into MQC. All measures inside the xml file are available as base measures.
- An example base measure and quality model file is provided.
Reduced memory consumption and run time during data import
- The memory consumption during data import was reduced. The time to import decreased as well (less than half the time). Multiple processors are utilized during data import.
3.4.0 - March 2019
Target value configuration for measures and quality properties
- For each measure or quality property one or multiple target values (thresholds, expectations) can be defined per milestone.
- The configuration of target values is done in Excel files (in a similar format as manual measure definition).
Quality property weighting in quality model aggregation
- For each quality property a weight can be defined to be used in the aggregation of quality properties to sub-characteristics in the structure of the quality model.
- The weights are defined in the quality model configuration of the quality properties.
Quality model visualization by sunburst graphic
- Inside the quality status page the optional sunburst visualization can be employed.
- The slices of the sunburst employ the (relative) weight of the quality property for sizing of the slice. In this way the weighting of quality properties can be directly observed in the sunburst.
Additional tool adapter: PolySpace (The Mathworks)
- The PolySpace XML data export (xml, xfrag) can be imported into MQC. Currently the following measures are imported:
- Run-Time Checks: number of COLOR checks with the following mappings red -> major, orange -> moderate, gray -> minor, green -> passed
- MISRA-C Checker: Violations and Pass/Fail
- Polyspace Code Metrics: Pass/Fail
- The artifact name is taken from the subtitle inside the xml file.
- The RevisionDate is taken from the pubdate.
- An example base measure and quality model file is provided.
Customizable pages for status and trend visualization
- This enables...
- The targets can be shown in status and trend visualizations.
- The display of target values can be switched off by a data management option.
3.3.0 - January 2019
New Data Status page
- The new Data Status page shows the data values of artifacts. Data of one revision for all or selected artifacts are visualized. The graphs of the measures are combined by data location to provide a compact overview.
- The page previously named Data Status is now called Data Availability.
Derived measure definition using measures from different data sources
- Using existing base measures new measures can be calculated. These derived measures can now be calculated using measures from different data sources. Derived measure can be reused in other derived measures as well.
- The data source associated to derived measures is created by the concatenation of the original data sources.
Additional tool adapter: Embedded Tester (BTC Embedded Systems)
- The MQC XML data export from BTC Embedded Tester can be imported into MQC. All measures inside the xml file are available as base measures.
- An example base measure and quality model file is provided.
Additional tool adapter: Tessy (Razorcat)
- The Tessy XML data export can be imported into MQC. Currently the TestCount measures ok, notok and notfeasible are imported. The artifact name is taken from...
Extended tool adapter: MES Model Examiner MXAM (MXMR files only)
- MXMR xml files created by MXAM 5.1 and newer provide finding and guideline results for each artifact analyzed directly.
- For MXMR files created using MXAM 5.0 and earlier MQC reads the finding results summary from the artifact summary. The guideline results summary is taken from the overall summary, if there is only one artifact in the analysis (in the MXMR file). For multiple artifacts the guideline results summary is aggregated from all the finding details (however, this last case does not handle annotations yet - thus, the guideline results summary may be slightly different from the original MXAM summary).
Initial Page Export to Powerpoint or PDF
- All or selected pages of the current MQC analysis can be exported to Powerpoint or PDF by the Export command. Different options to adapt the export are available.
- The export adheres to the selected marking and filtering. For special cases selected visualization may be exported separately as well.
3.2.0 - October 2018
Set of data pages
- The imported measure data is show on a data status (availability) and a data trend page.
Configuration of quality model
- A quality model according to ISO25010 can be configured and applied to the imported measure data to calculate quality values.
Set of quality pages
- The quality data is shown on a quality status and a quality trend page.
Configuration of project structure
- A project structure including artifact structure, artifact name mapping and milestone structure can be defined and applied to the artifacts.
Filtering according to all structures
- Filtering of artifacts and data can be applied using the different available structures configured or imported.
Additional tool adapter: Time Partition Testing TPT (Piketec)
- The TPT XML summary export can be imported into MQC. Currently the TestCount measures are imported.
- The artifact name is taken from ...
Tool adapter: MXAM, M-XRAY and MTest (MES)
- The XML export of the MES tools can be imported into MQC.
- For MXAM the MXMR report is supported.
- For M-XRAY the xml export is supported. All available metrics (local complexity, level, ...) are imported (if configured and exported in M-XRAY).
- For MTest the MQC export is supported. All base measures and test objects are imported into MQC.
Quick Contact to the MQC Developer- and Support Team
Here you can ask us all questions regarding the MES Quality Commander® (MQC). Please also use this form to ask for the latest releases or to be kept up to date on MES tool updates and release notes (quarterly tool update newsletter). You can also send us a detailed support request.
