OpenText ALM / Quality Center Reviews

We use ALM to record our testing results. Our company uses SAP, and during implementation, we perform implementation testing and utilize ALM to record the results.

It is a good tool for managing testing. We can easily download the data and manage profiles.

It is beneficial for managing testing data and has integration with Excel, allowing us to download reports easily.

There are cases where the system does not meet our reporting requirements. For example, only the first user can click 'run' during testing, and subsequent users have to click 'continue manual run', which can create reporting errors. Improvements are needed so that the system can continue running without creating a new run.

We have been using it since 2022. However, we do not use it frequently and only use it when we need to conduct testing.

It is stable. I would rate stability as eight out of ten.

It is quite scalable. I would rate it eight out of ten.

I have not contacted customer support yet.

Positive

I am not the person who set it up, so I am not aware of the setup process.

I manage the costs, so I don't know if it has saved money. However, the cost seems okay for my company.

We did not evaluate other ALM solutions.

It is a good tool for managing tests.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use all the major modules in ALM Quality Center. From the releases and management portion, we use the requirements, and we create our releases. We create requirements. We link our test spaces to these requirements and we schedule the execution in the test lab. Then we capture our results in Quality Center and we follow the management process that is not only for manual testing. 

We also have quite extensive automated testing in our environment with some of the other Micro Focus products. They are all integrated into Quality Center, like the UFT, we use service virtualization, we have RPA and we also use Mobile Center. Quality Center plays a major role in our test artifacts, our execution, and our order tracking, both in manual and automated.

Quality Center has improved my organization from a traceability and test coverage point of view. We have multiple vendors providing development to my company, Pick n Pay. If we use automation or Sprinter, the tool documents the steps for us as we follow it to the point that we've got a defect, so it's easy to send that information on to third parties so that they can duplicate the defect on their side and then provide us with a fix. 

The other thing is from a regression point of view, with everything documented in Quality Center, it's easy to go back and execute the same test every time with automation.

Quality Center's ability to connect all related entities to reflect project status and progress is great. This is the tool that we share with all our project managers so that they can see the progress on their projects, even if it's a project across multiple applications or what it is within our environment. We set it up so they can have an overall view of that specific project. It is a great tool to use in that sense.

The test center is our way of working. It's fully integrated, we have a test strategy that supports the use of ALM Quality Center. That's the only way that we track progress on projects. We don't use Excel or anything like that for creating test cases or anything. We also have an environment where we follow a more agile approach and we've integrated Quality Center into JIRA for user stories and defect tracking. If it's not in Quality Center, it's not happening. If it's not documented in Quality Center, we don't believe it.

I wouldn't necessarily say that in the beginning it reduced the time required for testing but if you start on an application and you had the four-quarter full version of that, reusability is automatically built into the tool. Then if you've documented the test case, you've got it. You can reuse that test case in multiple instances of releases at execution. You don't have to go and rewrite it if you plan correctly. If there's a change to something with the way you've structured in Quality Center it will filter through. So it brings our maintenance down by a lot less. Even on the automation side, it brings the maintenance down a lot less with the way we've structured our modules within Quality Center.

It has reduced it by around 15%. That's without automation, it's straight Quality Center. If you add the automation, in some of our areas like the digital area, it brought it down by about 45%. In some of the other areas by around 50%.

Quality Center enables us to conduct risk-based testing. Testing is always a measured approach in our environment. Depending on when development is finished and when we go live, we will do a risk-based approach to say that if we have a look at the critical requirements or test cases, this is how long it will take us. We then get sign-off from the systems analyst, the project manager, and even the business to say, based on the time we have, we're only going to execute critical test cases, for instance.

I'm not 100% sure if Micro Focus is still investing in the product. If I have a look at the features, not 15.01 because we still have to install that, but previously from Quality Center 11 up to where we are now, there are a few things that have been outstanding for a while that I believe will add value. And they're not really getting to that. So I'm not sure what their road map is. Unfortunately this year, the Micro Focus Universe was canceled in the Netherlands, because I'm sure there they would have shared some of the road maps with us, but I don't think the communication on their road map is clear enough to their customers.

