OpenText ALM / Quality Center Reviews

• Being a large SAP shop, having the ability to track individual issues to a defined release is a key function.
• We also use the tool for our performance testing and automation efforts, including the test library repository. These functions within the tool are easy to use and allow our internal user community simplicity in the needed access to these.
• Scalability is a must with our business and this tool has it.

It has a very large footprint, and takes an inordinate amount of time to load the components and seems to need to do this quite frequently. Also, with many of these tools, there is always room for improvement with the UI in terms of intuitiveness and functionality.

I've used it for five years.

Just the amount of time to install as well as the reinstall frequency.

No issues encountered.

No. Scalability is another key reason for using this tool as mentioned above.

Customer Service:

As with any big company, HP support is good but costly.

Technical Support:

I have not had to deal with them.

We really started using ALM about five years ago when our testing automation efforts kicked into high gear. Up until then, we were tracking testing using various other smaller tools.

Setup was straightforward once the needed hardware was defined and in place.

It was done in-house.

We have other tools with HP, so it's bundled in with these and hard to measure ROI specifically for one tool.

You need to negotiate with HP.

It's a great tool for a company looking to establish a scalable solution that will give you flexibility as you grow, BUT I would highly suggest you have individual(s) with the expertise to care for and feed it.

It has a good requirement management process, Test plan and Test Resource Management compare to other tools. It also has SLA Management which helps to decide the status of tests.

HP ALM integrates requirement management process, defect management process and it helps in smooth execution of Load testing process.

HP ALM UI needs some improvement. Sometimes changes are not saved correctly.

I have been using this product for close to 2 years.

None

None

None

Customer Service: Fair. It takes at least 2 days for support people to respond to ticket.Technical Support: Fair. It takes at least 2 days for support people to respond to ticket.

No. We have other HP Products like LoadRunner, Quality Center etc. So we wanted to have ALM which integrates seamlessly with these products.

Setup was straightforward.

Set up was implemented through a vendor team and the vendor team was very knowledgeable and helpful.

Having HP ALM has helped in streamlining the Performance testing projects and now management has a better view of the projects and their status. It also helped us in streamlining the work across various groups.

The infrastructure set up cost which included the server’s hardware, Agent Servers.

It's a good product and definitely can be considered in cases of large enterprise projects.

We primarily use the solution for test management.

The dashboard reporting is great.

It offers very good defect management, test planning, and execution. 

It's been stable so far. 

The product can scale. 

I'm looking at more towards something more from a DevOps perspective. For example, how to pull the DevOps ecosystem into the Micro Focus ALM. You have other different tools in the market which have more towards DevOps capabilities, like integration with pipelines, et cetera. I need more of that within Micro Focus ALM basically.

We could have higher quality technical support.

I've been using the solution for 15 years. 

We haven't had any issues with stability. It's reliable. The performance is good. There aren't any bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have found the product to be scalable. 

We have between 7,000 and 8,000 users right now. 

The technical support is average. We aren't unhappy with them. However, we don't find them to be exceptional. The quality of the response could be better. It's the first level of response that's the issue. They don't dig deep. They might read your something or ask questions unrelated to the underlying issues. They need people with good product knowledge even at level one support.

We've only ever used this solution. We did not use anything else previously. 

We have four admins that can maintain the product.

The initial setup is complex in terms of understanding everything and building up the infrastructure required for deploying it. Setting up all the infrastructure from the servers to the database, to load balancers can be difficult. Many things are there. It takes a good amount of knowledge actually to deploy it correctly.

Initially, the implementation was done by Micro Focus. After that, the four admins take of upgrading, et cetera. The initial implementation was done many years ago by Micro Focus, and thereafter it's all the admins who take care of everything else.

I don't handle any aspect of the pricing. 

I'm both a consultant and a user. I'm a Micro Focus partner.

It's all about what you need. If you really want to deploy a good test management tool, which gives benefits and helps you manage everything, and you're really serious about test management and application management, then go for it. If you just want a tool that takes care of something from testing an ALM, you're not as serious and likely don't need this. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

On-premises

Consolidate the testing process, centralised reporting, ease of analytics on metrics, easier bug management, consistent flow of requirements, flow of test cases, reusable test cases, testing history, bugs.

