Quality Center is a centralized hub seamlessly integrated into the platform app, designed to help developers control and improve their work progress. It provides tools for assessing code quality through various metrics and enables developers to take action to enhance it. Whether individually or in bulk, developers can leverage QC Livecheck and Peer Review to assess their code quality and align with established best practices.
The portal is organized into two primary tabs: My Changes and Best Practices.
My Changes tab #
The My Changes screen allows you to track and manage all configuration elements the logged-in user has modified after a selected date. The date filter, set by default to the last month, can be customized to any date range as needed. This enables users to focus on changes made within a specific time frame.
The screen displays key performance indicators (KPIs) related to the modified elements, helping you assess the quality and impact of the changes:
Key Metrics:
- QC Livecheck Coverage: Displays the percentage of modified elements that have undergone a QC Livecheck scan (launched after the last modification date).
Example: 28.57% → 20 of 70 modified elements have a valid QC LiveCheck. - Blockers: Indicates the number of blocking issues (i.e., issues that failed to pass the quality gate) among all active issues within your modified elements.
Example: 17 blockers → 17 of 34 issues are blocking. - Time to Fix: Estimates the total time required to resolve blocking issues across all active issues.
Example: 11h 50m → Time required to fix blocking issues, out of 17h 40m for all active issues.
The My Changes tab includes three sub-tabs, each providing a different filtered view of the modified elements:
- My Changes: Shows all modified elements, scanned or not, for a complete view of your recent changes.
- Changes with Issues: Lists only modified elements with associated issues to help focus on problem areas.
- Changes with Blocking Issues: Highlights modified elements with at least one blocking issue, enabling you to address critical problems first.
The table of changes provides key details of the Element such as the date of the last QC Livecheck, along with the count of issues and blockers identified since the scan. Filters are also available to help tailor the view to your needs.
All three tabs allow you to run QC Livechecks, either individually or in bulk, to scan selected elements for issues. This flexibility helps you evaluate the quality of your modifications and take appropriate action as needed.
QC Livecheck Issues related list #
In the My Changes tab, for each element that has a valid QC Livecheck and, has issues associated with it, a Related List is displayed. This list contains
- Active QC Livecheck issues found for the element, sorted by their Quality Gate status (“blocker” first).
- Baseline QC Livecheck issues, these are issues that had been written off.
- HealthScan Issues
Each issue in the list includes key information such as:
- Issue Owner: Identifies the user who first reported the issue following a Livecheck.
- Severity: Defines the criticality of the issue and its potential impact on the system.
- Categories: High, Medium, Low, Warning
- Impact Area: Indicates the domain within the application that is affected by the issue.
- Categories: Security, Manageability, Scalability, Performance
- Line: Identifies the exact line of code where the issue is located, helping developers quickly navigate and resolve the problem.
- Quality Gate: Classifies the issue based on its severity and impact area to block code promotion or deployment.
- Categories: Blockers, Minors, Legacy
- Blocker: issues blocking the Quality Gate.
- Minor: issues not blocking the Quality Gate.
- Legacy: issues introduced before the QG activation date.
- Categories: Blockers, Minors, Legacy
- Write-Off Status: Tracks the approval status of any write-off requests associated with the issue.
- Categories: Requested, Not Requested, Approved, Solved, Expired, Declined
- Link to Best Practice Documentation: Provides direct access to the documentation that describes the best practices for resolving the issue.
When you click on an issue in the related list, a pop-up window displays detailed information about the specific issue. The pop-up is organized into several sections:
Issue Details #
This section thoroughly explains the issue, including its impact on the element and the associated quality gate.
The following fields are displayed:
- Issue ID: Redirects user to the Issue in the fulfiller view.
- Issue Type
- Severity
- Impact Area
- Line Number (Location in the code where the issue was found)
- Time to Fix (Time required to fix the issue, in minutes)
- Issue Owner (The user who first reported the issue following a Livecheck)
- Quality Gate Categorization
- Documentation (Link to relevant best practice guidelines)
Quality Clouds Livecheck #
This section provides information about the QC Livecheck triggered on the element, including details on the scan and its results:
- QC Livecheck ID: Navigates to the Livecheck form in the fulfiller view.
- Quality Gate Status: Indicates whether the quality gates for the element passed or failed during the QC Livecheck.
- Issues: Number of issues found in the QC Livecheck related to the element where the opened issue was detected.
- QC Livecheck Type: Configuration Element, Application, Update Set.
- Created: The date when the QC Livecheck was launched.
- Started By: User who triggered the Livecheck.
Configuration Element Information #
This section provides key details about the element where the identified issue was found, helping users quickly understand the context of the issue and where it needs to be resolved.
The following information is displayed:
- Element Name: The name of the element where the issue was detected.
- Element Type: The type of element related to the issue.
- Affected Element
- Update Set
- Created On: The date when the element was created.
- Created By: The user who initially created the element.