The execution module and the test planning module are definitely the most valuable features. We use REST for traceability, but those are the two modules that I cannot live without.

From a test execution point of view or the test lab, from an audit requirement, we have internal and external auditors of the major projects that will do an audit on the project to make sure that we follow the right processes and procedures within the TCOE and within our STLC in Pick n Pay. It's easy to give auditors access to Quality Center as a viewer only and they can view everything we've done from test execution and test planning, as Quality Center keeps the audit trail for us.

In terms of its ability to handle a large number of projects and users in our enterprise environment, we have 17 dedicated testers and automation specialists in the test centers and plus or minus another 35 to 45 business users/developers or systems analysts that access the product. From a scalability point of view, we run multiple projects over multiple domains at any given time with everyone that's got access. Quality Center's ability to send out emails when you log defects makes it possible for someone that works over multiple projects to know exactly where to find the defect if they just follow the emails that go out.

We use Quality Center for all of our reporting purposes. We have dashboards that we've created across domains and projects. With all the information already available in Quality Center, it's quite easy to set up all of our reporting. Work management doesn't necessarily want to go into the details of the projects. It's easy for them to just access the dashboards that we create from information in Quality Center, with direct integration to see that. From a traceability point of view, it is a great product.

In terms of the security features, we don't do the LDEF or the active directory integration. We have a stand-alone solution. We can obviously set our own password. We don't enforce password rules at this stage, but going forward with security becoming more important in the company's life, we are going to follow and going to do the active directory integration. We have single sign-on to Quality Center, as it can handle that integration portion into the rest of the Pick n Pay landscape. We don't use SSO.

Browser support needs improvement. Currently, it can only run on IE, Internet Explorer. It doesn't work on Firefox, doesn't work on Chrome, doesn't work on a Mac. Those are the new technologies where most companies move towards. That's been outstanding for quite a while before it even became Micro Focus tools, when it was still HP. Even before HP, that's always been an issue.

Other smaller things need improvement. If you log a defect, you have the ability to upload attachments, but it will only allow you to add one attachment at a time. If you have ten screenshots, for instance, you have to do it one at a time. You can't go and highlight all ten and upload.

Finally, the biggest problem in our environment, and it's the reason we're not necessarily upgrading our solution every time, is when we do an upgrade or even install a patch, there are always changes to the UI. What it means is that we need to have local admin rights on our machine. The next time we log on, we unload all those components to our machine. Now in an environment like Pick n Pay, where not everyone can have local admin rights, it's quite a mission if we upgrade to go around and get to the 60 to 70 PCs or laptops that are impacted to get the users to log on or get IT support to log in with local admin rights to install the browser portion after an upgrade. There are a few .net downloads that need to happen on the browser side in IE and that takes some time.

I started using this product when it was still called Mercury Interactive, from 1997.

It's on-prem, hosted in a partner that is doing all our hosting. It's on-prem and we do our own administration.

The stability is great. I can't think of any time in the last three years where we had an issue with the product. 

Scalability is great. It doesn't matter what the size of your organization is. If your testing area is 5 users or 500 users, this product can definitely scale. Before I joined Pick n Pay, I worked for a company in Kazakhstan and Russia. We used Quality Center across different countries to roll out a big project and at the end, we had a 400-user license to have everyone following the same process when it came to testing.

We have 17 permanent users in Quality Center. They are testers. We have a test manager role. We have automation engineers. We have test analysts, we have senior testers and we have junior testers. We also have systems analysts that we log defects and assign it to them so that they can access the defects module to validate and update the side of the defect. We also integrate Quality Center with JIRA. We have our third-party development happening, where they use JIRA and we use Quality Center, where we can log the defects in Quality Center then via the integration then send it to JIRA. When they update, we get information back on our side so that we are on the same page. For us, Quality Center is the single tool in our environment. Whatever the status of the defect is in Quality Center, that's the status. Whatever the status is of execution of test cases, that's what it is.

