This article explains the concept of Rules and Rulesets in Quality Clouds, how they function during platform scans, and how they can be customized to align with your organization’s coding standards and quality goals. Whether you’re using ServiceNow, Salesforce, or Office 365, understanding these foundational concepts is essential for interpreting scan results and improving platform quality effectively.

 

What Are Rules? #

Rules in Quality Clouds are codified best practices that define what constitutes high-quality code and configurations. Each rule includes:

• A unique rule ID
• The area of impact (e.g., performance, security, Manageability and Scalability)
• The severity level (e.g., high, medium, low)
• A description of the issue
• Suggested remediation steps
• Estimated time to fix 

 

Rules act as a quality control mechanism during scans. They help identify deviations from accepted standards and highlight areas of technical debt so they can be addressed proactively.

 

What Are the Rules Based On? #

Quality Clouds rules are built upon a variety of reputable and authoritative sources, including:

• SaaS vendor technical best practices (e.g., ServiceNow, Salesforce, Microsoft)
• ServiceNow coding standards
• Salesforce best practice guides
• SharePoint Framework recommendations
• Quality Clouds recommendations
• Client-defined technical standards
• Industry-standard software development guidelines, including:
  • JavaScript best practices
  • PMD for Apex Classes, Triggers, and Lightning components
  • Open Source Library vulnerability detection

 

This multi-source foundation ensures that rules cover a broad spectrum of real-world use cases and quality dimensions, from security and performance to maintainability and compliance.

 

Why Do Rules Matter? #

Non-compliance with rules can affect different areas of your platform depending on the nature of the issue. For example:

• Security rules help avoid vulnerabilities and data breaches
• Performance rules reduce platform lag and inefficiency
• Manageability rules ensure your platform remains clean, consistent and easy to maintain
• Scalability rules support platform growth, reuse and future-proof architecture

 

Following these best practices ensures consistent quality, reduces risks, and accelerates issue resolution.

You can view all rule details, such as severity, affected areas, and remediation guidance, directly within the Rules section of each platform in the Quality Clouds portal.

 

What Are Rulesets? #

A Ruleset is a collection of rules applied during a scan. It allows organizations to tailor the scanning process to their specific needs, whether by enforcing strict governance or accommodating unique internal development standards.

Rulesets define which rules are executed, and consequently, which issues are reported during scans. This flexibility allows for meaningful quality assessments and benchmarking.

 

Types of Rulesets #

Baseline Rulesets #

Baseline rulesets are the default sets of best practices provided by Quality Clouds. They serve as the standard reference point for quality metrics and trend analysis.

When to Use:
You want to track long-term quality evolution

You scan different environments or use multiple custom rulesets but want a consistent baseline to compare against

 

Custom Rulesets #

Custom rulesets are user-defined collections that allow you to:

• Override specific Quality Clouds rules
• Ignore rules that are not relevant to your context
• Introduce client-specific best practices

 

Metrics derived from these are labeled as Custom Ruleset Metrics and are clearly highlighted in dashboards and views for better decision-making.

When to Use:

• Your organization follows unique development guidelines
• You want to focus scans on specific areas of concern
• You need to evaluate quality through a customized lens

 

Summary #

Rules and rulesets are core to how Quality Clouds evaluates and tracks platform quality. While rules define what to check and how to fix issues, rulesets determine which rules apply to each scan. By understanding and effectively managing them, you can gain better control, customize your quality strategy, and make data-driven improvements to your platform.