Keep Offline Results Processing Utility minimized

[paulmw]

I've been using the "Offline Results Processing Utility" to upload data to a database but the utility has the anoying feature of poping up infront of the executing teststand GUI.  I minimize it (to the tray or taskbar) but as soon as a new result is in the inbox to be processed it pops back up.  How do I keep it minimized?

[~jiggawax~]

Are you calling it every time? If so are you passing it the /tray flag?

We didn't see it popup when we passed it the /tray flag but we did see the splash screen always popping up.  We got the source code and modified it so the splash screen wouldn't pop.

Regards,

[paulmw]

The utility is being called by the Result Processing and enabling the Offline Results File.  The configuration for this result processing is to have the "automatically Start Offiline Results Processing Utility" ON and the "Start Minimized to Tray" ON.  This part works and it is minimized to the tray.  However, once a new TRS shows up in the inbox the utility GUI pops up in front and is the active window.  

[paulmw]

Correction>>>

The poping up of the utility doesn't seem to be cause by a TSR file showing up but a repeated starting of the offline results utility after it is already started, even if the second start also has the run minimized in system tray...

[paulmw]

Yes, this is the case.  If I have the "Offline Results File Geneartion Options" configured to "Automatically Start Offline Results Processing Utility" it pops it up on subsequent test executions if it is already running.  I am going to disable this option and have the utiltiy run by other mechnisms (maybe on startup).  It would be nice if it didn't popup on repeated starts however.  I also notice that the "Exit When Porcessing Completes" doesn't quite solve the issue too as it has a timer enabled.  If I restart before the timer times-out then same situation.

[~jiggawax~]

Yeah looks like we were using it differently than you.  Like I said we called it every time.

This feels like an oversight on the tool.  That would be very annoying.  Looking through the settings and help I don't see anything that would suppress this.

Just out of curiousity, why aren't you just calling the plugin directly?  You can run them in a new thread.  We went away from the offline utility during live testing because we found too many issues.  For instance, the execution times were getting messed up and some other data that only exists during live testing was missing.  Although, they've done an excellent job with the tool and it has saved us in some cases, I think it still has a ways to go. 

[paulmw]

We haven't settled for sure on the offline utility (the popping up window was our biggest detractor).

There are two issues that it easily solves for us though:  1) Backup of results if the database is down or inaccessible (allows testing to continue - less downtime). And 2) Not loosing results if the is an error in the transfer and allowing a retry later.  We are developing our own database and schema so right now there are still a few bugs in the schema that being able to re-run the upload without having to rerun the test is beneficial.

I am curious as to what you were seeing with the execution times and live data.  Can you give more detail?

Thanks,

Paul

[~jiggawax~]

The execution time was a lot shorter in the utility because that data didn't exist except during a normal run.  Also, our plugin was customized and some of the peripheral data was missing.  This could be because of the implementation of the plugin but we didn't see a way around it.  We were passing some data on the attributes of parameters from the Process Model.  And without making this data a result then there wasn't really a way to get it into the TSR.  We didn't want it to be a result because it was used to tell how to display the data depending on options the user choose during execution.