OpenText ALM / Quality Center Reviews

We use this solution for model testing and as a central location for the test case responses and some test automation.

Central test locations are a benefit. The ability to integrate this solution with other applications is helpful. If there is automation, it comes with improved quality and speed.

This solution is open and very easy to integrate. The interface is good too.

There needs to be improvement in the requirement samples. At the moment, they are very basic.

They could also improve the usability.

I find the system very stable. There is very little downtime.

This solution is scalable. There is the ability to draw on the different platforms, especially with ALM Octane. However, I am more interested in the new hard platforms, so more of a container platform or solution. This is on their roadmap in the next three years, so at least there is a plan for it.

It is very good. We are located in Germany, and they have a service partner here. The fix given to us depends on the complexity of the problem, but usually we get answers within a day.

If someone is researching solutions, they should know that this solution is stable, centralized, and scalable. If they need integration, then this is the tool to use.

When selecting a vendor, some important criteria are availability, knowledge, price, and the site where they are getting the product. For example, if we have people doing a project as a team, then it is best if the solution can work in different languages, like German and English.

It is a complete AQM suite: single repository for tests, requirements, defects, etc. 

• It provides visibility on release status and readiness. 
• It allows us to easily make linkage and dependencies, with plenty of integrations.

• Test management
• Requirements management
• Defects

• Pure-FTPd WebUI
• Single sign-on

Our primary use case is for regression testing.

We use Micro Focus products together to improve organizational SLAs.

Lab Management is a valuable feature, because you have a 360 view.

The QA needs improvement.

Our current environment is ALM QC 12.53 and for performance testing ALM PC 12.53, Vugen 12.53, and UFT 14.

Micro Focus Quality Center helps in end-to-end traceability from releases to requirements to test cases and with defects. The enhanced dashboards capabilities are useful for senior management to view the progress of releases under the portfolio in one go and also drill down to the graphs.

The Project Templates and Enhanced Reporting features are the most useful. We have created domains as per the business units, and per business units, there is one template. It becomes easy to manage the template at business unit level. By standardizing our template, we publish reports at the business unit level.

• Easy integration with open source tools. 
• It has several limitations in adapting its agility easily. 

I feel that the licenses are expensive. 

The ability to show end-to-end tractability between requirements, tests, defects, and also reporting.

Allows us to have a single source of truth for our test efforts.

The reporting could be a little more robust.

I have used this version since June 2015. However, I have used this product since 1999, when it was Test Director 6.0.

Very infrequently.

Not so far, no.

A seven out of 10.

No. We have used Quality Center/ALM since I joined this organization.

A little complex as it pertains to migrating databases, then manually linking them back up to the file repositories.

In my current role, I don't advise anyone about pricing and licensing for this product.

This product was already in-house when I joined my company.

If you go the on-premise route, make sure your system architects and DBAs thoroughly review the installation/upgrade guide. I would also advise establishing a "center of excellence" department which can help build template projects and enforce standards so the users are all using similarly configured projects.

As a system administrator, HPE ALM can be flexibly configured so that it can accommodate a variety of defined project lifecycles and test methodologies. As a project user, HPE ALM can provide a logical approach in conducting comprehensive test planning, execution, and defect management.

My organization uses HPE ALM to track the progress of testing and quality assurance efforts across projects that we are formally engaged in. The product has provided my team with metrics that provide various insights into the management and delivery of projects with respect to documented business needs.

HPE ALM’s out-of-the-box reporting can be perceived as rigid and limited, to an extent. Knowledge of HPE ALM’s data model is important when setting up certain reports, and can be challenging depending on reporting requirements. Even so, these reports may not translate into appropriate insights that will provide value to a project or management team. The performance of the product may also be a concern, depending on the amount of active connections and data processing that it has to conduct at any given moment.

Four years.

HPE ALM is relatively stable, especially with more recent versions (12.5X). However, it is important to consider utilization frequency of HPE ALM at any given time and ensure that hosted application/database servers are configured to handle resource-intensive transactions to minimize performance/availability/data integrity issues. Micro Focus has published certified/supported configurations for running HPE ALM servers and client computing devices.

