IBM Rational Quality Manager vs Zephyr Enterprise comparison

IBM Rational Quality Manager is a next-generation web-based collaboration tool that provides test artifact management, construction, and planning throughout the entire development process. IBM Rational Quality Manager is based on IBM’s successful Jazz™ platform and derives many of its popular intuitive features from Jazz™.

IBM Rational Manager was developed for every type of test team in the marketplace today. Every role is included, such as test manager, test architect, lab manager, tester, and test lead. The solution is also able to include various roles outside the established test organization.

IBM Rational Quality Manager Features and Benefits:

• Customizable design and construction: Users can easily define the overall design for each and every test case. Every test case contains a robust text editor, which can include background data concerning the test case. Test cases can include links to developmental requirements and items. They can also include test artifacts, such as test scripts, test case execution processes, and test plans. Test cases can also be integrated with test suites.
  
  
• Intuitive reporting: IBM Rational Quality Manager provides an intuitive set of predefined reports to ensure users get comprehensive status on all projects. Additional customized reports can be made available by using the Development Intelligence or Rational Insight features for more precise reporting. Users can view live test execution status and are also able to discover the relationship between test artifacts, development artifacts, and requirements in the traceability view.
  
  
• Exhaustive test planning processes: Users define and customize test plans that will drive all activity for the organization's teams through every component of the project’s lifecycle. Everything is developed around the concept of: “ Is this ready for release?” The test plan defines the project scope and test effort, and contains the key indicators so all team members will understand the desired outcomes.
  
  Top test plan tasks include (but are not limited to):
  
  
  • Definition of test and business objectives.
  • Evaluate the size of the test effort.
  • Define different environments to test and develop test configurations.
  • Develop entrance criteria, exit criteria, and overall quality goals.
  • Create a review and approval process for the test plan and/or individual test cases.
  • View Real-time Test Progress
    
    
• Collaboration made easy: Users can easily share data with other members of the team with the Collaboration Lifecycle Management (CLM). Team members can also assign tasks and view each other's progress. They can also distribute work for review and track the input and status of each reviewer. There is also the ability to lock artifacts to prevent others from editing a completed piece.
  
  
• Security: IBM Rational Quality Manager can protect against attack threats and data breaches with the IBM AppScan Tester. This can help achieve higher quality and more secure applications with greater positive outcomes at a very reasonable competitive cost.
  
  
• Governance: The solution will ensure that an organization’s business processes are in compliance with department, corporate, industry, regional, and government regulations and standards. IBM Rational Quality Manager will correlate test processes and create suitable records of testing results and project history to comply with any auditing process.

Zephyr Enterprise is a robust enterprise test management platform that manages all aspects of the testing lifecycle. The solution is provided as an on-premise installation as well as a SaaS-based installation. Zephyr Enterprise enables you to make a rigid process flow flexible enough to accommodate changes. In addition, it provides all the functionality QA teams and testers need in order to create and execute test cases with less effort, allowing more time to do actual testing by alleviating significant time-wasting steps.

Zephyr Enterprise Features

Zephyr Enterprise has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

• Visual dashboards
• One-click integration
• Multi Jira instance
• Scalability
• Third-Party Integrations
• Reporting & Statistics
• Data Import/Export
• Data Visualization
• User Management
• Move & Copy
• Software Testing Management
• Requirements-Based Testing
• Industry-strength scalability
• Documented APIs
• Regular maintenance and upgrades

Zephyr Enterprise Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Zephyr Enterprise. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

• Ready-to-use reports and customizable dashboards: With Zephyr Enterprise, reports and dashboards are updated in real time and you can share test results and link with your team in Jira to connect any known issues. In addition, the solution helps you increase workflow efficiency because it improves info sharing during standup meetings.

• Supports bi-directional and multi-instance Jira integration: Not only does Zephyr Enterprise support bi-directional and multi-instance Jira integration, but it also gives you the ability to support multiple projects simultaneously – up to 200,000 test cases.

• Global repository for test cases: Zephyr Enterprise helps you create, categorize, and store your test cases via a global repository that can be shared across your entire organization. You can also quickly reuse test cases using the structured folder management.

• Test execution: Zephyr Enterprise makes it possible for you to execute tests step by step, manage pass/fail status, and launch automated execution, then file those defects into Jira. Zephyr Enterprise test executions allow teams to operate in a more efficient way.
  
  
• Universal test automation: Zephyr Enterprise supports a wide range of automation frameworks, helping you decrease operational costs and increase test coverage.
  
  Reviews from Real Users
  
  Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Zephyr Enterprise solution.
  
  A Manager of Enterprise Applications at a retailer says what’s most valuable is that “It's very easy and simple to use, which is beneficial. It has 90% of the basic features you need without having to pay a lot of extra money.” He also adds, “Zephyr Enterprise is very stable and the initial setup is straightforward.”
  
  Jawaad A., Test Automation Lead at Trapeze, explains, "It has many features, but the main things that we need are the test cycles and integration with automation because we have automation for the web and mobile applications. We use it for test case management to run the test cases and get the results. At this moment, it is fulfilling our requirements. We are able to get the test execution report and the test pass and fail report. This summary is delivered to our management."