Grouping report data

Grouping report results by different data sets (such as page, or context or IP address) helps make the report data more relevant to your analysis needs.

Before you begin

Learn more about grouping:
  • After you have grouped report results by a data set, you can preview a "group" of issues to understand what you must fix. Three instances of the issue are displayed, but you can drill into the preview to see the entire list. The check box for each individual issue within the group is highlighted to indicate that you cannot select or manage the issue individually, but as a group only. This grouping helps you quickly manage the group of issues all at once, although issue management is actually being performed on each instance. Note that the group might reappear in the report if a new issue appears in the group the next time the data is scanned. For example, you have grouped by Page in the Broken Links report, and there are 17 broken links on page A. You fix all 17 broken links on the page and mark the "group" of issues (that is, page A) as fixed. If another broken link appears on that page the next time the scan job is run, the "group" (that is, page A) will reappear in the Broken Links report results with only the single new issue in it.
  • There might be times where you select one issue to manage or export, and several instances appear selected in the results; this occurs because the scan job has detected that the issue actually appears in more than one spot (typically a frame).
  • The scan job remembers the last way you grouped your data sets; when you access the report again, you will see the results displayed as you last viewed them.
  • How your site is structured. For example, if your site is page-based, group by Page. If your site uses frames, group by PageComponent. (If your site uses frames, HCL® Software Services or your Product Administrator can make the PageComponent data sets that you can use to group your report results available for you.)
  • There are three critical numbers within the reports:
    • Unique issues - the number of unique issue IDs within the report
    • Exposed issues - the number of issues experienced by a user navigating the website or application
    • Pages containing the issue

Procedure

  1. To select a report data set for grouping, go to the relevant report and select the Group tab. You can group your report results in two ways:
    1. Summary tab: The Summary statement summarizes the issues you have; for example, Y web applications using X technologies, and provides a basic grouping for you; when you click a highlighted number in the summary sentence, you will see the report results grouped by that data set.
    2. Group tab: The Group tab provides advanced grouping through the different data sets available in the report. Many of these data sets are common across all reports; others are unique.
  2. To preview issues in a grouped report result set,
    1. Select a report data set from the list and click Apply. The report results will refresh to reflect this view of your issues.
    2. Go to the relevant report and expand the group you want to preview. The screen will refresh to display the first three issues in the group. If there are more than three issues, you will see the total below the last issue in the preview list.
    3. Click X Items Total to drill into the list to its full number. The report results will refresh to reflect this view of your issues. You have now filtered this group.