OpenText ALM / Quality Center Reviews

• End to End traceability (requirements- test cases- defects)
• Analytics (reporting, charts, dashboards, etc.)
• Ease of defect management
• Ease of email alerts, etc.

In my last organization we identified HP ALM as our strategic test management tool to standardize tool usage across the organization. Different business teams were using different tools like Bugzilla etc. but with the procurement of HP ALM everything was, eventually, standardized. By means of ALM we were able to deploy some testing standards and processes. Personally, I found ALM very handy for test managers and project managers as an entire project test life-cycle can be managed in one place and leadership get end-end visibility. I also like the reporting function in ALM, very useful.

Overall the user experience of HP ALM is very good, there are some small improvements which can help those who are doing defect triage and management, and also the actual testers who use a test lab. For instance, when I open the defect list using a report or dashboard drill down, I can’t update individual defect without actually opening it. However if I select a defect shortlisting criteria and get a list of matching defects from defect module (defect list view) I can very well update defect log without actually having to open the defect. This seems like a small thing but believe me, when you are dealing with multiple defects and have limited time on a defect triage call, this small functionality really makes your life easy. There a such few small enhancements which HP can probably do to make this wonderful tool even better.

I've used it for two years and three months.

Yes, some minor issues but these were not tool issues but more to do with lack of testing after deployment.

No, ALM is pretty stable.

Only once but that was because we reached the maximum floating license capacity at a particular time due to many testers from multiple projects logged in at the same time.

I have never had direct interaction with customer service.

I did not personally, but in my previous organization Bugzilla was used. ALM replaced it because it was a complete package, and also the company had bought other HP testing tools like UFT & PC to meet end to end testing needs.

I wasn’t the admin for ALM so can’t really comment, but from an user standpoint I found it pretty simple.

We had an in-house admin team.

I don’t know the ROI in monetary terms, but certainly ALM helped me get more people to follow testing standards and practices.

In my current company we have multiple tools. I am currently exploring various options to standardize the tool set up. Some of these tools are JIRA, and Bugtracker, etc.

If you want AN end to end testing lifecycle product, I think HP is the winner. It has test management (ALM), Automation (UFT) and Performance (PC) testing, and it all is in the bundled package from HP, so all end to end testing needs are managed. From a pure test management standpoint, ALM also stands tall as it provides a very good solution to manage requirements, test cases, defects, traceability and reports, and not just bug management.

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

Very robust API to interface with the tool and you can customize how its used. Maintains data integrity very well. Very customizable. Great for larger organizations.

Reporting is almost useless, but it does allow you to extract information directly from the database through a robust API and report with your favorite tool [excel, Crystal]. Not easy for lay people to administer.

Definitely support of the agile methodology is the most valuable feature. We have received a lot of feedback from our agile teams that the ALM.NET is not supporting their work and it was really great to see that ALM Octane is fulfilling those needs. But our development and testing teams are looking for the new agile and DevOps deliveries.

We see a double benefit because part of our business is still very legacy-type. We are running the mainframes, and so on, the old kind of solutions, where we pretty much see that, at least for the next year to two to maybe even three years, we will continue using the ALM.NET, as such, maybe even for the functional testing and the UFT, as such. But another team is quickly adopting the agile methodology and there we have hardly seen any validity at all on the Octane for over a year now. We started to implement it the first real project in NND Center, and see good results from that.

The new solutions that are soon coming for ALM Octane, such as predictivity and requirements management, are very welcome. Those have been missing from the existing solution. So far, we have been able to manage with the other alternative solution and integrations, but I am also really looking forward to that.

So far, we are very happy with stability, even though knowing that there is quite a lot of new development, especially for the ALM Octane. But so far, so good. I have nothing bad to say.

We are at a very early stage in implementing this solution. But at the moment it looks promising. Although, it is difficult to say how far it goes. But at least, so far, we have started.

So far, technical support is very good because we have been using HPE products, or the earlier Mercury products, for a long time. We have a quite good collaboration with them. From that kind of background and knowing our kind of working environment and solutions, together with their technical support and help, we have been able to implement these tools in the right way the first time, without trying to invent the wheel on our side.

Setup was pretty straightforward. Obviously, we kind of had a bit of discussion internally, because we didn't take a traditional migration from the earlier product. We really started from scratch. That is still somewhat an issue for some of the deliveries, that they don’t want to use the agile method. But we have highly recommended this because they are two different worlds and that it would be better to plan it carefully and not just carry on all the crap from history.