In terms of the required maintenance, I have one system administrator for all the products and they're responsible for Quality Center. They make sure when we plan upgrades to do the upgrades, user management, project creation, and integration with the other Micro Focus tools we use. 

Our adoption rate is about 85-90%. There will always be room to grow.

We don't have plans to increase usage. We have plans to increase other things around Quality Center like test coverage, automation, and all of those things, but not necessarily new licenses or additional licenses. We have a base of licenses in our environment. As we get major projects with more resources, we do a rental on additional licenses for a three or six-month period.

I would rate their technical support a nine out of ten. 

Their support is quite good. There will always be room for improvement. I also know the local Micro Focus support in South Africa so it's easy for us to pick up the phone and phone the local support or the engineers in South Africa. The only room for improvement will be if you log a call and it's in a different time zone, sometimes there's a delay over three or four hours, but that's literally the only negative about it.

Even within Pick n Pay it is straightforward to do an upgrade. First, uninstall then install the new product or the new version, and if you keep to the same database server, it will pick up all your information and all the projects and everything you have. I've also been involved in areas where we run it via the load balancer and if you follow the documentation, it's quite easy to set up.

An upgrade does not take more than two hours. The initial setup might be a bit longer, about four hours, depending on if you have access to the right database server, if you have all the correct admin rights on the database server, and things like that. If you follow the steps in the installation guide before you start with the install, and you get that right, or get your users set up correctly on the DBA side, it's not a problem. It can take three to four hours.

We do the installation ourselves. I have a product administrator for all of the Micro Focus products in our environment who is doing all the administrative duties for us on all the Micro Focus products.

Regarding our implementation strategy, it becomes quite complex if you use other Micro Focus products as well. It's not as straightforward as just upgrading Quality Center. We use service virtualization and we use Mobile Center. For us, it's important that we follow the process to make sure that we're on the most recent releases of all products that can integrate. The integration portion of the Micro Focus documentation is quite important to us.

We've seen ROI plainly. We can do more projects. It's easier to do the maintenance. It might not be rands or dollars savings, but time-saving is definitely there.

From a pricing point of view, I believe it is an enterprise tool. If you are an enterprise organization and you're using SAP or Oracle for your ERP systems, for example, the cost around Quality Center is not that expensive. From a licensing and planning point of view, you should have a hybrid between licenses you own and depending on how busy you are at certain stages within projects, do additional rentals just for those periods if need be. That's what we do in our environment, we have a base of 15 licenses. If we have any major projects coming in where we know there are additional developers, we do a rental for licenses for the period of that project. We charge that project for the licenses for that rental.

We do have additional costs apart from standard licensing from our side. Pick n Pay outsources their hardware, so obviously we have costs for the hardware and backup for our hardware partners that do our hosting. We see this as a tier-one application in our environment. We have full disaster recovery capability. There some costs involved from that side.

Depending on your environment, the strong point for me with all of the Micro Focus tools is that it supports multiple applications and multiple development languages. It's easy to use one for everything in your environment. If you have a look at automation, if you have SAP and you have mobile, you can use the same tools. It's the same with Quality Center. It doesn't matter what you want to test, you can use the same tool to support that testing. 

Make sure that you plan the detail correctly and plan it to the sense that you know where you want to end up. Otherwise, maintenance becomes a nightmare on your dispatchers.

I would rate Micro Focus ALM Quality Center a nine out of ten.

I use the solution in my company for test management. In our company, we were creating and mapping our requirements with the scenarios. The tool is used to map defects with test cases for the traceability part. My company has made use of the complete application.

The tool's most valuable feature is that it is user-friendly, and everybody can learn to use it easily.

Recently, I faced some issues while using the product on Mac-based machines, as I was unable to upload test cases. The aforementioned feature is not available with the tool. I asked the management to provide a Windows-based machine to upload different tests.

I have been using OpenText ALM / Quality Center for three to four years. I am a user of the tool.

It is a stable solution.

