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I've encountered on several occassions, customers who assign serial numbers / partnumbers during the test process who still wish to do on-the-fly recording.... and are disatisfied with the default behavior of the reporting because their header persists in showing the blanks etc.

 

While I understand that it's easier to build file paths / headers once, and then append the body content onto them, it would be especially elegant, if there was:

 

(a) a way for me to manually trigger (via a callback perhaps) a refresh of the entire header or

(b) if at the very least, the header section & file path were overwritten/updated once at the very end.

 

Since it seems to me that the header has to be re-written at least partially to account for the failure-chain logic, it wouldn't seem that much more work (or that much more inefficient) to just refresh the whole thing?

The Additional Results Step property is a great way to add customized results to the TestStand report for a particular step without much effort required.  However, there should be an equally simple way to add additional results too all of the steps in a sequence.  The current options are all lacking:

 

  1. Create a SequenceFilePostStep engine callback to manually append results to the result list - this feels hacky
  2. Add additional results to each step - this is tedious
  3. Create custom step types - this is also tedious, as a new step type would be required for each step

I think there should be an additional results option available in either the report options or in the sequence file properties window or the report options window.  Configuring the results here would be identical to adding the additional result to every step in the sequence.

 

Potential implementation of button on report options window:

tsgar.png

 

Additional results button launches a dialog:

ardialog.png

It would be nice to have the message popup be more generic so that it can be used in more situations. For example to notify the user that there is a wait in progress. It is currently not possible to remove the button from the Message popup.

This has to be an easy one, could you add a "EntryPoint" property to the execution object that would retrieve the execution entry point. This info is included in the Execution.DisplayName property but it is a little bit of a pain to trim/split the string to get the actual entry point name.

 

Thanks!

 

<< N >>

TESTSTAND is capable of interfacing so many devices & instrument to a UUT.

 

Incase of ATE(Automatic test equipment), where lot of resources are made available to test the UUT, not all the resources or instruments will be used through out the test for a particular UNIT. Hence there should be facility to select the resources required for particular test, which will be then only initialized & used.

 

For example a simple power device requires only POWER SUPPLY, LOAD & DMM. Where as a data acquisition system requires POWER SUPPLY, DIO & AIO cards & so on.

 

Thus one should only select the resources required for test & hence no need to have init function separately for each sequence. This may sound a bit complicated but It really helps for LARGE ATEs, where optimization is KEY. Same thing can be implemented for TERMINATING resources once test is done.

Since reports are to certify the test results, it would be nice to have DIGITAL SIGNATURE option to give it FORMAL touch.

It will also help in organizations to authenticate the result.

 

It will be also nice to add some PPT or PHOTOS to report to describe the test setup & UUT.

Even though we already have an About box for TestStand, it would also be nice to have one for the active TestSequence file as well. The Help menu would have a new item called "About MySequenceFile ...".

 

MySequenceFile About box splash screen:

19679i37712516107E8A41

 

The information in this screen should be loaded directly from a single FileGlobal string whenever a sequence file is made active. This can probably be done already by those that know how, but it should be already part of TestStand by default.

 

 

Eugene

A TestStand configuration wizard

 

I would like to see a TestStand configuration wizard that would walk a developer through a checklist of all of the most important configuration settings and generate recommended changes.

 

It is best for a developer to be already familiar with Best Practices as in the following link:

 

Best Practices for Improving NI TestStand System Performance

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/7559

 

However, it would also be nice to have assistance in recording WHY certain choices are made as shown in this image:

17669iC6E2378DE5CA3B29

 

 

Eugene

Professional Development package should include source code control (SCC) and Requirements Gateway right out of the box.

 

I know that bundled SCC was a problem in the past that NI wants to avoid, but I feel that a "Professional" development system isn't very professional without it and Requirements Gateway. However, It is very difficult and painful for me to get separate funds approved for important items that really needs to be already there right out of the box.

 

I already use free SVN, but TestStand does not recognize it, so it is not "integrated".

 

 

Eugene

Everyone should be familiar with the Sequences pane. In it, we get fancy icons for certain callbacks, but I'd also like each sequence reveal more information about the sequence's settings, and my first thought was to use helpful overlays for the icon. If you take a peek in the Sequence Properties dialog, you'll see there's three different tickboxes there that (can) radically change how a sequence executes. Unfortunately, I don't have any awesome ideas on how these could be presented (especially all at once) - it'd be pretty tough to fit all that discernably into a 16x16 icon. Both Comments and Requirements are visualized clearly, but I would just as soon trade the Comment column for a way to display these settings.

 

sequenceicons.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I'd be even more thrilled if the SequenceCall step type could also find some visual way to display this information, but I guess we should probably take this a step at a time 😉

 The Separate or Shared file global selection setting is not obvious on the user interface in TestStand. This is a very important setting that must be located in the "Edit/Sequence file properties" menu:

 

Sequence File Globals.JPG

 

Maybe this selection should also be available directly in the "variables" tab:

Variables tab.JPG