VDR - A Visual Defect Reporting System

VDR is a tool that visually describes a defect in that it captures user actions and visual responses of the

underlying system and applications (screenshots) into a movie file and it enables the user (QA technician

and others) to quickly and on the fly report a defect.  This way, the defect-reporting process is easier and

shorter and the report is more precise, comprehensive and understandable than in traditional ways.

Using the VDR enables the QA technician to add a movie describing the history prior to the time of the defect's

occurrence. The user can edit the movie and mark specific areas of interests (add annotations). This saves a lot

of time to the technician and gives the recipient of the report (the developer) a much more (than verbal)

comprehensive, understandable and precise report.

From the developer's or system manager’s point-of-view, a visual report is much more understandable than verbal

report. According to Mercury's experts, "70% of all defect reports are rejected because the developers don't

understand the defect". The fact that the developer receives a playable visual history of the user activities

and video screens prior to the defect, enables him to understand and in many cases to reproduce the defect

on his own machine.

VDR deposits a defect-report into a Defect Management System such as Mercury's Quality Center Server

(TestDirector).and insert it into it's defects-database. The movie is additional information attached to the report

in addition to the ones the QC currently uses.

Note that VDR’s use of QC is not mandatory. A user can also report defects by sending an email or save

the report to a file on disk.

Using the VDR

When a defect is encountered, the user simply clicks on the VDR's tray-icon and selects the Report a defect

item; VDR shows the Add Defect dialog of QC with the saved movie already attached to the report. Now, the

user can fill in additional fields in the Add Defect dialog. The user can also launch a player whereby he can look,

edit and add textual comments and graphical annotations to the movie. When the user selects Submit in the

Add Defect dialog – the report (including the movie) is submitted and deposited into the QC server for the current

project.

A user defines the current project by VDR’s QC Login dialog where he can choose the QC server’s URL to

connect to, the domain, and the project and user name. All reported defects would be automatically inserted

into this project. A user can change these parameters any time. These settings are remembered by VDR and

it will use them on future defect reports.

The following screenshots show the above steps:

•  QC Login

•  Report a defect into a QC

•  Report a defect by Email

•  VDR Player in action

Who Can Use VDR

VDR can be used both on the reporting side and on the recipient side:

·      QA technicians use VDR to report a defect at the time the defect occurs.

·      Developers use VDR to see, understand and reproduce the reported defect.

·      IT system managers who is to resolve the defect.

·      Anyone who uses a computer in the enterprise to report application and system defects when encountered in his daily work.

Technology

VDR is based on Ameran/a superior technology. Using Ameran/a advantages VDR delivers the following

system processing efficiencies and system integrity features:

Non-intrusive design

VDR does not install any device driver and/or modifies the underlying Windows OS or running applications in

any way. This allows for portability across operating systems; to reduce processing overhead to a minimum;

and to install without compromising the integrity and stability of the underlying operating systems

Powerful compression

VDR Uses powerful compression algorithms which dramatically reduces the size of the recorded data. As a

result, the recording process is faster, and requires fewer resources then other solutions. This unique feature

enables the user to run the VDR all the time, without any noticeable adverse affect on system performance,

thus capturing and reporting defects that randomly occur.

Dynamic disk space allocation

VDR manages a cyclic disk buffer which ensures the user that the movie file’s size will not exceed a user

specified limit. Thus, the recording is taking place in unattended manner without blowing out the underlying

disk system.

Editing and annotation

Provides advanced features for editing recordings. It is possible to review recordings, and select the parts that

are relevant for future use, thereby reducing the disk space.  In addition, it provides tools for annotating the

recordings and enabling collaboration.