Tricentis Tosca Reviews

For me there are three outstanding features:

The first one is the test case design feature. When using the feature in your project - I definitely recommend using it – it forces you to think about your test approach, and your overall test strategy. Using this feature you have to define valid and invalid states and conditions of your SUT from a business perspective (e.g. defining a valid age or a valid combination of two business properties). The tool helps you here by generating all necessary combinations automatically out of your prior definitions. You link them to a test case template and all the necessary combinations of your test cases are generated automatically. In most cases you need to adapt the generated test cases for the specific test case, but the fundamental work is done by the tool.

The second one is the simplicity of creating test cases and the underlying model based approach. The process of creating a test case is pretty straightforward. In case of a GUI application you “scan” the current screen of the SUT first. Afterwards all UI controls are displayed and you can choose the relevant one for your test. A representation of the screen – a module – is created and stored in a module folder. You can then simply drag and drop this module into your test case. In the test case, you select, for each UI control, an action e.g. “click” or a specific value. Afterwards, you can arrange the test cases in different execution lists, which are the representations of a test run from a business perspective (e.g. smoke test, regression test, etc.).

Overall, everything is reusable simply via drag and drop, and you will always have a single point of maintenance (e.g. in a future release of your SUT a button was added, you just need adapt the module. Linked test cases and execution lists are updated automatically).

The third one is the support of multiple UI technologies as well as non-UI technologies. In addition, there are (extra payable) features like mobile testing support and service virtualization capabilities.

The tool is meant to be an enterprise solution for automating software tests. The vendor has its own test philosophy and wants you to follow it. It tries to hide all technical information of the SUT and forces you to always look at your SUT from a business perspective.

The target audience are business domain experts and software testers without technical knowledge. This can be confusing for testers with a technical background who are used to scripting their way through the SUT.

Introducing the Tricentis Tosca Testsuite in a company goes ideally along with changing the whole business process of software test. I would say the company needs to adapt to the tool, and not the other way round, which is not always bad.

Though the tool claims to be an enterprise solution, it lacks some enterprise features. I would like to see a central management capability for admins, where you define initial workspaces, parametrize settings or update all clients centrally. Furthermore, the tool needs a real versioning functionality.

The out-of-the-box support for third party ALM tools must be improved. Embedding it in an existing application landscape often goes along with developing an adapter for third party components. In terms of extending the product from a technical viewpoint, the documentation for APIs is rare and incomplete. It definitely needs more code examples and a platform for developers.

The tool always gives the user one specific view where you create your test cases. This works perfectly for GUI applications, but not always for non-GUI applications. For instance, when defining test cases for web services, you have exactly the same layout as creating a test case for a Java application. Technology specific characteristics are somehow mapped into the existing view, which increases the complexity. Furthermore, the abstraction at non-GUI tests is not given as in GUI tests. You really need to have the technical understanding of web services or XML to create test cases, this runs counter to the target audience.

The test case design functionality is really complex, and tends to be rocket science, so this needs to be simplified. It goes along with the reporting functionality, when you want to create your own layout and customize the report. I didn’t really get it to work.

It would be nice to distribute test cases to different machines for parallel execution. Especially when it comes to mobile test or multi-browser test where the test case keeps the same but the underlying technical base changes.

I ‘ve been working with the Tricentis Tosca Testsuite for more than four years in the context of software test consultancy. I have a decent overview how the tool is used in different companies over several projects. I have gained experience in all functional areas of the tool. Furthermore, I have developed a lot of technical extensions to enhance the tools capabilities.

Overall I would rate the customer service as excellent. The support is available via email and phone 24/5 and is located in the headquarters of Tricentis. This means that the support staff is sitting next to the technical experts which, nowadays, is rare. You get a quick response that is often the solution for your problem. In case it is a more difficult inquiry, and is not solvable with first level support, you’ll be informed that your inquiry will be passed to an expert. Depending on the complexity, you can count on having a solution within one or two working days, which is pretty fair.

Furthermore the support team offers remote sessions, together with technical experts, to find a solution directly on your machine. The support is available in German and English.

On the downside, the community outside the Tosca support portal seems to be pretty small, or is nearly nonexistent. You hardly find solutions, or best practices, for a specific problem on the web. Other vendors have a more active community, and you can often simply Google a solution to the problem. In most cases with Tricentis, you need the support team or you have to contract on-site consultancy.

It depends on your environment and your company policy. Basically, you have three components: a license server, a database and the desktop application which needs to be installed on the same machine where the SUTis located. If you want to use the mobile and/or service virtualization feature you need additional components and preparations.

You will not find an official pricing list. You have to contact the local sales team.