It has improved our organization as a result of several factors: All test assets are in one central location; Easier to track progress of QA activities; Easier reporting; Easier to assess quality

Requirements Management, Test Plan, Test Lab, Defect Management, Sprinter, Access control, Versioning and audit.

The project tracking is a bit complex. It takes some time to maneuver around it. It would also help if you could export some of the reports generated from it e.g. the Master Plan.

More than five years.

No

Can be used for really large organisations, multiple test projects

Customer Service:

Very responsive, though we haven't needed a lot of support.

Technical Support:

Technical Support has been helpful.

Initial setup was straightforward.

Vendor. The team was very qualified, both technically and from a user perspective.

We haven't yet computed the ROI.

Original cost was $158,000. Our day-to-day cost is difficult to compute, but it’s very low.

Yes, IBM - CLM.

It’s a great product for managing an end-to-end lifecycle process. It’s easy to use once you get the hang of it. One of the biggest pluses is having all your test assets in one place – requirements, models, test cases, test results, bugs, reporting, tracking (it’s unbeatable in my opinion).

It's also great that HP has now lowered the Saas cost for ALM - it was too high in my view.

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.

Less than one year.

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.

The biggest benefit is it’s a seamless way for demonstrating the validity of the testing effort from requirement: test planning, execution, and ultimately, reporting.

When I first arrived, everything was manual, no single process, etc. At this point, I set up a standard testing practice utilizing this tool for all testing. It allows for test management to be seen by senior leadership.

Reporting.

Over 15 years.

No.

No.

A seven out of 10.

Not relevant.

It could be complex depending on the setup. However, I have done this for a number of years and do not have any issues with it.

It is expensive.

Yes. Micro Focus, IBM Rational, and Spectra.

It is the standard upon which all products are gauged.

There are several features of ALM I found to be extremely valuable.

This question should actually be divided up. Several companies receive a different value add from different components of ALM. Some use it only for managing tests and defects and leave out requirements.

But just for sake of overall added value to me, the Test Planning and Lab portions are extremely valuable especially pertaining to a BPT license. Creating your core BPT components and mapping corner and edge test cases from that makes it easy to create regression test beds as well as facilitate Agile development. Also, if you are talking automation, the BPT component is critical in helping with the BPT test driven framework. Of course, the Defect module along with the Test Runners are key for execution and defect reporting. I love the ability to customize different attributes to defects in order to facilitate a specific release type.

ALM has driven some of the projects in my past organizations.

• It has established a sense of accountability with its traceability mechanisms that are unparalleled from a single system.
• It has allowed multiple stakeholders of a project to deliver fast, all simultaneously in an ALM system without having disparate sources of information.
• The automation has been a pride and joy as far as mapping requirements to BPT cases to automation.

• License costs are still staggeringly high.
• Implementation is a bit tedious as far as backend installation and configuration. Perhaps with 12.x it has become easier but there need to be more troubleshooting "tools" in order to do upgrades and better insightful dialog/windows/prompts for new installs. If I compare the feature set of the Requirements module to COTS tools such as Jama, it has room to improve in many areas.
• Also, with tools this large, the integration to automation can be bloated. There need to be a long term, sustainable solution to run much leaner.

We are using SaaS mode, connected with our internal LDAP

• Highly customizable GI, easy for designing product backlog
• Whole bunch of metrics on Dashboard page
• Available in French language (Paris based company)
• Built-in Retrospective
• Continuous integration features

• Transition to Agile for new projects is made eaier
• Tool helps people to get accustomed with Agile Scrum and Kanban concepts, specially for Product owners

• Lack of communication while unveiling new functionalities on Saas
• Licensing model is relatively expensive compared to alternate solutions
• License management could be more flexible (like floating licenses)

2 years

No

Excellent performance except few days in 2 years experience.

Easily scalable - we have 400 users using the same instance.

Customer Service:

Good interaction from support people.

Technical Support:

Excellent. The integration with our LDAP went very smooth.

Jira

Initial set-up in early 2013 was difficult as the product was new. PS did a good job in presenting the solution.

Very good and professional.

We had 2 months free trial and support from HP PS people.

Jira GreenHopper