OpenText ALM / Quality Center Reviews

We use this solution for test management purposes. For sorting set cases, testing for possible defects, executions, and so on.

Defect management is very good. It's not a lightweight solution, you can do a lot of customization with respect to the workflow. It also definitely supports the waterfall model.

Only Internet Explorer is supported. That is a big problem. They don't support Chrome and Firefox and so on.

The browser limitation is the biggest problem —  nobody wants to use IE in this world.

The browser issue is a big deal because it doesn't work on Mac. That's a game-changer, but now, I assume they have come up with a giant tool, ALM Octane.

It would be great if they brought the waterfall model with ALM Octane, or created a new interface as such. 

I have been using ALM for roughly 10 years.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is a very stable solution.

The technology itself is a little outdated — previous generation technology. Patching and other things can be a little difficult. 

It's also very scalable.

Regarding technical support, one word comes to mind: terrible.

I don't expect everybody to know everything, but there have been instances when I had to tell them the answer and they'll tell it back to me; however, of course, there are some knowledgeable people working there too. Sometimes it's very good, sometimes it's very bad — there is no in-between.

The initial setup was a little complex. For example, compared to installing Oracle applications, ALM is straightforward and easy.

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is very expensive. Personally, I think that it's too expensive, but I don't have another tool to compare it to.

For anyone who supports the waterfall model, this is a great tool. I would not say that it's not a good tool. It is a great tool for managing processes and tests. It's very stable, but you will see some glitches here and there — that's inevitable. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give ALM a rating of seven.

I use 80 to 90 percent of the product's features. 

• It has a good response time.
• The AI and functionality interface are useful. 
• The task management reporting has a lot of out-of-the box uses.

Certain features are lousy. Those features can drag the whole server down. There are times that the complex SQL queries are not easy to do within this solution. 

Micro Focus ALM needs to bring the features of this ALM into the newer version of Octane. 

ALM can scale and is very impressive. It can support thousands of users with a very low amount of resources. It can easily manage very big projects within thousands of people at a time. It allows and disables scale, supporting front-end operations and task management at different levels. 

The initial setup is quite easy, if you know what you are doing. 

It allows us to keep our costs low. I do not want to pay beyond a certain point for this solution.

All the modules that we have in ALM, one of them is the test module. No better tool in the market than ALM because the foundation is what you see, it's been in the market for so long. I really like the test module.

But it's not only limited to the test module. It is the entire application that's a management tool. So we use it for requirements as well. And the link is between your requirements and your test waves and test plans, and everything is in there. So it's a pretty good tool.

If you don't use any tool to manage your application people will - like some teams we have who use Microsoft Word documents to do their requirements, and Excel sheets to plan their test cases, and write the test case and then execute and store it. In the long run, that is not going to be helpful because this is a structured way of exhibiting your development. That is what had been missed.

So when we started using ALM in our organization - we'd been using QC for so long - when we finally started using ALM and we tied the requirements module to the testing module, that definitely benefited. It's because we can show a lot of data in there and now we can link to some 15 years of back data. Most of the applications are there from so long, so we still need to do the core functionality test. But we don't need to redesign and we don't need to search for Excel sheets. We know exactly who ran it, when they ran it, how the execution happened.

We do have some suggestions on reporting. Most of the time we need to download data and then we create reports ourselves. If there was a little bit better reporting available that would be great. The reporting is the one thing that we definitely want them to do more on.

Yes and no. Once in a while we'll have some bugs and they will fix them, but other than that it's pretty stable.

We have assessed ALM right now to be pretty stable. I don't see too many things that are missing in ALM right now.

Scalability is good. So far we have not had any issues with scalability. For the last three years we were using it as SaaS. Before that, for a while we had on-prem, but after moving to SaaS we have never had any problems. We run around 300 projects, we have about 100 projects which are light. We've got, at most, 100 users at any given time.

We've used it multiple times. One of the reasons is the SAP tab. There is this plug-in that connects with SAP, and whenever we do an upgrade or something we need to test with the SAP tab, and the software has been very helpful in doing that.

I already know the response that we get from support. We have a dedicated CSO who engages whenever we need something, when we sat we need this report, we need that data, then he will definitely immediately give us that.

No. It's been there about three years. I wasn't part of the team at that time.

If you are using ALM, you had best educate your users to use the entire solution, not only the testing module or not only requirements module, because you will have way more benefit using the entire tool. It is designed to supplement the entire lifecycle and will definitely improve your productivity and traceability. If you use bits and pieces of the tool then the whole intention of developing the tool is not fully utilized. So use entire module, all the modules in ALM.

