automating test results publishing from the database.

Test runs generate results that are often important for keeping a daily pulse on the software quality. Typically such data is published in a database and have details such as test run id, submitted by, test owner, test name, environment, test category, submitted, status, Elapsed time, total tests passed, total tests failed, inconclusive tests, Tests that have errors, percentage pass etc. These records give sufficient detail about the tests that were run and they just need to be transformed into xslt to make pretty reports. Both the xslt transform and associated css if any could be the text template with which the data is presented. The individual spans for each column may need to have distinguished identifiers so that the transform can be rendered as an html. These identifiers could all have row number as suffix to distinguish them.  A header row followed by one or more rows for the data is sufficient to display the test run results. The table itself could use a css class to make it prettier by differentiating alternate rows. This is done with a class id and a style borrowed from the css. The transform itself could be wrapped in a stored procedure which retrieves the results from the database and enumerates them. This stored procedure has several advantages. First this logic is as close to the data as possible. Second it can be invoked by many different clients on scheduled or on demand basis. Third, it can be used to register a trigger for the insert of results from well marked runs. Runs can be marked based on some attributes such as a login for automated test execution from reporting. This allows regular test invocation and publish by all users without any reporting. Only the test execution by a separate login is candidate for reporting. The stored procedure may need to enumerate through the records. This can be done with a cursor. A cursor is also useful in working with one record at a time. The entire stored procedure will have plans cached for improved performance over adhoc TSQL. Therefore this will have performance improvements as well. Finally the database itself can send out mails with this html text. This can be done with a database mail  profile set up with an smtp server. Setting up automated e-mails requires the use of sysadmin or appropriate server scoped privileges.
If transforms are not needed, the results from the queries or stored procedures can be directly sent out. This may be a quick and easy thing to do since the results can be output to text format and imported via excel and other BI applications.
Also, test results are often associated with team foundation server work items or queries. Such articles might involve items such as active and resolved bug counts. While it is easier to use the Excel application to open and format such TFS queries, it is also possible to directly issue http requests from the database. This consolidates the results and the logic for results reporting in one place.