Our company's customers had multiple teams, of which some operated from remote sites or the offshore side. In general, there are around 30 people using the product.

I have not contacted the tool's support team. My company's support team members had contacted the tool's technical team to help deal with the product's issue with Mac-based machines.

I haven't done anything regarding the installation since our company's clients manage it.

My company has only installed the product on our client's local machine, which was easy since the support team members assisted us. Everything was clearly mentioned on the tool's website.

The solution is deployed on the client servers.

I feel that the product is a good test management tool. I feel that everyone needs to use the application.

The deficit management capability has impacted the productive quality, and I feel it is a good feature. My company has used the tool to map the test cases. My company can find out which test cases are impacted by defects.

The reporting and the analytics functionality that the solution provides to users to help them make informed decisions is one of the good parts of the product, especially since it helps create reports and dashboards easily.

OpenText ALM / Quality Center is an easy application to use. Anybody who has experience with IT processes and the development side can easily use the product.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We started an SAP implementation about four years ago and it was selected as the test management tool at the time.

Prior to us using Micro Focus for this program, my company had been using a lot of manual testing. So we had to reproduce or find scripts over and over again. Quality Center enables us to have a single library where people can reference back as we go through multiple releases. We are able to bring non-SAP systems into the fold as well and increase their productivity as related to testing and compliance.

Having used the tool before, I like the use of parameters, being able to do exports and reports of the data for monitoring of executions, and the defect management as well. I feel satisfaction in that area.

It's really customizable, so I don't know if we're using it well enough, but with the way requirements are managed, there's no inherent workflow or statusing native to the application. Reviewed and not reviewed is the standard. I would like to see the ability to manage the requirements a little bit better.

There were multiple modules to the solution so the requirements can map to test scripts but it can't map to test steps. If you've got a process that's set up and you've got multiple test scripts that are in it, each script has to be linked to the requirement and the whole set can't be. If we're doing process-driven testing, it's more difficult to do it at the script level, which is what we're finding from a traceability perspective.

Having a way to connect requirements to test steps would be helpful.

I have been using Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for four years. 

The stability is very good. We haven't really had any major issues. We do have to go through the VPN just the way we have it set up in our network because we are using it within our network and not on the cloud.

Sometimes when we're in through the VPN, it runs a little bit slower, but I think that's just how all the networks connect. I don't think it's the tool.

It has huge scalability. It's been used for multiple applications that we support from large SAP programs to a smaller system. It can be used as a single release. One of the bigger issues is the licensing approach. They have concurrent usage and it's very expensive. They should offer - and we've asked and they've said no - an enterprise-type license where you're not paying every time you want to bring more people into the solution that you know you're going to go over your license count.

We have to buy more licenses and more maintenance. If we could have at one point an enterprise-type tiered license, that would be more appropriate to be able to scale it up even more. People are moving to DevOps for a little bit more of an Agile approach, as well as that it's free versus the cost of an ALM.

At the peak of the project, we had about 300 people using the license as concurrent users. We had everywhere from testers in India and people offering scripts and executing testing. We also have our business folks doing UAT and our technical teams doing our functional testing. Then we have obviously our quality organization going in and verifying the results. We also have our developers utilizing it for defect resolution. So during testing, a defect can be identified, and then we have a separate type of license that's only for the defect module that the developers go in and they can find a cause and put notes against it. There's the test management team and really the whole program at that point.

We have a light maintenance agreement with Micro Focus for the application, but it's primarily for our e-signature capability because that was custom code and we really haven't had any tickets against it, maybe once a year. And we have a certain amount of hours that were allotted. We actually use that for enhancements to our workflows, they help us build that out. We haven't really had any direct needs to go back to Micro Focus for support.

It's a quick turnaround. They have remote access to our environment, they've changed over points of contact on who our support person is seamlessly over the years. They notify us. They let us know and they send us monthly reports on any activity that usually is zeros for them. But when we have needed them, it's a quick turnaround. We've been satisfied.

I've worked with HP Quality Center at a prior job.