The tool is a desktop application and comes with all advantages and disadvantages of a desktop application in terms of deployment and scalability.

There is a cloud version (TaaS), but this version is only suitable for manual tests and web tests. Web applications need to be publicly accessible within the cloud environment (so it is not suitable for internal testing environments). It would be a nice feature if the cloud version of Tricentis Tosca Testsuite is able to drive your locally installed application.

Do not buy this tool if you simply need a driver for your automation, as open source solutions (e.g. Selenium), or technology specific solutions are more suitable here. Also, if you are looking for a complete ALM solution, there are more capable tools out there. If you have a testing department full of techies, they will feel too restricted with the tool. It’s also not suitable for manual testing only, as there are better solutions for this purpose out there. But, if you have the plan to test multiple technologies, and your testing departments consists mainly of business domain experts or software tester with few technical background, and you are planning to introduce this tool as an enterprise solution and/or want to replace existing fragmented solutions, then it is worth evaluating it.

You definitely want to have a product training first prior to implementation, and you definitely want to have on-site consultancy while making your first steps with the tool. In most cases, you also need technical consultancy in cases the tool does not recognize UI controls.
Focus on a small prototype project first together with on-site consultancy. Take the learnings from that project, and do the next one on your own.

The company is a lot smaller than the top dogs, but they are compensating it with passion and a lot of new features in every release.

• Complete or partial test automation
• Methodology for reducing the number of test cases needed along with high risk coverage
• Easy way to prioritize requirements
• Ease of test case maintenance
• It can be used by people with no previous programming knowledge
• Agile

Test case automation and ease of test case maintenance through Tosca has reduced the manpower needed for testing, reducing the time needed for testing, and has thus saved money. Management of projects also got a lot easier.

• They could improve scanning of the applications under test
• Useful tips could be improved
• Better and graeter number of examples in manuals
• Reduced cost of licenses

I've used it since March 2014.

Sometimes it is a bit slow when the project is too big and too complex. If there are custom controls being used, sometimes a scanning of the system under test lasts longer than it should.

Medium to high. (always quick to response, but sometimes not that helpful).

Medium to high. (always quick to response, but sometimes not that helpful).

We previously used HP Application Lifecycle Management for manual testing. We chose to switch to Tosca because of the test case automation and it offers easier management.

Initial setup is pretty much straightforward, but the licenses need to be managed separately the after setup.

We implement it through an in-house team.

ROI is high because of the market that is switching more and more to agile, automated testing, and our company also develops add-on for Tosca.

There are four types of licenses available, and you should use one that best suits your resources and preconditions. Because of expensive licenses, if your company is new to the market, do not start a business using Tosca if you expect slow growth - use cheaper solutions instead, and switch to Tosca once you are overwhelmed with projects and work.

The test automation function is independent of the technology used by the drag & drop functionality.

The project that I used this product on did not have a professional test management approach within the test activities they had for their IT systems. That's why they implemented automated testing with Tosca Testsuite, and the manual effort got reduced. At the same time, the replication of test processes was raised by up to 100%. This made the bug analysis for their software development much easier.

There's not much. The release cycles of the vendor are much faster than what companies can implement. Sometimes, out of the box functionalities are reduced to reduce the tools complexity, but then customers do miss some functionalities they had in the past.

I've used it for two years.

Not part of my job, but during the upgrade our IT departmend faced several issues in the installation process of the new version.

Similar issues within the execution of automated tests occurred, but they were solved within the configuration settings and/or with the help of the vendor.

No issues encountered.

Best I have ever seen.

Best I have ever seen.

Not as part of this project, but I used HP Quality Center as a test tool before. I found it much easier to learn as Tosca Testsuite has been devleoped for users with a very good and intuitive user interface.

The main installation was already done when I started. The setup of work areas, and multi-user workspaces is very easy and straightforward. Different options are described very well in the user manual.

Not sure, but I think the basic installation was done by a vendor team.

It's hard to calculate because there is no base available to compare with. However, test automation and management setup can be done very fast, and it has lower real costs when compared to doing a manual test execution for three or four times.

The department did an evaluation between HP Quality Center and TOSCA before my assignment started. The main reasons for choosing Tosca Testsuite was its easier usability as well as lower costs.

Check the efforts of your manual testing per application every year, and then decide on what, and how, to automate. Usually there should be an ROI at the latest, after using Tosca Testsuite for two years.

• Test case design
• Shows results in the requirements section
• Manual test cases
• Automation

Test automation – how you can record the module. It’s already easier to record than it was, but there is still room for improvement.

UI has gotten better but could still be improved.

There are some keyword shortcuts in test case design and in general that could be introduced. Sometimes everything is too big – it’s hard to describe.

