Working with quality checks

You use the Quality Checks page to create quality checks, and to edit and delete the quality checks once they have been created. Quality checks are Asta Powerproject library items that contain a set of user-definable metrics that you can use to monitor the quality of a schedule. You can use quality checks to monitor certain aspects of your Asta Vision programmes. For example, you could use a quality check to check that all tasks are resourced or costed; or to check that all tasks have a unique name; or to check that the critical path runs from the start to the finish of the project; or to check any combination of these - and other - metrics.

Refer to the 'Checking the quality of your schedules' section of the Asta Powerproject Help for detailed information about quality checks.

Once you have set up a quality check in one project, you can export its metrics into a *.JSON file, then upload the file to Asta Vision to create a corresponding quality check in Asta Vision and specify 'pass' and 'fail' percentages for it. You can then apply the quality check to one or more programme types.

Once you have applied a quality check to a programme type, the quality check is downloaded automatically when you download or check out a programme of that type. It appears in Library Explorer's Quality Check library as a quality check called 'Vision Quality Check', with an object ID of 999. You can execute this quality check at any time when a programme is downloaded or checked out, but you cannot delete or edit the quality check in Asta Powerproject; its quality metrics and 'pass' and 'fail' percentages are derived from the quality check settings in Asta Vision.

The quality check is executed automatically each time a user checks in or attempts to submit a programme of this type. Users can check in a programme regardless of whether or not it fails the quality check. When you apply a quality check to a programme type, you specify whether users are able to submit a programme that fails the quality check. Either:

Once a programme has been checked in or submitted for the first time, a Quality field appears against it on the Project page, displaying the quality check result in percentage terms, and an icon to show whether the programme has passed (a tick in a green circle) or failed (an exclamation mark in a red circle) the quality check.

If you have applied a quality check to a programme type, it is not possible to check programmes of that type in or out using the Asta Vision website; you must check them in and out using Asta Powerproject. The only exception to this is if your user role has been assigned to the 'Override Check In/Out Programme Restrictions' security rule, in which case you can check programmes in and out using the Asta Vision website; but you must only do this in exceptional circumstances, for example if a programme has become corrupted.

The quality checks are displayed in a list. You can filter and sort the quality checks in the list and change the width of columns in the list.

To access the Quality Checks page from the Asta Vision Home page, click Admin then click Quality checks.

Before you create a quality check, you must have set up a quality check of that type in an Asta Powerproject project and exported its quality metric settings to a *.JSON file. For example, if you want to create a quality check that checks for unique task names in a project, you must have set up a quality check based on the unique names quality metric, and exported its quality metric settings to a *.JSON file. You can set up quality checks in any Asta Powerproject project - you do not need to set them up in projects that you have downloaded or checked out from Asta Vision.

Refer to the 'Sharing quality metric settings between quality checks and projects' topic in the Asta Powerproject Help for detailed information about exporting quality metric settings for use in Asta Vision.

To create a quality check:

  1. On the Quality Checks page, click Create Quality Check. The Create Quality Check page appears.
  2. Enter a descriptive name for the quality check in the Name field.
  3. Click Choose File. The Open dialog appears.
  4. Select the *.JSON file you want to upload and click Open. The file you choose must be a file into which quality metric settings have been exported from an Asta Powerproject project.
  5. Enter the percentage value that represents a pass when the quality check is executed in the Quality check pass boundary field. If the quality check result is greater than or equal to this number, the programme has passed the quality check.
  6. Enter the percentage value that represents a fail when the quality check is executed in the Quality check fail boundary field. If the quality check result is less than this number, the programme has failed the quality check.

    If you want programmes to simply pass or fail a quality check, enter the same number in the Quality check pass boundary and Quality check fail boundary fields. For example, if you enter '75' in both fields, a programme will pass the quality check if the result is 75% or greater, and will fail if the result is less than 75%. If you want to introduce the concept of a 'grey area', in which a programme has neither passed nor failed, enter different numbers in these fields. For example, if you enter '75' in the Quality check pass boundary field and '50' in the Quality check fail boundary field, a programme will pass if the result is 75% or greater; will fail if the result is less than 50%; and will neither pass nor fail if the result is between 50% and 75%.
  7. Click Create. You return to the Quality Checks page, where the new quality check appears in the list.

To edit a quality check:

  1. On the Quality Checks page, click the name of the quality check that you want to edit. The Edit Quality Check page appears.
  2. Edit the details of the quality check as required. You can upload an alternative *.JSON file that contains quality check metric settings and revise the pass and fail boundaries if required.
  3. Click Save Changes. You return to the Quality Checks page.

To delete a quality check:

  1. On the Quality Checks page, right-click the quality check that you want to delete and select Delete. A popup appears, asking you to confirm whether you want to delete the quality check.
  2. Click OK to delete the quality check and return to the Quality Checks page.

You cannot delete a quality check that is currently in use.

You cannot delete the 'Vision Quality Check' quality check from a programme in Asta Powerproject; if you want to delete a quality check from programmes of a particular type, edit the programme type and select 'None' in the Quality check field. The quality check will be deleted from programmes of this type the next time they are downloaded or checked out.

You can configure Asta Vision to allow users with specific roles to submit programmes that have failed a quality check, even if most users are prevented from doing so. For example, you may want to allow top-level users to submit programmes that have failed a quality check, but prevent all other users from doing this.

To do this:

This results in all users except those with the specified roles being unable to submit a programme that has failed a quality check; users with the specified roles will be warned that the programme has failed a quality check, but given the option to submit it regardless.

Related Topics:

Configuring programme types

Configuring security rules