I wasn't involved with it when it was first implemented for the program. I've worked on it in past companies, but it was forced to fit into meeting minimum requirements. So now, we're actually in the process of evaluating best practice and integrations with other tools such as Solution Manager and ServiceNow.

We haven't calculated ROI but the time it would take to go through paper documentation versus digital is huge. I don't have any quantitative numbers on that. We also were able to enable automated testing using Micro Focuses UFT, which writes back to ALM for results. The time it takes to execute in itself has a return as well, but the time value is really on the UFT. The write back to ALM and to be able to document results in a single location is key.

Depending on the volume, the annual maintenance costs vary on a percentage but it's around $300 a year per license for maintenance. It's at 18% of the total cost of the license.

Make sure you have an ALM administrator, both technical as well as at the project level or at the application level available to support creating templates, doing a lot of the backend technical work administrative. If things do get blocked, you can push things through. So you do need two technical experts on staff to support the application.

The biggest lesson I have learned is that proper training and governance is not really the tool itself. It's how you use it. They pushed it in to satisfy a minimum goal. We utilized Parameters in our test scripts, but the testers then don't utilize them properly and then there's no governance that forces them to do it. Having the structure to support the application the way it's intended is really key.

I would rate it an eight (out of ten). Obviously there's always room for improvement, but it's an overall good tool.

We identified an object that was supposed to have a width of 30 characters, but instead had 100,000. No manual tester would have found it, forcing developers to take a second look at all objects which uncovered similar size issues.

While my experience tells me successful automation projects are at 70% coverage of manual test cases, we have been able to hit well into the 90% range of .Net automation with this tool.

So the first impression that hits me about HP UFT 14.0 (formerly QTP) is that it seems to be a whole lot faster! But that could be subjective, as I'm running it on a high end gaming system.

And my second impression was "Oh man, why does it still do THAT?"

Let's review the good stuff:

VBscript language -Easy to learn, surprisingly powerful and extendable.

What I will call the "PDM.DLL feature" provides a list view of any object property and methods at run-time from the code as well as the two other windows.

Built in Excel Datatables for Data-driven design

Revamped beautiful HTML results report with screen and movie capture

Terminal Emulator automation.

Modular design (through functions, ALM components and Flows)

Launch through Jenkins brings CI to the test automation development team.

Can leverage Windows API calls as well as custom AutoItScript for enhanced features.

The wide range of supported current and legacy web technologies, desktop apps, and WebServices testing is by far the most valuable feature.

Even in the case where technology is only partially supported, being able to customize out-of-the-box object methods is another time saver.

For example, we recently started to investigate automation of an AngularJS application. The problem was record/playback (UFT 12.54) did not work on it. However, the Object Spy correctly adds objects to the Object Repository. In addition Descriptive Programming worked from our custom framework. We had a basic login/navigate/verify Proof of Concept test operational with AngularJS Buttons, Links and Images quickly. Minor custom coding was required to override .Set methods of WebEdit objects, and more will be needed to support it's Angular WebTable objects. Totally doable for an experienced level team or user.

There are always new features and more support for new and legacy technology architectures with each release. But the bad news is a growing list of long-standing issues with the product rarely gets addressed. While I have a larger list of issues that make day to day work harder than it needs to be, these are the Top Five that I do wish would capture someone's attention in upcoming releases. All hit the tool's ROI pretty hard.

#1) Jump To Source - The Silent Code Killer: In older QTP versions a double-click on any function in the Toolbox window would take the developer to the function's source code, while a drag from the Toolbox would add it to the code window. Since 12.0 a double-click on a function in UFT's Toolbox window now ADDS the function (same as drag) to the Code window - to whatever random location the cursor happens to be at - even if it is off screen, and it will replace sections of code if it is highlighted. We are not sure what the intention was, but our Best Practice is to avoid the Toolbox window entirely to avoid the real danger of losing days of work and needless bug hunts.

Now Jump to Source is not all bad. A right-click on any function called from a Script takes us to the code source, which is great! But it only half works: in a Library, only for functions declared within the same library. Our advance designs have well over twelve libs so a whole lot of extra time is spent searching the entire project for a function's source on a daily basis.