- Updated On: The date when the element was last modified.
- Updated By: The user who last updated the element.
If needed, you can Run a New QC Livecheck to trigger a new QC Livecheck scan on the element, ensuring that any changes are validated and the element complies with the latest quality standards.
QC Copilot (add-on) #
This section allows the user to request an AI-recommended fix for the issue. By clicking the QC Copilot action button, the AI provides a solution to resolve the problem.
When QC Copilot generates a fix, the following fields are displayed:
- Generated By: The user who requested the fix recommendation.
- Description: A detailed explanation of the issue, including its cause and how it will be resolved. This section provides clear guidance on understanding the problem and the steps to fix it.
- Recommendation: The AI-generated code changes that address the identified issue.
Users can provide feedback by rating the recommended fix.
Additionally, there is a Compare Code feature. Clicking this button allows the user to compare the original code with the new code recommended by QC Copilot, displaying the exact changes made by the AI.
Write-Off Details #
This section allows the user to request or cancel a write-off for the issue.
Once requested, the following fields are displayed related to the write-off request:
- Write Off Status: The current status of the write off request.
- Peer Review ID: The associated ID will be shown if the request triggers a peer review workflow.
- Write-Off Reason: The selected reason for the write off.
- Write-Off Request Description: A description provided by the user explaining the reason for the write off request.
- Write-Off Requester: The user who requested the write off.
- Write-Off Requested Date: The date when the write off request was made.
- Write-Off Validator: The user who validated or approved the request (if approved).
- Write-Off Validation Date: The date when the request was validated or approved.
These features allow developers to effectively manage and resolve issues directly within the Quality Center, streamlining the process of maintaining code quality.
Best Practices Tab #
The Best Practices screen provides a comprehensive list of all active best practices (rulesets) within the org. It helps developers proactively avoid common issues by applying optimal configurations.
The list is ranked by the frequency of associated issues, offering valuable insights into which practices are most frequently violated. This feature serves as both a proactive guide and a learning tool, empowering developers to anticipate potential problems and configure elements more effectively. Thus, it ultimately improves code quality and streamlines development.
By default, the screen displays only “My Issues,” enabling users to focus on their challenges. However, users can easily adjust this filter to view issues across the entire org, gaining a broader perspective on frequent practices and identifying trends in the overall codebase.
Each best practice includes a count of associated issues (detected by QC Livechecks) and a separate column to highlight how many of these issues are classified as blockers.
Fields visible in the Best Practices table:
- Best Practice
- Link to Documentation
- Element Type: associated with the Best Practice
- Issues: count of issues associated with the Best Practice
- Blockers: count of blocking issues associated with the Best Practice
- Severity
- Impact Area
- Time to Fix
- Last Modification Date of the Rule
Additionally, users can view the Issues Related List for each best practice. This related list provides valuable information about the issues, including:
- Element Name: where the issue was found
- Issue Owner: the user that launched the QC Livecheck where the issue was found
- Created Date of the Element
- Line
- Quality Gate Categorization
- Update Set
- Write-off Status of the Issue
This setup allows users to quickly navigate to the elements where the issues were found, facilitating faster resolution and better adherence to best practices.
Importing ServiceNow HealthScan Findings to QualityCenter #
To make it easier for developers to review and manage all quality issues and findings, we’ve introduced the ability to import ServiceNow HealthScan reports into QualityCenter. This integration helps create a single, centralized hub where all quality clouds and health scan findings can be viewed and analyzed together.
In v11.1 > QualityCenter (Beta), developers can:
- See HealthScan findings in addition to Quality Clouds Issues directly within the My Changes tab when selecting a configuration element.
Importing a Health Scan Report #
- Login to the instance and navigate to System Import Sets > Load Data
- Select Existing Table > QC Health Scan Import
- Select Source of file > File and then Choose File
- Browse to and select your Health Scan file. The file should be in the format documented below.
- Select sheet number 1
- Select header row 1
- Click Submit
- Once imported, click Run Transform
Viewing Health Scan Findings in QualityCenter #
Viewing Findings for a configuration element a developer is working on
- In the My Changes tab, click a configuration element row. This will load a table below displaying quality clouds Active and Baseline issues as usual.
- In addition, if the configuration element also has findings from the Health Scan report, these will be displayed in a separate Health Scan Issues tab.
Viewing all Health Scan Findings
- In this first version, the findings can be viewed in the following table.
- x_qucl_qc_snow_scan_finding.list
Any other ideas you have to integrate health scan (and any other quality focussed data) into QualityCenter, we’d love to know!
Health Scan File Format
The Health Scan report should be in the following format:
Fields:
- Definition
- Value
- Table
- Name
- Link
- Update Set
- Product
- Category
- Rating
- Best Practice URL
- Recommendation
- Sys ID
Exporting Tables: Download as PDF, Excel, or CSV #
Tables in the Quality Center can be exported as PDF, Excel and CSV.
