Summary charts give you a way to see the status of various test activities in TestRail at a glance. Charts automatically update as you add new tests and test results to give you real-time visibility into the status and progress of your testing.
For example, the summary charts on the Test Run, Test Plan, Milestone, and Project Overview pages provide a snapshot of the status of your in-progress testing. Charts on the Todo and Dashboard pages give you a high-level overview of the workload and activity across your team.
You can use these charts to keep track of your test efforts, identify roadblocks and areas of risk, and more efficiently communicate the status of various test cycles in flight without the need for extraneous status meetings or custom status reports.
Types of summary charts in TestRail
TestRail contains a number of different charts:
- Status charts
- Activity charts
- Progress charts
- Defects charts
- Workload charts
Status charts: pie charts
This type of chart can be found on the Milestones and Test Runs. As their name indicates, these charts show the status of your in-progress testing. You have to select a Milestone or a Test Run and the pie chart is displayed.
Status charts: bar charts
This type of chart can be found on the overview pages of Milestones and Test Runs, they offer a summary of the test cases that are part of each (Milestone or Test Run).
You can hover over the bar chart and see more information about it. Click on a segment of the bar chart and a new tab will open to see a detailed view of the tests with the status you selected.
Activity charts
These charts can be found on the Dashboard and overview of the Project. Inside a Milestone or a Test Run, click on Activity on the right panel and see a chart with the dates and quantity of tests run.
Learn more about filtering and refining chart data by viewing the Customizing charts guide.
Progress charts
These charts can be found on Milestones and Test Runs. Select a Milestone or a Test Run, click on Progress on the right panel and see a chart with the dates and quantity of test runs. It shows the Remaining Tests, Remaining Effort, and Ideal Progress.
Defects charts
This type of chart can be found inside Milestones and Test Runs. Select a Milestone or a Test Run and click on Defects on the right panel. You will see a bar chart showing the Tests, Results, and Defects from the Milestone or Test Run you selected.
Workload charts
This type of chart can be found on the Todo tab. Here you can see a bar chart with the number of active test runs per assignee.
To customize the workload chart:
- Select the Assignee or Assignees you want to see on the chart by checking the box next to the name, in the User Filter on the right side.
- Filter Test Runs by their status (Passed, Blocked, Untested, Retest, or Failed) using the drop-down.
- You can also group the results by clicking the Group-by drop-down.
Chart Controls
In Dashboard and Project Overview charts you can find data viewing and data refining controls for efficient customization. These controls are located above each chart:
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- A Download button allows you to download the chart or data as a PNG, CSV, or XLS file. You will also find a Copy to Clipboard button and a Reset customization button, which lets you go back to the default chart view.
- A Chart Selector button that lets you choose between different types of charts you want to see on the Dashboard or Project overview.
- A Refine button allows you to refine the chart by searching and filtering for desired information using various parameters.
Note: the Dashboard overview allows cross-project reporting so that you can view data across multiple projects in one chart.
Clicking the Refine button opens a new window showing the Search and Filter options available for customizing the corresponding chart view. You will find settings to customize the time range for viewing chart results and new filtering options to select the data you view. This ranges from filtering specific Projects, to choosing different search dimensions and search terms for a specific result:
You can see more details on how to customize these charts and other improvements here.
Download charts as a PNG, CSV, or XLS
You can download all of your charts either as PNG or CSV.
To download it as a PNG click on the icon:
You will get a PNG image of the chart you saw on your TestRail dashboard. You can share this image with people outside your TestRail instance via email or your custom status reports, and more efficiently communicate the status of various test cycles in flight.
To download your charts as a CSV file click on the icon:
When you download a chart as a CSV, you will get a file that contains the high-level metrics for the chart.
With this data, you can customize the look and feel of your chart to share it, or share the raw data via CSV.
You can also download your charts as a xls file clicking on the icon:
When you download your charts as an xls, you will get an Excel Sheets binary file.
Chart drilldowns
You can hover over your charts in TestRail to see the data they are displaying. You can also click on the data point of interest to you on the chart itself to see the test data represented in the chart. This functionality is available in all the charts except for the Workload chart.
Click on one of the segments of data represented in the chart and you can drill down to see a detailed view of the corresponding testing data.
You can also expand each test to see details from the test results it contains; i.e. when the result was added, who added the result, and any comments they included while updating the status. To do this, click on the “+” sign on the left side of each test in the current drilldown view.
Click on - to collapse it again. To return to the main view, click the same segment of the chart again or click on the X.
Defects chart drilldown
The Defects chart drilldown contains a few extra features than drilldown capabilities for other charts. If you have integrated TestRail with your defect or bug tracker and linked a defect to one of the tests in your test run (or test case in your test case suite), the drilldown feature from your Defect chart will show you a lot more information about the linked defect itself.
In addition to the most recent TestRail test status, the Defects chart drilldown shows the defect id, title, and status of the defect in the drilldown, as well as a link to the defect itself.