In general, HPE ALM has the potential to be very scalable from both a feature and usage perspective. HPE ALM has the capability to create project templates which may then be linked and applied to different projects. The solution also allows for customizations to be applied by individual project. However, an organization must exercise discipline in applying consistent processes to manage and govern any projects which use HPE ALM, to avoid data/information management problems.

HPE’s technical support services are fair but leave a lot to be desired. An alternative to the direct HPE offering would be to pursue outside, well-known, thirrd-party professional support services that have extensive knowledge in HPE ALM and associated tools.

No, I have not used a different solution in the past.

Initial setup of HPE ALM is relatively easy. However, it does become more complex when the product must be configured to meet company needs and compliance policies. This includes site configuration parameters, migrating existing projects from a previous version, securing access, and implementing integration to other HPE products such as HPE Performance Center. Many of these considerations are documented within the HPE ALM Installation and Upgrade Guide.

It appears that most companies choose HPE Quality Center Enterprise or HPE ALM. HPE ALM contains everything included with Quality Center Enterprise, and further adds features focused on cross-project customization, planning, and tracking.

Seat and concurrent licensing models exist; the latter is recommended if a large number of different users will be utilizing the product. There is also the option of utilizing HPE ALM/Quality Center Enterprise as hosted on HPE’s SaaS platform.

This product was already chosen from a historical perspective. Although some high-level research around alternative solutions (Helix/TestTrack, Microsoft) was performed, none of them seem to be as comprehensive or as well suited towards satisfying existing needs.

HPE ALM is a relevant product that assists with test delivery, execution, and management within a project-driven environment. I would recommend others to check out the HPE ALM Help Center and product pages for additional information before making a decision.

We mostly use the Defect module and then Test Plan, Test Lab. But if you ask about the most valuable feature it is the customization of any action in the ALM client. We can customize any action, window, or workflow of not only the Defect workflow but also any other entity. There is no other tool that can do it in such a way.

The testing methodology we use means we do not need any other tool for requirements, testing and so on.

• Dashboard complexity
• Quick generation (for many entities the reports are very slow)
• Test Lab is very complex, it should be simpler

We used it for more than 10 years (from version 8 as Test Director from Mercury).

The clients, of course, are not stable, but it is acceptable.

Scalability is not a problem at this time because the hardware is better than the software needs.

Technical support is good.

Yes, we used Rational ClearQuest. It was very customizable too but it was old and tough and we need a better and more elegant solution.

Initial setup is very simple, but the upgrade on Linux is impossible so we moved to Windows.

Pricing is very big, so it's good is to negotiate with its vendors. The solution is not so important and should not cost so much.

Yes, we evaluated three other options but it was about 10 years ago and it is not relevant now to specify them here. The other options also have very good solutions.

Do the simple implementation, do not customize it because you will have more problems.

It gives me the ease of putting together the requirements, test cases, the release test schedules, and executing the test. It can generate the reports for each and every release that we need, and it's quick and easy enough to generate reports.

We have multiple teams across the globe where we have multiple projects set up in ALM. One project is used by our team in Israel and our other project is used by a team in Atlanta. We have a centralized control or multiple projects going across the globe. So that's a good benefit for us.

We actually use Performance Center, too. Where what we need is: When we run any test to the Performance Center, the results are stored in ALM, too. But what happens instead, the results show a summary report in HTML or a .zip file. But if there was a way in the test lab for ALM, after running any Performance Center test, that the the results could be published in the test lab itself instead of going and opening the particular result (if it shows all the response time and whatever transactional data that we have) in the ALM lab itself, that would be beneficial for us.

Also, on and off, we have had some issues with the operation itself where the operation is not able to run the test or something. We have to go back and forth with the vendor and HPE (now Micro Focus) to get this resolved.

For the last 10 years.

For ALM, we didn't have any specific downtime crashes, but we have had some issues with the database connection. The internal database where we put in the ALM data might crash or the database connection is lost. That's where we noticed some issues.

Whatever version of ALM that we have, it is more than enough for what we have right now. In terms of scaling, I can say it will go beyond four to five years from now.

For any of the operators, the support is extremely useful. It's great, actually. They are always available on-time.

It's straightforward to operate, but you actually need to get involved with the concerning vendors when you need their support.

We cannot just go download anything from online and put it. We need some support from the concerning team to make sure everything is right.