CAST Engineering Dashboard - Grades - Incorrect Value - TQI value when there are changes in other metrics and Health Factors

 This guide discusses changes in TQI that may not be expected when examining the dashboard based on changes in other metrics and health factors.

There can be times when viewing a new snapshot on the dashboard for a new code release that you may notice that TQI changes while other metrics like technical debt or the number of violations do not seem to be in alignment with the changes to TQI.

This often normal behavior and can be verified by understanding the CAST metric calculation process and how it works.  The details for this can be found in the documentation for CAST, especially in the new versions where sections have been enhanced on this topic.  Look for an appendix called 'CAST AIP Measurement System Explained -  7.2 / 7.3' .

Below are some scenarios where changes in TQI may seem to be incorrect.  This will not cover all cases for TQI changes for these scenarios.  If there are questions, you should verify the calculation or ask for assistance from CAST consulting to assisting you in verifying the calculation.

• Scenario 1: TQI decreases when violation count decreases as well
  • Possible explanation 1:  If some new more heavily weighted violations are added while many older lesser weighted violations are removed, this could cause the violation count to decrease but the overall grades including TQI to decrease as well.
  • Possible explanation 2: If the application is weighted based on LOC, and the LOC decrease dramatically in a new application analysis, while the violation count decreases only slightly, then TQI could in this scenario decrease.
• Scenario 2: TQI increases while technical debt increases as well
  • Possible explanation 1: In the most recent analysis, you have added violations which are costly to fix but don't have much weight on the CAST grades while you have removed violations which were not costly to fix but had a higher impact on the CAST grades.
  • Possible explanation 2:  You are using an aggregation such as LOC.  In the most recent analysis, you have greatly increased LOC, but not added many new defects.  The new defects contribute to a higher technical debt, but the aggregation of the larger increase of LOC without adding many defects has improved the TQI.