OpenText ALM / Quality Center Reviews

The Open Test Architecture (OTA) and development of the REST API. The OTA is a published set of functions that administrators and users can use to interact with HP ALM programmatically. The most common example HP ALM users would recognize is the Microsoft Excel upload template, which allows users to upload test scripts to HP ALM projects directly from an Excel worksheet.

The REST API sneaked into HP ALM with little fanfare. The REST API has no application overhead and is fast. HP extended the API through patches in v11.0. Please check your current version and patch level to see which functionality is now included in the REST API.

On a recent multi-year project, the average defect resolution time for all defects was over twenty-two days. My goal was to reduce this number by 20%. It was an easy goal to reach because no one realized that 80% of 22 days was still a number out of bounds for defect resolution. I used custom fields, defect workflow and custom reports to move defects through their lifecycle. Within thirty days the defect resolution time was reduced to 3.1 days and averaged 1.1 days over the next eighteen (18) months.

The graphical user interface has the most room for improvement. Not all screens within the integrated suite refresh the same, some screens or activities are self-refreshing and some are not.

I would also like to see the “Disable Quick Runs” added back as a site parameter or built as an internal function within a project.

I've used it for seventeen years (1998 to present). This product was initially developed by Mercury-Interactive and released as Test Director. My first enterprise installation and administration experience with Test Director 2.0 was in 1998.

Over a seventeen year period, yes. The key to maintaining a site today is in patch management. Keep the patches up to date.

When the patches lag too much, it may be safer to build a new site and port the data than to try and patch an existing site in place.

Customer support for this product is with the vendor, not necessarily HP. After a site has been up and running a few years and all the original implementers are gone, it can take some time to even determine the vendor. My satisfaction level with vendors range from acceptable to excellent.

My personal satisfaction level with HP service and support website is low. I get the majority of my technical information from colleagues or third party discussion forums.

In the Application Lifecycle Management space, HP ALM and IBM Rational are the two big players. I recently participated in an evaluation of the IBM Rational Jazz Platform. The client had been using IBM’s ClearCase and ClearQuest for many years. During the evaluation, an unrelated IBM audit detected a long dormant pack of five ClearCase licenses on an active server. The cost associated with this incident ended our evaluation of the IBM solution.

Historically, most people considered this to be a defect tracking only tool. In that domain, tools are plentiful. Over the years I’ve used VI editor on UNIX, Microsoft Excel worksheets Microsoft Access databases, Bugzilla and Notepad for defect management.

The installation and configuration of an HP ALM site is straightforward for those with enterprise software deployment experience. An installation requires at minimum, a dedicated server with an operating system and database connection. The most typical, physical or virtual, hardware configuration I encountered over the years was a single Microsoft Windows server running web, license and application software servers. Both Oracle and MS SQL Server databases respond adequately, and when given a choice now select a schema based on DBA agreeability.

The installation of an HP ALM site establishes a service endpoint for communicating with other applications via Web Services. I believe the configuration and management of these services is the most complex part of a site installation and requires substantial planning to map fields and permissions across multiple applications.

HP ALM resellers typically perform the initial set up and configuration of the HP ALM site and user projects. In some cases, larger testing firms are also resellers and provide the tool as part of the project. I fundamentally disagree with buying a tool from its eventual user.

I advise clients to do the upfront planning and limit users with access to the site administration console to three or less. The planning required for a successful implementation requires much more time and effort than the deployment itself. Deployments are typically scripted while planning requires humans. Access to the HP ALM site console is separate from project access. I have seen sites with twenty or more registered site administrators. I believe this occurs more as a symptom of long term neglect than an implementation issue.

I encourage clients to use the built in service accounts and APIs where practical.

A comprehensive solution aiming for total Test management. It has bindings with HP QTP which is a test automation tool. With the addition of BPT (Business Process Testing), QC along with QTP has been the choice for test automation in most of the IT businesses.

Maintenance of test artifacts becomes messy when there are many scripts and supporting test artifacts. HP QC makes it easier to maintain the scripts and also organize them into various business areas.

Backup strategy is lacking in QC. Once the QC server crashes, all your automation artifacts are unrecoverable. Though we can create QC project files to create a backup, there is size limitation when you restore the backup.

4 years and 6 months

Configuration of QC contains a number of steps which could be made simpler. Many of these settings can be default with an option for the user to change them.

Getting to the root cause of any issue with QC is difficult. In many cases, restoring the QC projects is the way to resolve issues. Though HP support is available, it is not immediate.

As with the scalability, there are no issues with QC. It handles multiple connections very easily. And also if there is a crash on one machine where one test artifact is locked, the lock is automatically released in some time. But it would be great if there was recovery options built in after a crash.

The technical support is prompt and understand business urgency.

I have worked on TFS. The features of TFS are limited when compared to QC.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

• End-to-End traceability - Request>Test>Result>Defect
• Versioning
• Reporting (since v11 when it uses Word templates)

• Added electronic signature functionality (in-house dev)
• Controlled changes to data allow for validated processes in a regulated environment (record workflow)

• Reporting
• Drill-up, drill-down works sort-of OK
• Multi-project reporting
• User-friendliness, it requires some time to get used to

I've been using it since 2004, when it was known as Mercury Test Director.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

7/10.

