Read Me

README for Reporting Portal 0.1a

This is the first release of the Reporting Portal. The application facilitates presenting of the results of a Performance Testing / Performance Engineering / Load Testing / Stress Testing etc. 



History:
I am in the performance testing / performance engineering domain for the past 5+ years and over the period of time, I felt the need for a proper application that can help in presenting the test results to the target audience. This application was designed & developed with the idea of keeping it straight and simple for the target audience.



Features / WorkFlow:
The following list consolidates the 'facilities available/ Workflow' in this application:

1. Metrics are classified as Response Time, Other Client side metrics and Server side metrics.

2. Administration can be done with the admin user/password ["admin/admin"].

3. In the admin screen, the following are the available options:
	a. Creation of Projects and its corresponding test runs with details.
	b. Creation of the end users and assigning them to different test results [Default end user username/password : "user/user" ].
	c. Configure the Admin menu and the End User menu.
	d. Uploading the (CSV file) Client Side metrics (including both response time & other client side metrics) to appropriate test run.
	e. Uploading the (CSV file) Server Side metrics (all the servers) to appropriate test run.
	f. Metrics Management allows the configuration like Moving Average, 95th Percentile, Metrics type (client/resp/server) etc., of each metrics.
	g. Metrics Mapping allows the configuration of all the graphs that should be shown to the end users. This page helps to map the metrics to the menu. The page allows drag n drop of metrics to map against the menu.
		Note: Graphs will be rendered only when the Graph Type is configured (Client / Response Time / Server). It is also advised to enter appropriate Primary Title and Secondary Title
	h. Data Management provides facility for exporting / importing run data. This feature was implemented to facilitate exporting of data from the dev server to the production/live server.

4. In the user screen, the following options are available
	a. The users will be prompted to select a test run from the list of available (accessible) test runs.
	b. The Executive summary page presents the high level information of all the configured metrics in a table format.
		Note: The table is made sortable based on the column and the highlighting is preserved. This is to facilitate initial analysis of the data.
	c. End users are presented with the graph & corresponding summarization table for all the configured metrics (Both Client Side and Server Side).
	d. End users can export the test run as RTF or PDF. Exporting of test run as HTML will present all the information in one single page.
	e. Users are provided options to switch between different test runs from the "Change Run" menu.

5. UI is presented based on the configured template (CSS) and provides facility to implement new templates.



Planned Features:
The following list provides the list of features that are planned in the subsequent release

1. Facility to compare multiple test run.
2. Facility to read/write the Graph configurations from a template. This will largely reduce the complexity of configuring individual metrics.
3. ReDesign the manage metrics page and make it user friendly (I agree that the current version of Manage Metrics page is not user friendly).
4. Redesign the metrics mapping page (page where all the graphs are configured & mapped to user menu)
5. New logo and watermark images.
6. Evaluate and implement a new more elegang, professional Menu.
7. Make it a little more professional looking application (More to do with the UI).




Directory Structure:
Once you extract the content, you should see the following directory structure. As most of it are self explanatory, I am not explaining them in detail.

+---css
¦   +---default
¦   ¦   +---images
¦   ¦       +---outline
¦   +---professional
¦       +---images
¦           +---outline
+---dompdf
¦   +---include
¦   +---lib
¦   ¦   +---res
¦   +---rtf
+---fonts
+---images
¦   +---csh_bluebooks
¦   +---icons
+---includes
+---jpgraph
¦   +---jpgraph_cache
¦   +---lang
+---js
¦   +---English
¦   +---Original
+---SQL





Requirements:
The application was developed and tested in the following configuration.

1. PHP 5.x with gd 2.x ( The application uses eval() statements while creating PDF and hence should not be disabled.)
2. MySQL 5.x

Note: It is tested in the above configuration, but should work for previous versions of PHP and MySQL



Things to Get it Working:
The following are the things to do to make it working.

1. Create a new database and run the sql in SQL directory. This populates the DB.
2. Edit the "config.php" in the root folder and update the DB user credentials, DB Machine name.




Optional Configuration Files:

1. You can play with the PDF's configuration file "dompdf_config.inc.php"
2. You can play with the JPGraph's configuration file "jpgraph\jpg-config.inc.php"
	Note: You might be interested in "DEFINE("USE_CACHE",false);" settings which when enabled reads the graphs from the cache directory if available and creates the graph if it is not available in the cache directory. Generally this is enabled in the production/live environment.



Hope this is useful !!

If you make any change or if you need any help send out a mail 

Njoy !!
yuvaraj.v@gmail.com