We are using ALM especially in business process testings because this solution helps us to connect the business mindset with our business analytics and the IT perspective. When we ran several years ago classical tests business did not understand the quality of our application. When we began to talk with the business process, it helped improve communication between business and IT.

The business value from Octane has benefited us. We see that it can combine all third parties together, free software, integrate all tools together, and create a single pipeline for development.

The previous version of ALM had a greater functionality regarding test cases. Not automatic, BBT and so on, but now in ALM Octane we have only manual testing and integration with other tools.

I think we need to increase functionality to help us to run testing. When we run the ALM project so I think I can give it a better score after we assess our experience.

Stability is OK as we installed the superior version, and now we are in our testing environment. We are investigating the process how best to use it. I heard that we can download a new version and I think after this conference we can begin our pilot project for the real team because we have several areas for implementing developments and several comments.

We have 10,000 employees. There is a huge IT staff so we need tools that can help us to collaborate with each other.

We have used HP technical support for resolving cases and we also asked help from Presales in HP Russia. These guys resolved our problems and helped us to install ALM Octane in our environment.

When we installed it we had a problem because it's running on Linux and we needed to create our infrastructure for installing Linux which was a big problem. The previous version of ALM was working on Windows. But we resolved these problems.

It provides a central repository for all our testing artifacts and documentation. We use it not only to keep everything centrally housed, but it is also great for answering audits. That is our biggest use of this product.

Centralization of our testing artifacts is probably the biggest benefit. We have a disjointed arena with a lot of different legacy applications and new applications that are being built. We need a central house to store all our procedures, documents etc. and ALM is the tool for doing all that.

It provides a streamlined and consistent approach. One that is repeatable. In today's fast paced IT world, these things are definitely necessary.

We're starting to move more into a microservices enablement world. Using other products and being able to integrate with Docker etc. is going to be key for us. That's one of the reasons why I attended this conference, is to learn a little bit more about how HPE can help us with the integration of those tools.

We have had no stability issues. It is very reliable.

It's handling everything we've asked it to do so I don't have any issues with scalability. It could probably do 10 times more than what it's doing for us.

Other than professional services, we haven't used any technical support.

Initially, we were using other products but HPE acquired a couple of those companies. Now with the recent movement towards pushing their software out to Micro Focus that may change a little bit of the relationship we have with HPE. That's another reason why I attended the conference, is to understand a bit more about how that relationship will evolve.

It was initially setup within my organization but I didn't really have any hands-on involvement with it. Our direct teams were involved in this process. Based on the staff that we have today, it was very straightforward and very easy to do. Then again, we've got people who had experience with the tool so they've done it before.

HPE has a great suite or had a great suite in their software department and everything integrates very well. For those who are looking at HPE or now Micro Focus in terms of their software, I would advise them to consider interoperability of all the capabilities. That is the key for speed and implementation as opposed to feature functions. One of the things that we've found with the HPE suite is that the interoperability is hands-down second to none.

It's 100% reliable to us. It provides us everything we need. It's scalable, flexible, centralized and also integrates well. What more could you ask for?

The most important criteria while selecting a vendor are partnership, value, capability and flexibility. We've partnered up with HPE for years and we enjoy all those different aspects with them.

• Ability to link a test case to a defect which increases traceability
• Ability to log a defect and link similar defects to that one defect. Great for not logging repetitive defects
• The content of the test case parameters (Actual, Expected Results etc) are pulled on the defect which nullifies retyping
• Ability to manage more than one project site at a go
• Reporting structure can be done using a self generated graph. Makes reports look professional even if the user is not completely clued up on ways to report.

1. When I started testing we used to test from SharePoint. This was good for the time being but it lacked a lot in terms of design and the priority of defects was not up to standard. There was no sight of show-stoppers and nobody would know of them unless it is communicated with the relevant people. As opposed to Quality Center where it is highlighted in a form of “level of severity” by putting a scale of low, medium and high
2. In Quality Center one is able to attach a screen print as proof of testing.

• GUI colours not that great
• On the defect site, when one adds a comment, anybody who has access to the same defect can change the initial comment. It would be great if the defect comments would not be editable.

I've never done a deployment.

Our organisation did not have any issues with the stability of this tool.

We were able to have a lot of users logged in at the same time with no lag time or any scalability related issues.