Our development teams are using a lot of open source solutions and other tools, such as JIRA. But, for our business needs and the business purposes, we have seen that HPE solutions are still valid for our business. We need to have backwards traceability. We have to have the capability to show what has been done, what's been going on, and what. In some of the cases, there has been the discussions that, "Yes. We have all this information, but you have to go to the Jenkins, or this and that logs, and it's there." But that's not what the business wants to see. They want to have a high-level visibility on their business. That is why we are still keeping the HPE products, and probably also in the future we'll have them.

It supports the full test management life cycle. We have other test management tools in place, such as JIRA and a couple others, but ALM provides the broadest coverage from project creation to death.

We have developers, project managers, stakeholders, everybody referring to one single point-of-truth for everything that is related to a project, from requirements, test cases, coverage, defect tracking, and reporting.

The client installation is sometimes quite painful. You need to register some components on the client that need administration rights, which is really tough on the organization. For each upgrade of the software, every minor upgrade, you need to reinstall the client, which means basically somebody needs to travel around and do the upgrades on each client. Basically, what we really would like to see would be a proper web client that has good coverage. There is a web client, but it only covers a very small part of the product, so you can't use it for the full life-cycle, and so we decided not to use the web client.

It deploys without issue.

For us, it's stable. We're happy with the stability.

We have no issues with scalability.

We have had a bit of trouble at times and, in all fairness, sometimes we felt quite left alone. We've approached technical support with real problems and either they referred us to "well, check it on some of the Internet based forums", or "look at the FAQ", or something like that. Also, we sometimes feel left alone. In the end, it turned out that we were better off sorting ourselves on some forum instead of contacting support and opening a ticket. We're in a quite agile environment and if a support call is stuck for 6 or 8 weeks, it doesn't help us.

We were using JIRA before and still are using JIRA. But that is only a section of coverage, so we needed something that has a broader coverage of the process, and the ALM was the choice.

ALM setup was pretty straightforward. We had standard problems like connecting to the active directory and making sure that the missions are set correctly and so on.

Make sure you have full acceptance of all involved or possibly involved groups. Make sure that your management supports it and everybody is happy to use the tool and happy to share a good level of information in the development life cycle. This is where, for us, the most benefit came out of it. If you have a defect, you can easily with a mouse click get the full information.

Workflow management is a feature we find valuable.

It provides us with common development and test workflow for defect management.

Linking between modules, with actual field values like those between defects and releases.

I've used it for over 10 years.

The desktop deployment causes issues when the enterprise has locked down PC. The application itself is hosted by HP (SaaS).

Very good, 99.9%

It scales to our needs.

Customer Service:

7/10 - it could be better, but usually it's good.

Technical Support:

8/10 - the TAM and team are very good.

No previous solution was used.

Straightforward, the only issue is doing patch updates as they touch the desktop client which makes it painful to update.

HP hosts the application with no issues, and a vendor does the desktop update. This desktop vendor is expensive and inflexible.

The tool has been in use for more than 10 years, the evaluation was back then and not known now.

Make sure your desktop team have the skills and expertise to handle Quality Center’s client components.

We provide support for customers, which require this kind of solution.

The setup is pretty straightforward.

The solution can scale.

I frankly don't recommend Micro Focus solutions. 

The support is not good and the documentation is not consistent. I even opened the issue to the partner. With the support not being great, we faced some stressful situations with the customer. That's why I'm looking for another partner.

I'd like to see more artificial intelligence and machine learning features implemented in future releases.

I've been using the solution for almost a year.

I realized there are some bugs in the solution that were not occurring on the last solution. 

Micro Focus bought another company. Since then, my experience hasn't been that great. The quality has dropped. It's not as stable as it used to be. I was expecting it to be more stable.

For the Quality Center, the scalability is quite good. On Load Runner, as a comparison, I faced one issue related to scalability. We face quite a few problems in that area.

The companies that are using Quality Center are quite sizeable. We have around 20 users on that particular solution.

The technical support is not helpful. They aren't responsive or knowledgable and they don't take initiative to solve issues for clients. It can hurt the relationship we have with our clients. We're not satisfied with their level of service.

While the setup is straightforward in general, the configuration is not quite as user-friendly. To configure the solution, you need to have many years of experience with the solution. Those that are new to it may face issues.

In terms of deployment, it takes about three days for the Quality Center installation as a whole. In contrast, Load Runner takes about two days in our case. 

We're a Micro Focus partner.

I'm not sure of which version of the solution we're using. We are configuring the company and we tend to use the latest version of labels.

We work with both cloud and on-premises deployment models.

I don't recommend Micro Focus tools. It's a very strong company nowadays, however, I'm trying to find another partner. For instance, I've researched solutions that are much better than Micro-Focus in SAP scenarios.

I'd advise users looking for a solution to pay attention to their requirements and make sure whichever solution they choose meets them. You'll need to do a lot of research and balance the pros and cons of each option before choosing anything.

Overall, I would rate the solution six out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud