Create a bug progress report from a Sharepoint 2003 bug list

Sharepoint 2003 includes a list template for bug tracking. It provides very basic functionality like keeping bug statuses, description, comments, dates, assignments etc. For every update that is made to a bug report, Sharepoint just adds a new item to the list. It doesn't however include a bug progress report.

In order to create such a report, I will create a new view on the bug report list in Sharepoint in order to expose the necessary information. In MS Access I will created a linked table that allows us to perform queries on the data to put it in the correct format for use in a pivot table. This pivot table and pivot chart will contain the bug progress report.

Sharepoint bug reports: progress details

On the sharepoint bug list, create a new view containing the following fields:

• Id
• Issue Id
• Status
• Modified
• Current

This will give you the entire history for every Issue but from this information you can't yet determine when a bug changed from one status to another.

MS Access linked tables

In order to create a bug progress report, we need to build a list of status changes for each of the issues. I have created four queries for the different situations that can occur.

The "StatusSequenceHistory" query determines the sequence of Ids of bug reports for each Issue Id. For each change it collects what Id was changed (FromId) and which new Id was created (ToId)

SELECT fr.[Issue Id] AS IssueId,
       fr.Id AS FromId,
       fr.Status AS FromStatus,
       min(to.Id) AS ToId
FROM [Bug Reports: Progress Details] AS fr
LEFT JOIN [Bug Reports: Progress Details] AS [to]
ON fr.[Issue Id]=to.[Issue Id]
WHERE fr.Id < to.Id
  AND to.Current=False
  AND fr.Current=False
GROUP BY fr.[Issue Id], fr.Id, fr.Status
ORDER BY fr.[Issue Id], fr.id;

Not all status will have a ToId and a FromId. The "StatusSequenceNew" query selects bug reports that have just been created but do not have a history yet.

SELECT [Issue Id] AS IssueId, min(Id) AS ToId
FROM [Bug Reports: Progress Details]
GROUP BY [Issue Id]
HAVING Count(Id) = 1;

The "StatusSequenceFirst" query selects the very first bug report that was created.

SELECT [Issue Id] AS IssueId, min(Id) AS ToId
FROM [Bug Reports: Progress Details]
WHERE Current=False
GROUP BY [Issue Id];

The "StatusSequenceLast" query selects the final bug report that was created which in fact is the current version of the bug report

SELECT fr.[Issue Id] AS IssueId,
       max(fr.Id) AS FromId,
       to.Status AS ToStatus,
       to.Id AS ToId
FROM [Bug Reports: Progress Details] AS fr
LEFT JOIN [Bug Reports: Progress Details] AS [to]
ON fr.[Issue Id]=to.[Issue Id]
WHERE fr.Id > to.Id
AND to.Current=True
AND fr.Current=False
GROUP BY fr.[Issue Id], to.id, to.Status
ORDER BY fr.[Issue Id], to.id;

The StatusSequence query

This query joins the complete history together and adds the status for each change

(
SELECT IssueId,FromId, FromStatus, ToId, det.Status as ToStatus
FROM StatusSequenceHistory old
LEFT JOIN [Bug Reports: Progress Details] det
ON old.ToId = det.Id
)
UNION (
SELECT IssueId,FromId, det.Status as FromStatus, ToId, ToStatus
FROM StatusSequenceLast cur
LEFT JOIN [Bug Reports: Progress Details] det
ON cur.FromId = det.Id
)
UNION (
SELECT IssueId, NULL as FromId, NULL as FromStatus, ToId, det.Status as ToStatus
FROM StatusSequenceFirst fir
LEFT JOIN [Bug Reports: Progress Details] det
ON fir.ToId =det.Id
)
UNION (
SELECT IssueId, NULL as FromId, NULL as FromStatus, ToId, det.Status as ToStatus
FROM StatusSequenceNew new
LEFT JOIN [Bug Reports: Progress Details] det
ON new.ToId =det.Id
);

The ProgressReport query

This query adds the number of status changes for each change and for each day

(
SELECT Int(d.Modified) AS ModifiedDate, 
       s.FromStatus AS Status, 
       -1 * COUNT(s.FromStatus) AS Diff
FROM StatusSequence s
RIGHT JOIN [Bug Reports: Progress Details] d
ON s.ToId = d.Id
WHERE s.FromStatus <> ''
GROUP BY Int(d.Modified), s.FromStatus
)
UNION (
SELECT Int(d.Modified) AS ModifiedDate, 
       s.ToStatus AS Status, 
       1 * COUNT(s.ToStatus) AS Diff
FROM StatusSequence s
LEFT JOIN [Bug Reports: Progress Details] d
ON s.ToId = d.Id
GROUP BY Int(d.Modified), s.ToStatus
);

Microsoft Excel: Bug progress report

In Excel you can now create a link to the MS Access database as an external source. Choose the PivotTable/PivotChart option when connecting. Put the Modified Date in the left column of the PivotTable, the Status in the upper row and the Issue Id as in the data fields. Configure the Ids in order to show as a running total