We performed a comparison between Jira Align and OpenText ALM Octane based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Enterprise Agile Planning Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."In our workflow, we utilize a dashboard. Our product development backbone relies on two-week sprints. At the beginning of each sprint, we conduct a planning meeting to discuss and challenge the backlogs. Throughout the sprint, we conduct daily sessions to review code, ensure alignment with coding standards, and address any issues. Once all tasks are completed, we proceed with the deployment process."
"The OKR experience is great."
"The product has good visualization capabilities and helps to see the different dimensions of a plan."
"The most valuable feature of Jira Align is the overall team vision."
"In my previous experience, the Portfolio and Structure feature in Jira is really valuable because it assists with forecasting for projects."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"Jira Align helps us manage communication and tasks for a variety of teams without overlap."
"I found Confluence most valuable."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its ability to manage test scenarios, test results, and test automation, which are its primary functionalities."
"The most useful feature of Micro Focus ALM Octane is the dashboards, they are easy to use."
"We looked at all the market-leading tools, but we did not find anything quite as comprehensive as ALM Octane. When I say comprehensive, it's not just a single tool for Agile planning, backlog management release, sprint planning, etc., but it also has a built-in, comprehensive quality management module. It also has pipelines where we can hook up with our DevOps ecosystem/toolchain."
"The most valuable feature of Micro Focus ALM Octane is the reports. We are able to do customization."
"I like the fact that you can use it on top of Jira."
"An improvement on previous versions because it comes as preconfigured as possible."
"The key feature is the usability. It is fast to learn and easy to use. It's very intuitive to work with. Most of the important functions are available via a few clicks, compared to other tools where I have to open a sub-menu and then a sub-menu and another sub-menu, and then press a button."
"We are seeing some real improvements in the way we do things. We are becoming more agile in the way we do it because of that and in a way that stories are managed. Stories are given lifecycles as opposed to just being entities within a tool."
"Someone who is new to Jira or doesn't have many years of working experience in Jira Align gets easily lost because everything looks the same in the product."
"One area where Jira Align could improve is in its licensing model. There was a significant change in the licensing module about six months ago, which resulted in increased costs for customers like us. This change wasn't communicated clearly, and it made it challenging for companies to adopt Jira Align without facing higher expenses. In terms of features, I would like to see improved workflows in the next release, as that would greatly benefit our organization."
"Jira Align's setup process could be more straightforward, and they could make training and educational documentation more accessible."
"Jira Align fails to provide its users with a complete package in terms of portfolio management."
"There is no linkage between the Jira records and the overarching schedule. We maintain the overarching schedule in Microsoft Project, and there is no linkage back and forth with the Jira tasks. They are independent of each other."
"We have experienced errors with the internal server that occurs frequently."
"AI is utilized worldwide; they could implement the functionality for notifications and other organizational operations in the product."
"The workflows are scalable from portfolio to individual level but can sometimes be complex to navigate."
"It could use just some small improvements. I would like additional features, like planning features, user story mapping, or connection to collaboration tools."
"I think the area of release management in the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There are some challenges when we want to integrate the tool with other products, and it takes time for a team to figure out how to do it."
"When I manage projects that are being created in ALM, I have a standard template, but I don't have a template for them in Octane. I literally have to create the project from the ground up every time, which for an administrator, is a nightmare solution"
"Also, while there is a Requirements Module in Octane, it is very plain. It's okay to have some requirements described there, but it's not really following the whole BDD approach. I would like to have more features for requirements in there."
"Technical support can be slow."
"It would help us if ALM Octane got FedRAMP-certified, so our government departments could use the cloud solution. That way our external consultants could access it. We've created a URL to get to it, but if it were FedRAMP-certified and service and had support in the continental United States, that would be better."
"The cluster architecture that we implemented was server to server communication: Octane application to Elasticsearch and Elasticsearch to another Elasticsearch service. Recently, we found this is a security gap. The Octane application is interacting with Elasticsearch server, but that was missing from the requirements and prerequisites in the setup. The Micro Focus team has not given advice on how to implement authentication-based communication between Octane to Elasticsearch, and we found it as a gap later, then our security team asked us to fix that gap. So, there was a lot of time spent on rework."
Jira Align is ranked 3rd in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools with 37 reviews while OpenText ALM Octane is ranked 7th in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools with 38 reviews. Jira Align is rated 8.0, while OpenText ALM Octane is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Jira Align writes "Creates visibility, has lots of reports, and removes silos". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OpenText ALM Octane writes "Reporting engine, widgets, and dashboards are a huge plus, and powerful REST interface means we can interact with other tools". Jira Align is most compared with OpenText ValueEdge, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management, JIRA Portfolio, Planview AgilePlace and Microsoft Azure DevOps, whereas OpenText ALM Octane is most compared with Jira, OpenText ALM / Quality Center, Microsoft Azure DevOps, Rally Software and GitLab. See our Jira Align vs. OpenText ALM Octane report.
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