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We use BugzScout to log exceptions. As a result, we get some cases which have many occurrences over an extended period of time.

I would like to plot those occurrences on a chart.

Each time the exception occurs, FB edits the case. Through the API, is there a way to access/fetch the specific date and time that each occurrence happened...that is, each time the case was edited?

For a given case, if I was able to simply get a list of each edit date and time, then I could easily drop it into Excel to create the chart.

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It would be great if the newly-added time-based reporting feature could be leveraged to do this from within FogBugz. I could see this sort of a "case traffic" report being useful to measure volume of activity on a case (or a wiki article?) which could show how much interest there is in a "new idea" sort of case. If we could do this, we would definitely use this metric in deciding what things to do next. – cdeszaq Nov 4 2010 at 14:46

3 Answers

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Yes, you can use cmd=search, q={ixBug} and cols=ixBug,events. Included in the events will be a dt element that represents the timestamp for the bug event.

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I think a more FogBugz-y way of doing this would be to have each occurrence of the exception be a different sub-case of the same parent. This allows you to use e.g. the XML API to retrieve the dates and times of all subcases of a given parent, and then plotting those.

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 Unfortunately, BugzScout uses its own methods (and new bug events) rather than subcases to indicate reoccurrence of a case. – Jacob Nov 3 2010 at 22:09
Yes. BugScout increments an Occurrences counter when it sees the same bug reported through it. For us, NOT spawning a new case each time is critical because there have been times when that would have flooded us with thousands of rather pointless cases. – cdeszaq Nov 4 2010 at 14:42
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Snapshot Graph

You can construct a filter which lists your cases and shows the Occurrences column. Export that to Excel and create a chart which shows you which issues come up frequently.

I have opened a case to allow using Occurrences as a break-down in Reporting charts.

Occurrences Over Time

Using the method above, you can then add a date range search to your filter to show cases edited during a period, export that, adjust the range to the next period, export etc. Putting the data together in Excel you can look at changes over time.

I realize this is a tedious process if you have more than a few ranges you are interested in. I have opened a case to allow display of Occurrences for a time-based line graph Report. The time-based graphs give you a sum for all cases in the filter, so you would need to filter in such a way that you get the number you need.

Workaround

Because the number of occurrences is not put in a BugEvent (edit) when it is updated, there is no history of it in the database. For now, the history is only available for submissions made before fStopReporting is set.

To report on these now, you can access the database directly or via a plugin to look for BugEvents for cases with entries in the Scout table.

You can also use the XML API as mentioned in other answers here.

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