Lastly, while we can add custom methods to object, a Jump To Source from these methods is long overdue. So again our only option is to search the entire project.

#2) Object Spy: It needs to have multiple instances so that you can compare multiple object properties side-by-side. It lacks a Refresh button, so that automation engineers can quickly identify the property changes of visible and invisible objects.

Or HP could skip to option #3...

#3) Add RegEx integer support for .Height or .Width object properties when retrieving object collections. If this were possible, our framework could return collections that contain only visible objects that have a .height property greater that zero. (Side Note: the .Visible property has not returned a False value for us in nearly five years - a recent developer decision, not a product issue) Eliminating the need to separate the non-visible objects from visible ones would decrease execution time dramatically. (Another side note: Our experiments to RegEx integer-based .Height properties found that we could get a collection of just invisible objects. Exactly the opposite of what we needed.)

#4) The shortcut to a treasure trove of sample code in the latest release 14.0 has been inexplicably removed. This impeeds new users from having an easy time learning the tool's advanced capability. In fact the only users daring enough to go find it now will be you who is reading this review.

#5) Forced Return to Script Code. This again is a no-brainer design flaw. Let's say we run a script and throw an error somewhere deep in our function library. Hey it happens. In prior QTP versions when the Stop button would be clicked the tool would leave you right there at the point where the error occurred to fix. Now in recent releases, UFT always takes us back to the main Script, far from that code area that needed immediate attention.

The product is surprisingly stable. For the flaws that I mention, if stability was an issue we would not have been using it for the better part of two decades.

The only time that the product gets unstable is when you try to do wicked advanced coding. For example, when you are trying to execute dynamic code strings with the Execute command that might not have been generated correctly. My years of experience tells me that if something is going flaky, then it's the developer's fault (me) and not the tool's fault.

Scalability is quick and easy implemented through a framework. Let's say we write a custom function

VerifyValue (oObj, sExpectedValue)

that can compare the expected value, string or integer, to an object's actual Value property. By adding the function as a .VerifyValue method to all WebEdit class object, the functionality is available to all current and future edit field objects regardless if they are in the repository or programmatic descriptions. And it is done with just a single line of code called RegisterUserFunc()

Now Let's say we now want to extend the verification to include value falls within an expected range? Add the code to the VerifyValue() function and all fields support the new functionality.

Scaling to new pages with new objects is not an issue either. The tool allows advanced users to design frameworks that can identify objects on the fly from "Plain English" descriptions ("OK LINK") without using the Object Repository. This may remind you of a Gherkin/Cucumber approach and the tool is certainly flexible enough to design just such a framework.

Orasi's technical support is an A+.

HPE's direct technical support is okay.

Having an issue getting UFT to work with your technology stack? Some versions of QTP used to include an oft overlooked document called the Product Availability Matrix (aka the PAM) telling users exactly which Technology version worked with HP's UFT tool versions. Unfortunately, due to a inexplicable "horse-and-cart" decision, HP has chosen to remove this document from UFT 14.0 install and provide access to it only AFTER users have purchased the product. So I have to buy it to learn how to make it work with my technology stack? Wait, what?

The install/uninstall of the updates are fast and easy. Many of the no-brainer configuration settings are set up correctly out-of-the-box. To be fair, we do have a 20-page document that walks through all the settings to check.

Sure, HP UFT is not free. But consider what you get for that cost: A stable product that is easy to use; the kitchen sink of technology stack support; decades of code (which in many cases actually is free); a version that is a stepping stone to an easier Selenium design; and a support base that is more that just the kindness of strangers.

Want to take UFT to another level for free? Add AutoItScript calls.

If Selenium is your thing then make it easy on yourself with LeanFT, aka UFT Pro. This gets you the easy object recognition of UFT, in Java, plus execution of concurrent test cases in multiple browsers which is a trick standard UFT does not do.