You should invest in Quality Center if you are looking for the following :

• High visibility of project progress
• If you cannot afford automation. or are not completely convinced but want to speed up their testing efforts, you can look into getting a Quality Center/ALM plug-in called Sprinter. A very good testing tool that is worth trying out.
• If you want a quick and smooth transition from manual testing into automation. Its smooth because HP holds your hand until your team is able to execute QTP independently. They are also available to see you through any technically difficulties.

We've primarily used most of the solution. Our requirements included test cases and defect handling in the past. We are using it for regression testing and maintenance of test cases to do regression testing when we are upgrading the system.

The solution acts as a repository of all of our test cases, which is very useful. We don't normally check the history as the environment has changed since the last time we ran a test. We know that we've executed the test and therefore don't need to repeat it. We understand what kinds of issues have occurred for future reference. 

It is stable and reliable.

The solution can scale.

Between versions 12 or 13 and the upgrade to 15, it took a very long time. We had a lot of difficulties with support and didn't understand why we had so many upgrade issues. 

We operate in Sweden, and there are not so many Swedish people that know the product. 

It might be end of life in some ways. 

The pricing can be a bit expensive. 

I've been using the solution for more than ten years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. We haven't had any issues aside from the upgrade problems we've run into. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have not had a problem adding users to help perform testing. In that sense, it is scalable. We haven't done too much development around test cases, however.

Right now, we have 20 to 25 people using the solution. Years ago, 30 or 40 people were using it. We've actually lowered usage. 

Support wasn't too helpful when we had to do an upgrade. The website is complex, and it's difficult to get answers. You can look online, and that ends up being more efficient than actually trying to find answers is Micros Focus. 

We had issues finding support.

Neutral

It's not a big deal to upgrade the version we have. We've had issues in the past, however. We've had problems with user handling and would like to incorporate it with Windows Director or SSO functionality. That's available in later versions, and we haven't upgraded to that yet.

We started with an empty ALM originally and filled it with content. It's been a long, historic journey from implementation to upgrades. 

I am not aware of the exact pricing of the solution. Many years ago, it was quite expensive, and my understanding is it is still not a low price. There are free tools on the market now as well, and therefore the price may be an issue. 

We are an end-user.

I might be using version 15 at this time. We've done a test installation of version 17.

When we started the test automization, it was not like today. It's gotten better over time. Now, it's much easier to automate testing. While I could recommend the solution, it's not necessarily state-of-the-art, however. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. Although it is not state-of-the-art, it is still a good tool. 

We have it deployed in our Data Center and it integrates with it to write a custom application on it. You have to use a sole technology, which is risky. It takes more advanced developers than someone who does JavaScript and makes web pages.

Micro Focus is selling two test management solutions, ALM/Quality Center and ALM Octane, TM, which are identical, except ones built on newer technology

The user interface is fully web-capable. It's a website, and it runs on a browser.

I like that it integrates with the Jira solutions. Similar to SmartBear TestComplete, and another solution, where they add test management into Jira. 

All of them use the same data model. You basically have a release, a cycle, and then you have requirements, you attach those to the cycle, then you have tests, and test sets made of tests. It's all the exact same thing. They got it right because everyone has copied it.

ALM is a dated application, and I am researching to see what other solutions are available.

We would like to upgrade to be more modern.

If you want to extend it, they use ActiveX which was put into a browser to go to the internet, but it never had security built into it. It is what Microsoft Office is based on.

It hasn't kept up, while others have and are adding new features and tools.

I would like to be able to use free keyword searches, where you're not just limited to SQL queries.

The software gets leapfrogged because you make a lot of investment in building something. You're selling it for five years, and meanwhile, all of the other tools are improving. Another vendor comes along to make the same thing that took you three years to build, he built it in six months.

It's all easier to make. It's always a cycle. I just look around to see where we are at in that cycle with test management software.

I would like to be able to search easier, not just do SQL queries, being able to do free keyword searches on the data. That's valuable.

I have been working with Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for a decade.

We are using the latest version.

The stability of this solution is good. We never experienced any issues with bugs, glitches, or any crashes.

We have not issues with the scalability of Micro Focus ALM Quality Center. It is a scalable product.

In a given day, we have 50 persistent users, then another day you may have 75 to 100 people with 30 users who are testers.

We have a contractor who supports us. The company's technical support, and it all goes through them. They are the middleman to us. They are on our site, and they run it.

I was not involved in the initial setup. It was set up by other people.

When I look back to four or five years ago, it would have been rated a 10, but now I think that it has 's probably fallen back to a six or a seven out of ten. I would rate Micros Focus ALM Quality a six out of ten.

I think if you look at the Gartner Magic Quadrant Reports, it pretty much indicates that as well.