How to properly enable scheduled reports
How to configure multiple scheduled reports
How to optimize the usage of scheduled reports

Overview

Xporter Cloud Version 2.0 added the Scheduled Reports feature. One of the use cases could be the health check of the QE efforts within a sprint, especially for stakeholders who do not yet have access to Jira. That would have the benefits of consolidating the important metrics and presenting them in the clear format directly to the stakeholder inbox.

In this tutorial, we will go through the Scheduled Reports prerequisites and configuration for that use case.

Prerequisites

To make the templates available in the new feature, you need to ensure the “Scheduled Reports” value is present in the Scope field of each template.

Xray Cloud Documentation > Report Scheduling Tutorial > image-2024-3-5_10-10-20.png

Scheduled Reports can be used at the Global level or at the Project one. In this tutorial, we will focus on the Project level - to enable this new feature, you need to navigate through Manage Apps -> Xporter -> Project Settings and adjust the toggle.

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You should then see the Xporter option under the Apps menu in Project Settings

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Configure scheduled reports

Definition of “QE health” can be subjective, so feel free to customize the number and types of the templates. We will be using Defect Summary, Requirement Report, and Test Runs List. You can only select 1 template per scheduled report, so we will add 3 items using the “Create Scheduled Report” button above.

The content of the Details screen is mostly personal preference. On the Scheduler page, assuming the sprint duration is 14 days and we initiate the configuration a sprint in advance, we can set up the following cron expression to control the frequency: 0 0 12 */14 * ?

Please note that all CRON expressions will be based on the UTC timezone.

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On the Condition page, we can use the following JQL expressions (please refer to the template content for the full list of supported issue types):

Defect Summary: issuetype = Bug AND sprint in openSprints()
Requirement Report: issuetype = Story AND sprint in openSprints()
Test Runs List: issuetype = “Test Execution” AND sprint in openSprints()

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Since these queries can be useful for direct export and other Jira/Xray features, we recommend saving it as filters.

Lastly, we will add the “Send by email” action with the list of stakeholders:

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In the final state, the Scheduled Reports section of your project settings should look like this:

Xray Cloud Documentation > Report Scheduling Tutorial > image-2024-3-5_10-14-34.png

Tips

You can create as many scheduled reports as you want, but only up to 10 can be active at the same time. The limit is combined for Global- and Project-level reports - i.e. can only have 10 active in total, not 10 active Global and 10 active Project. If you do not see enough active reports in the Global view, you would need to go project by project to identify the remainder of the limit.
You can see the number of times the report was triggered in the Logs column. To see the history and success/failure details, you can navigate to Manage Apps -> Xporter -> Audit Logs.
You can minimize the email clutter by enabling this toggle on the Details page.
Each scheduled report can support multiple Actions, so you may choose to store files in a server in addition to the email delivery.
Meaningful report names help with file management in the long run.

References

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