I am always downloading and evaluating other products. SmartBear TestComplete is the next closest option.

Take tool training by someone with years of experience.

HP, Orasi and RTTS all offer the level of training that gets you to the advanced state quickly.

And if you might be longing for the IDE toolset that Microsoft offers in Visual Studio, then look at Test Design Studio from Patterson Consulting to enhance your UFT toolbelt.

We primarily use Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for test management, including test case creation and execution, and we also use it for planning different test cycles during regression tests. We handpick the cases, plan different test cycles, and use Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for defect creation.

What I found most valuable in Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is the ease of use, especially compared to Micro Focus ALM Octane, that's more difficult because it doesn't have clear-cut options.

For example, in Micro Focus ALM Quality Center, creating test cases is easier because the solution allows writing in Excel. There was a template provided, so you can write on the template and upload it, which means you can quickly write and upload many cases at once, so that's the main advantage of Micro Focus ALM Quality Center.

Planning regression cycles on the tool was also easier because you could mark regression cases and handpick your planned cases for execution rather than pulling every case, which was more difficult.

An area for improvement in Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is not being able to update the Excel sheet where I wrote the test cases. I don't experience issues when writing and uploading new cases on the sheet. Still, whenever I update some test cases, I'm unsuccessful because there is overlapping data or some cases are missing from the sheet. Micro Focus needs to improve on that aspect.

What I'd like to see in the next Micro Focus ALM Quality Center release is more report formats, for example, a graphical reporting format. Right now, you'll find just one or two formats available in the tool for reporting.

Report preparation and generation should also be easier because I have to put in each parameter, and if I miss one parameter, the report will look weird. Pulling in parameters should be simplified and quicker, and it should be easier to generate reports on Micro Focus ALM Quality Center. Reporting in the tool should be more user-friendly. At least for day-to-day or regular weekly reporting.

At the end of the project, if you want a more sophisticated report, the tool should have a reporting option that looks more high-level and similar to what data warehouse and BI solutions provide. You can integrate Micro Focus ALM Quality Center with BI or data warehouse tools to get that kind of reporting, but it would be great if you could do it on the tool itself without needing to integrate it with other tools.

I want Micro Focus ALM Quality Center to have a report that shows data analytics, how many test cases I executed for a specific period, the percentage of tests that passed or failed, etc. There should be data available for extraction from year to year, from an overall project perspective, rather than just day-to-day or week-to-week.

I started using Micro Focus ALM Quality Center in 2017, so I've used it for five years. I'm still using the solution.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is pretty stable, so it's an eight out of ten for me. I've been using it for the last five years, and it's stable.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is a scalable product. It's a seven out of ten for me.

Most of the time, the technical support for Micro Focus ALM Quality Center was excellent. I only recalled a few times when it wasn't so great. I'd rate support as seven out of ten.

Neutral

Setting up Micro Focus ALM Quality Center was easy, so I'd rate it as eight.

In my project, I'm using Micro Focus ALM Quality Center version 12.5, but I'm checking if I can use Micro Focus ALM Octane because I have a trial version.

My rating for Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is eight out of ten.

I am using Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for test script preparation and test script execution and defect management. This will enable the programme to capture and store tests for easy re-usability for future deployments.

Have not yet rolled it out in the organisation

The most valuable feature of Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is the alignment of the test to the execution and the linking of the defects to the two. It automatically links any defects you have to the re-test. The re-usability of tests for future deployments is also very good. In addition the ability of automation tools to bolt on and utilise the test scripts located in ALM.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center should improve the reports. Reporting on test  execution progress against the plan. However, they might have improved over two years since I have used the solution.

I have been using Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for approximately 20 years. The solution was previously named Mercury Quality Centre and then Hewlett-Packard ALM.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is typically stable once it is set up.

The scalability of Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is good.

The support of Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is good.

Positive

The setup of Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is not easy. It is time-consuming and complex. There is a lot of work that needs to be done on the backend. I have already spent seven hours of my time and I have not completed it yet. I have another seven hours or more of evaluation and checking before I roll it out.