8/10.

No previous solution used.

It's simple, but customization adopting for a regulated environment is complex as it requires 15,000 lines of code.

It was done in-house.

Review if the all-to-be licensed functionality is needed as certain modules are not used as they introduce needless complexity. You should aim for concurrent licensing if global us is needed as slack periods in one time-zone can be picked up by another.

No other options were evaluated, we just upgraded from Test Director>Quality Center>ALM, and we are planning to upgrade from v11 to v12.

ALM/Quality Center is expensive, but it has its value and, in certain cases, the Enterprise edition is way too much, but it is very stable and reliable. You should review v12 Webclient solution for requirements management.

• Traceability
• Ability to reuse test cases
• Reports

We now know more about how to test.

Import Library - Synchronization problems are often because the ALM interconnection with HP Solution Manager is too fragile.

I've been using it for six years.

We had a problem with the consultant.

Not really. Our big problem is that our in-house support of Solution Manager is not compatible. It's not a fault with the product.

For migration from v10 to v11, we needed to convert manually each project because the HP consultant, and our project chief, couldn't use ROBOT in Apache.

6/10.

5/10.

MS Excel was our first solution.

We paid for an HP consultant who wasn't experienced. They called everyday about everything to the central development team of HP.

It's not so good because some users don't see its real potential because they are afraid they will lose their job.

Keep it simple for an easy beginning, and don't waste time with incompetent people.

• Customization
• Analysis view
• Test Plan
• Defect
• Centralized repository which can sync both onshore and offshore

The company needed an option to integrate all our open source tools like JIRA, Jenkins, LFT, UFT, etc., and Quality Center does this.

It should have the option to integrate open-source and third-party tools. I'd also like more collaboration options. They could make it more lightweight and improve its performance.

I've used it for eight years.

There were some data migration issues when we upgraded to the next version. This was with the user-defined table/column as the extra tables were complex when converting to the newer version.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It's good, 8/10.

It's good, 8/10.

We have other open source products that do not meet all our requirements

It was complex.

We did it in-house.

It’s good to use for a big organization.

• Dashboard
• Reporting
• Version control
• Requirements Management
• Test Lab
• Defect tracking and management

Easier Test Lab management and defect life-cycle tracking, which is useful during triage calls.

Quality Center has definitely added value as it has easy accessibility for all our employees and is very useful for defect triage and scrum meetings.

• Include project planning and tracking
• Include defect sharing
• There are a lot of features in ALM which should be implemented into Quality Center, especially as ALM and Quality Center are integrated.
  

I've used it for six years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

9/10

8/10

We previously used Bugzilla and switched because Quality Center is easier to use, has good reporting, and has better accessibility.

Initial setup was straightforward.

We implemented it in-house.

100%

There are many free-ware tools available, which you can try.

• Bugzilla
• JIRA

• Test Plan
• Test Execution
• Defects tab
• Mapping tests to requirements
• Reporting

The reports we can generate are better.

The performance needs work, as over the past couple years, where I have worked with large companies, I noticed slower response times.

I have used HP ALM and Quality Center and TestDirector for 18 years.

There were some issues.

It is stable in its functionality, but there is some slowness with its performance.

It seems to function with very large companies, but sometimes there seems to be a slower response time, and it could be an internal network issue within the company, but I'm not sure.

I have not had to work with the customer service.

The Test Plan and Test Lab modules.

My clients were able to implement an end-to-end process for software testing. From release management and requirement gathering, to testing and defect management, Quality Center provides a centralized location for managing all aspects of your testing data and results.

The reporting features could be improved.

I've used it for nine years.

There are a lot of nuances with integrations and implementation of Quality Center and third-party applications. With proper planning and expertise guidance, issues with deployment can be resolved. I have not encountered any issues with deployment that could not be resolved.

Stability depends on the hardware/infrastructure where the web application resides. Availability, access, memory, speed are dependent on the environment which is setup, and used, for Quality Center deployment.

No issues encountered.

7/10 for customer service.

Being involved in the HP partner program for many years and involved in a certified support team, I had access to higher levels of support team members which alleviated the hurdles that may be present at the bottom level support team members.

No previous solution used.

It does require a level of expertise to install/setup Quality Center. Doing it without any prior experience, could cause a delay in deployment, as well as unintended issues.

I was a consultant for a Fortune 500 company where we implemented this product not only in our own environment, but for our clients as well. I have implemented this product to over 50 companies since 2006, including top pharmaceutical, and medical device companies within the health and life sciences industry.

Understand what your company needs are, and how many users will need access. There are different licenses based on local, regional, and global access as needed as well as total amount of users. There is also licensing based at a modular level as well. Work with your HP Sales representative to get a pricing/licensing plan for your specific needs.

No other options were evaluated.

Do your research and talk to an expert regarding the product. Having demonstrations and trial access to the product helps with decision making. Understanding the requirements and your current environment helps guide the discussions with an expert. Understanding the limitations will also help.