Monitoring Scan Activity

You can monitor the progress and results of a scan for various things such as metrics about the progress of each task (events occurring during the scan, such as spidering a page or analyzing a page), the scan priority of the scan, status of the scan, and the issues that are reported by all scanning tasks.

To monitor an existing scan, use the Monitor link in the Action column against the scan name. This displays the Scan Activity page for both currently running scans and completed scans.

To know more on how to start monitoring a scan, use the Scans page.

Using the Scan Activity Page

Initiating a montior activity for a scan brings up the Scan Activity page that helps you track the progress of your scan.

Understanding the Scan Status

In axe Monitor, depending on its state, scans can have following status values:

Status

Description

Pending

Indicates the tasks are in the queue, but may not be processed yet.

Running

Indicates that the scan job is complete, but the results are not yet in the axe Monitor database.

Complete

Indicates that the scan job is complete, and the results are stored the axe Monitor database.

Refreshing the Page Automatically

While you monitor the scan, use the the the checkbox next to the field, Refresh Page Automatically to periodically refreshr the activity. This option is selected by default.

Use the dropdown menu next to the field, Refresh Page Automatically to choose how frequently the page must refresh. By default, the page refreshes every ten seconds. You can select intervals up to every 15 minutes.

Each time the screen refreshes, sections of the screen gets highlighted with the information that has changed since the last refresh.

Performing Actions on the Scan

Use the Scan Activity page to perform some important actions on the running or completed scan:

• Cancel Scan: The Cancel scan Use the link to pause the scan (and not cancel it). If the scan is paused, two links appear in its place:
  • Resume scan: USe this link to resume the scan from the point it was stopped.
  • Start scan: Use the link to start the scan from the beginning.
• Share report: Use the link to get a URL that you can share with others to view this page directly.

Viewing the Scan Activity Details

The Scan Activiy page displays a number of important tasks and details related to your scan:

• Started: The date and time the scan was started.
• % Completed: The percentage of tasks that have been completed.
• Pending: The percentage of tasks that are yet to be completed.
• Status: The current status of the scan, indicating whether the scan is running, complete, or waiting for post-scan analysis to complete. The following are the statuses:
  • Initial: The scan has not yet been run.
  • Running: The scan is currently running.
  • Failed: The scan has failed to run successfully.
  • Completed: The scan has completed successfully.
  • Cancel Pending: The cancel scan action has been selected, and the currently running tasks are being completed before changing the status to cancelled.
  • CancelledThe scan is cancelled.
  • Terminated: The scan failed to perform the final steps of cleaning up previous results and generating dashboard data even after retrying for the maximum number of allowed retries.
  • Waiting on Scan Level Issues: The scan is being reviewed for quality issues, such as duplicate pages titles or inconsistent form fields.
  • Ready For Cleanup: Processing of the scan is complete, and it is ready to cleanup previous results and generate dashboard data.
  • Cleanup Pending: Cleaning up of previous run results and generating dashboard data is pending.
• Running: The current number of tasks in operation at this moment.
• Completed: The number of tasks completed so far.
• Avg Time Per Task: The average time each task has taken to complete.
• Retried: The total number of tasks that have been retried. Axe Monitor retries a certain number of tasks that have failed.
• Failed: The total number of tasks that have failed. Likely failures include things such as Page Not Found errors, or other HTTP responses in the 400 and 500 range.
• Rate of Failed Tasks: The percentage of tasks that have failed.
• Ignored: The number of tasks ignored while performing the scan.

Note: Use the Close button in the section to stop viewing the section

Current Scan Priority: This section below the Task Progress section displays the scan priority, and the number and type of scans currently being performed by the axe Monitor processors.

Note: Use the Close button in the section to stop viewing the section

Show Items: Use the dropdown in the Show Items field to decide the number of items to view in each page.

URL/Script The last section in this page is where a listing of the URL or scan tasks that are currently running, including the Link Level, number of retries, and running time for the task is displayed.