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Understand Step Duration Calculations in Scenario Editor

Last reviewed: September 29, 2026

Use this article to choose and interpret AIQ step-duration metrics such as DOM Complete, Server Response Complete, Full Page Loaded, Script Time, Ajax Time, and Next Step Ready.

What changed in this article

  • Replaced Test Designer/Web Designer reportswording durations for steps and requests. Step durations will vary depending on the settings you chose in the Option Timings field in thewith Scenario Editor.Editor

    terminology while

    keeping

    Thebrowser timingPerformanceNavigationTiming forcontext.

  • Clarified some options is provided by the browser's performance navigation timing system, for other options the timing is calculated by the Test Designer engine.

    The followingwhich timings arecome provided byfrom the browser performance navigation timing system and are industry standard durations based on >https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/PerformanceNavigationTiming.

    • Dom Complete (current default mode)

    Server Response Complete

    Full Page Loaded

    The following timingswhich are calculated by AIQ, including the TestSPA Designerbehavior engine:

    where
      browser timings may return 0.Added

      Nextguidance Stepthat Ready

      Ajax Time

      Script Time (usuallyis often closer to human perceived duration)

      user duration, while Ajax Time is mostly retained for backward compatibility.

      Each

      Validation ofworkflow

      these options are detailed below.

      Timings provided by

      1. Select the Browsertiming (Performanceoption Navigationthat Timingmatches standard)
      the question

      Youbeing can calculate timings by:

        Opening a Chromeanswered: browser outsidetiming, user-perceived step time, or SPA readiness.

        Compare AIQ inoutput incognitowith mode.browser performance timing only for browser-provided metrics.

        Right-click and click inspect inDocument the browserselected contexttiming menu.option

        when sharing reports so reviewers interpret duration values correctly.

        GoReview tonote: This update keeps the Consoletechnical andtiming check for the DOM/Full Page/Server Response timings using the below formula for each step.

        You will observe that normally


         Full Page Loaded > DOM Complete > Server Response Complete

        In the screenshots below you can see that for >https://demosite.appvance.com the values for the above durations are:

        Full Page Loaded (4022) > DOM Complete (4019 ms) > Server Response Complete (2508 ms)

        IMPORTANT:
        You might find that durations are less than what you can measure manually using the application. The reason for this is that those timings are not taking into consideration possible asynchronous processes where js code is waiting for the response(s) of a backend calls. For this reason, more calculated durations are provided.

        DOM Complete

        This duration is provided by the browser. It shows the time immediately before the browser’s user agent sets the >current document readiness to >"complete". (>w3.org)

        Note: In single-page steps, this calculation will return 0,distinctions but AIQremoves willolder display the Next Step Ready duration instead of 0.

        window.performance.timing.domComplete- window.performance.timing.navigationStart

        Server Response Complete

        This duration is provided by the browser. It shows the time immediately after the user agent receives the last byte of the current document or immediately before the transport connection is closed, whichever comes first. The document here can be received either from the server, >relevant application caches, or local resources. (>w3.org)

        Note: In single-page steps, this calculation will return 0, but AIQ will display the Next Step Ready duration instead of 0.

        window.performance.timing.responseEnd - window.performance.timing.navigationStart

        Full Page Loaded

        This duration is provided by the browser. It shows the time when the load event of the current document is completed. (>w3.org)

        Note: In single-page steps, this calculation will return 0, but AIQ will display the Next Step Ready duration instead of 0.

        window.performance.timing.loadEventEnd- window.performance.timing.navigationStart

        Timings provided by Test Designer

        When durations provided by the browser do not reflect the time you want to monitor, a few alternatives are calculated by test designer while managing the steps executions.

        Script Time

        This duration is calculated by AIQ’s Designer/Web Designer interacting with the js code injected in the browser. The script time shows the duration between the start of execution stepnaming and whenfixes thereadability steparound returnsasynchronous a status of completed to Web Designer.
        Most of the time this duration is thecloser to the duration perceived by a person using the application when there are synchronous calls happening after a post submit call(s). behavior.

        Ajax Timing

        This duration is calculated by AIQ’s Web Designer interacting with the js code injected in the browser. The ajax timing shows the duration of the addition of all the requests durations terminating during the execution of the step. Due to the dynamic nature of modern applications, this duration is not very useful. Kept in product for backwards compatibility.

        Next Step Ready

        This duration is calculated by AIQ’s Web Designer interacting with the js code injected in the browser. The next step ready duration shows the duration between the start of the execution of the step and when the DOM element is detected. This duration is usually very small and is only useful in single-page applications.

        Last updated: AugustSeptember 03,29, 20232026

        If you have any feedback on this topic, please contact us at documentation@appvance.ai.

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