Code quality check in RPA Desktop Design Studio

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Code quality check in RPA Desktop Design Studio

    Code quality check in RPA Desktop Design Studio helps you proactively identify and resolve issues within an automation activity or an entire automation project. It runs automatically when you publish a project, reducing errors and preventing problems that could disrupt your automation workflows.

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    This feature relies on a predefined set of rules configured via your connected RPA Hub instance. You must connect RPA Desktop Design Studio to an RPA Hub instance that has Code quality check enabled to use this functionality.

    Key Features

    • Predefined Rules: Uses a ruleset from RPA Hub to scan automation code for compliance and quality issues.
    • Issue Reporting: Displays findings in the Code Quality Check Results window as a list of entries.
    • Navigation and Highlighting: Allows you to double-click an issue to highlight the affected component within the current activity or navigate to a different activity where the issue exists.
    • Automatic Checks on Publishing: Automatically performs code quality checks when you publish an automation project, showing any issues detected.
    • Rule Management: Enables viewing and filtering of active and inactive rules by severity in the View Rules window.
    • Configurable Publishing Restrictions: You can control whether to allow publishing packages with errors or warnings via a property setting in RPA Hub.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    Using Code quality check ensures your automation projects maintain high quality and compliance with established rules before deployment, minimizing runtime errors and maintenance effort. The intuitive issue navigation and highlighting streamline troubleshooting and fixing problems early in the development process. Integration with RPA Hub provides centralized control over rule sets and publishing behaviors, aligning automation with organizational standards.

    Next Steps

    • Connect your RPA Desktop Design Studio to an RPA Hub instance configured with Code quality check.
    • Run code quality checks on your automation activities or projects regularly during development.
    • Review and fix issues highlighted in the Code Quality Check Results window to improve automation reliability.
    • Adjust publishing restrictions in RPA Hub as needed to control deployment of projects with warnings or errors.

    You can use code quality check in RPA Desktop Design Studio to proactively find the issues in an automation activity or the complete automation project. When you publish an automation project, an in-built code quality check is also performed. Code quality check enables you to reduce the number of errors and prevent potential issues that may hinder your automation.

    Code quality check overview

    Code quality check in RPA Desktop Design Studio is based on the pre-defined set of rules that are enabled from the RPA Hub instance. You must connect to the instance that has Code quality check to RPA Desktop Design Studio before you start using Code quality check. For more information on how to configure Code quality check from RPA Hub, see Code quality check in RPA Hub RPA Desktop Design Studio. For more information on the pre-defined set of rules, see Code quality rules list in RPA Hub.

    When you check an activity or the complete automation project by using Code quality check, the issue results and details are displayed as a list of entries in the Code Quality Check Results window. The following example shows the window.

    Figure 1. Code Quality Check Results window
    Code Quality Check Results window where you can see the results of the check.
    You can double-click the result entries for components in the Code Quality Check Results window for the following scenarios:
    • If an affected component is in the current activity, it’s highlighted in the current activity.
    • If the affected component is in a different activity, you can navigate to the activity. The component gets highlighted. See the following example to see the component highlight in RPA Desktop Design Studio.
    Figure 2. Component highlight in RPA Desktop Design Studio
    Component highlighted in RPA Desktop Design Studio after the result entry is double-clicked from the Code Quality Check Results window.

    Code quality check in publishing an automation project

    Code quality check is automatically performed when you publish the automation project. If your project has code quality check issues, the Code Quality Check Results window is displayed with the result entries. For more information on how to publish an automation project, see Publish an automation project in RPA Desktop Design Studio in RPA Desktop Design Studio.

    Note:
    You can publish a package with errors or a combination of errors and warnings only if the property sn_rpa_fdn.restrict_package_by_severity is set as No restriction in RPA Hub. For more information on this property, see Configure RPA Hub properties. For more information on the compliance rules that the Code Quality Check feature follows if a package is published from RPA Desktop Design Studio, see Code quality check compliance for RPA Desktop Design Studio in RPA Desktop Design Studio.

    You can view the list of active and inactive rules from the View Rules window. You can filter the rules by their severity level from this window.