Defect Trend Application is not returning accurate results

Products

• Rally SaaS

Issue/Introduction

I would like to understand how this app pulls the data.

I am looking at two pages for data. quality<defects page. When I go into a project defect page and filter on defects not equal to "closed" state, I pull up a certain number of defects.

I go into defect trend core app --should  total active in defect trend app be same as above?

Cause

• The Defect Trend chart displays the cumulative defects activated (opened) versus cumulative terminated (closed) over time.  
• The Quality >Defect Page gives you the list of all Defects(both Open and Closed) in a project(opened).
• The settings in the application can also contribute to the totals and must be taken into account. 

Resolution

• This chart shows the rate at which defects are being activated (red line)  and in a state other than closed
• The rate at which defects are being terminated or closed (green line)
• And the trend for the total number of active defects (black line)
  
  In this chart activated means opened and terminal means State = Closed or whichever "States" are selected as "Terminal" in the Application settings.
  
  Also, the Defect State field is used to calculate the count and means "Created" and not in a Terminal (closed) state.  So a defect doesn't have to be State = Open to be counted as activated.
  
  
• Here are the filters that can be used for the Quality > Defects page
  • Total Active
    • The number of defects not selected as a "Terminal state" in the application - for all time***
      • *DO NOT INCLUDE the defects closed after midnight on the Current day. (Data is pulled at midnight)
    • Defect Page filter - State != Closed (If Defect States other than "Closed" are chosen in the application, they will need to be added to the filter in the Quality > Defects page)
  • Cumulative Terminated
    • Any defect that has been Closed during the time period chosen in the settings of the application.  
      • If there is a terminal state selected in the app other than "Closed", this information cannot be pulled in the Defects Page as the calculation would include any defect moved to any of the “Terminal States” during the time period.   
      • *DO NOT INCLUDE the defects moved after midnight on the Current day. (Data is pulled at midnight)
    • Defect Page filter - (Closed Date > DATE) and (State = Closed) 
  • Cumulative Activated
    • Any defect Created in the time period selected in the application -
      • *DO NOT INCLUDE the defects created after midnight on the Current day. (Data is pulled at midnight).
    • Defect Page filter - (Creation Date > DATE)

 

*** Some more details about the chart:

• The two lines that show the cumulative rates that are activated and terminated (the red and the green lines) use the left y-axis.  Those are cumulative metrics so they start at zero.  They are good to determine whether (during that time period) defects are getting terminated as fast as they are getting opened. 
• The black line shows the total active in the system for each day in that time range.  You want that to be the total because you still need to see how many defects are active in the system.  Ie, I could have a green line with a steeper slope than the red line (which is good and means we are closing them faster than we are opening them) but then we could have a black line that is 3000.  That would mean they still have a lot of open defects and they would need to continue closing them faster than they are opening them to start to make a dent in the total count.  However, imagine the black line was at 12 (or something low), then the team is doing an excellent job with their defect debt.
• The red and green lines tell part of the story
• The black line tells the other part of the story
• If the black line was just for that time period, it would be nothing more than the delta of the two lines and could even be negative which wouldn't tell you much

Additional Information

For more details about defect discrepancies between the Defects page and the Defect Trend app please see: Discrepancy in Defects Trend Graph application doesn't match the Rally Defects page / Deleting a Defect from a Project without closing the Defect 

 https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/agile-development-and-management/rally-platform-ca-agile-central/rally/extending-rally-with-apps/using-rally-apps/app-catalog/defect-trend.html