We implemented the solution using a vendor team. They have been supportive in explaining the new configuration and values and how they have changed since I used it last.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is very expensive. The price is approximately £2,000 per person, they are too expensive to corner the market.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is high on maintenance to start with. I have been using the solution for over 20 years and I am very familiar with it and have gained a lot of knowledge using this tool. For me, it is very easy to use. However, it's very difficult to train out because of the new features that they rolled out in the last five years. The features make it a bit more difficult to train out, and you need a lot of support to help people use the tool until they get familiar with it.

I rate Micro Focus ALM Quality Center a seven out of ten.

We were using Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for our test management for lots of products. I installed ALM myself, and we were using it for SAP deployment. We were using Requirement modules, Test Plan modules, Test Lab modules as well as the Defect modules in ALM. Not only for this product, but also for other companies like Cooper, Active, Delphi, Allegis and DLM for test management.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is a very good test management tool especially for writing test cases and uploading. You can even upload the test cycles from Excel. You get the defects and the reports, and also some automation using EFT which works with ALM. All these features are good.

In terms of places for improvement, Micro Focus is an expensive tool. We see nowadays that there are other products coming, and Micro Focus is more expensive and there are lots of license costs. Lots of companies are not taking it because of the cost.

It would be a good idea if they could deal with some user features and take a look at the cost. Because there is a lot of maintenance. People buy licenses and then every year they need to pay around 18% support charge, et cetera. It depends on the companies. Some rich companies buy it. Mid-level and smaller companies may have difficulties with this one.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is a very recent name. It really started back in 2000, almost 20 years before. This product belonged to Mercury Interactive. After that HP bought it. From HP, Micro Focus bought it. I have been working on this product for the last 20 years. Initially they called it TestDirector. After that it become Quality Center. Now it's ALM.

As far as performance is concerned, it is a very, very, very robust tool. It works. The only thing is the number of licenses. Because you buy licenses of 50, only 50 can concurrently use it. There could be 400 named users. 

It requires low maintenance, and the user creation is simple. If you want to quickly add any users, or if you want to quickly create a project, it is straightforward and easy.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is scalable in terms the database size and the repository. It has storage in two places; service level and at Windows level, the File System level. Lots of documents get stored in the Windows level, the File System level. So as long as you have good enough space, 100 GB or 150 GB is good enough. Only two limitation. One is licenses. The second is the server. So we usually recommend around 100 GB, 50 GB to 100 GB, which is enough.

We usually have 200 users using it. Usually, people buy a 50-user license but that could be used by 300 people, 300 users, because not everybody will be logging on at the same time. So scalability depends upon the license.

In terms of maintaining and deploying the updates, it does not take more than one person, probably not even that. I would say 1/4 person for this role. That person is a system admin. I used to do that, too. I was doing upgrades and configuring all myself. At the same time I was managing the actual deployment of the test phase.

This takes about one day a month.

Tech support handled most of the issues handled well, but not where there is a problem. Whenever we buy a product from Micro Focus we usually buy from Micro Focus directly. Or there are second sellers and we can buy from them, and they give you support. Whenever we have a problem, Micro Focus is very good at support. We log a ticket and they support it.

Initial setup is very easy. Usually there are two ways of doing it. We needed two servers; an app server and a database server. Usually Micro Focus, like other companies, installs it on their cloud or you can install it yourselves. It's not very difficult. I was doing that too.

When we have the ALM we can install it very quickly. It does not take much time, maybe three or four days. Once the system is ready we can pretty much install ALM and apply the license, which then deploys to users. Configuring is very easy. I was creating users and different groups, putting in lots of configuration.

Usually, whenever I work with the clients, I recommend ALM for the separate deployments and separate implementations because it's easy to use and good with those things. However, because of the cost there are some clients that cannot afford the high price, or can afford it but they don't want to pay that much.

As SAP Solution Managers, we try to use it. But people also use Jira. Jira has a very high level test management tool. So people who can't afford the price go with Jira.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is a good solution. On a scale of one to ten, I would give it a nine.