I've used it for four years.

Not so far because we only started automating now. So far we have not tried to move the existing project to a new version- we just started.

With the license stability, we have had a lot of issues. There were many interruptions to the connection and took two-three weeks and have installed the license ourselves.

We just started – it should be ok.

Quite good – they were trying to solve the problem.

It was ok. I have seen better. They tried to find solutions quickly so that is a plus, and they always called back when there was an appointment or said they would call back.

No previous version was used.

Straightforward – only problem was with the license server.

We looked at Ranorex and Eggplant. We decided to go with Testsuite because you can integrate manual test cases and you can see the reports in a nice way and see how the test case is going in the requirement section.

Tosca has made the non-programming engineers job easy. The concept is unique but indeed the tool is very powerful in analyzing the functional aspects of both standalone and browser applications. I had a very wonderful experience with Tosca.

We have one application based on tax calculations and the transactions are calculated based on an Excel formula. We have developed implementations regarding how to implement or automate the application, but with Tosca the predefined modules from the TBOX engine and standard engine made our job to calculate the transactions easier.

Its unique way of test data maintenance re-usability of test cases is fantastic. Also, the support agents from the portal always respond to queries in less than 10 secs, which is very well appreciated!!

I am very happy using the product and also whenever I have asked for remote sessions, the agents always agreed.

I would request that they develop some modules on the classic engine.

I have been using it for more than a year now.

I have never encountered any deployment issues. Tosca is very intelligent in the way they handle the issues.

Tosca is efficient.

I would rate customer service 10/10.

Technical support is 10/10.

I am new to automation and Tosca is my first product.

Intitial setup is straightforward

A vendor team implemented it and they were 9/10.

We have achieved complete ROI.

We were advised to use QTP, but because we are new to programming, Tosca was the best for us to adopt.

We've found TBox to be valuable for scanning applications and automating test cases. In newest version, time of scanning the application has been reduced immensely. Also, there is a lot of ways to identify controls that doesn't have unique IDs, and that process is more stable than before.

TOSCA is quite organized by itself, so it helps us do our job more efficient and quicker.

The ability to create more complex TestCases with "If" and "While" loops (now it provides IF, DO and WHILE statements, but they can't really be implemented the way we are used to use those loops).

I've used the latest version for about three to four months, though TOSCA in general for more than a year-and-a-half.

N/A

Some issues with stability, but those are minor errors. Some errors happen without obvious reasons, or they're not obvious to me yet.

N/A

N/A

Generally, the support is good, but they give too many generic answers. Sometimes the problem is more direct and it requires deeper and longer thinking. That could be a bit improved.

Something in the middle. It's not really for somebody who is not passionate about testing. It's great for somebody who thinks about all the aspects of the TestCase.

Great tool for testing, but only when used by an educated tester or by somebody who's gone through the whole course and had at least a little bit of practice. It's worth it.

We are using it for end-to-end automation. The performance is good. It's just that it doesn't support applications on the Mac. But overall it is good.

Helps decrease execution time.

We have multiple applications, and it supports parallel execution. It has mobile automation.

Making it more stable would be good because we get around 90% stability. It would be great if it were more stable.

It is scalable.

We do use it but it was better a year ago. Now, the turnaround time takes a little more time.

The upgrade I was involved in was complex. We had some issues with it.

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor are its technology and is it stable enough.

• Automation of regressive test cases
• Entering process and risk structures as basis for test design
• Entering logical test cases as basis for meaningful executable test cases
• Using the same test tool now as well for manual business testing

Improves the software quality in production by finding more defects with automated test sets, before transporting developments to production.

Reduces the effort for acceptance testing by business colleagues by

1. Reducing the effort for manual regressive tests and by
2. Providing better pre-tested software for business acceptance testing.

Reporting.

About 10 years.

Sometimes new features do not work as shown on slides, in the first release.

No.

Not now. In previous versions yes, for more than 10,000 test cases.

Nine out of 10, and now further improving.

Eight out of 10. Sometimes too (ITIL) process focused and too little content focused.

We used, and still use, our test tools depending on the test focus. But we switch to Tosca whenever respective functionalities are stable, usable in our tests.

Recent upgrade went smoothly. Upgrades have gotten better over time.

Upgrades are done in-house, new features are done with vendor.

We have used Tosca for a long time now. Recent new projects on Tosca have a ROI between one and two years. The cost driver is less the tool than the project effort.

Start with a test version.

Start with a pilot project, have Tricentis or a partner support the setup, pilots and extensions.

Tricentis is very good in communicating and sharing test best practices and often ahead in offering new trends in development and testing.