OpenText ALM / Quality Center Other Advice

Ajit Kumar Rout - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Quality Assurance Engineer at Wabtec Industrial

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. It is a pretty good tool. 

It's not a simple tool, but it does have a lot of features and considerations. It really depends on the level of the user. For example, some users will be working on the test execution, while senior levels will be tracking the requirement analysis. I work with both levels to track progress. So, it's a tool that can be used by people at all levels of experience.

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MR
Quality Lead at Vodafone

We are happy. It is a good product. We have benefited from the tool and recommend it. We have received very good feedback regarding its use. From a user perspective, the ability to create test cases and manage defects is excellent.

We are planning to integrate automation with Micro Focus ALM. This is in development. 

We are doing risk-based testing using manual generation of the script, then uploading it.

To use the flexibility feature from a requirement to my test cases and get the benefit of traceability per the SDLC process, I would need to keep and map all my requirements. It is on the user whether they are using this feature or not. While I know this feature is there, we are currently not using it. We are manually managing traceability. We are preparing and keeping all our test cases in Excel. When the test cases have built up, we are manually mapping them based on our requirements.

We are not currently using mapping test cases. This is a feature of ALM that would allow us to map our requirements, solutions, and everything the test misses. We had a call with the Micro Focus technical team regarding this and about how we can use other features. 

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Robertino Catalin Ionescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Department Manager of Testing Automation Centre at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is one of the best tools on the market.

I strongly recommend using Micro Focus ALM Quality Center to capitalize on the work that is done within the tool for future activities, such as regression testing and training. Unlike working with Excel or Word documents, the work you do in this tool remains accessible and secure, with the option for backups. It's no surprise that many business professionals are using this tool, as it provides a reliable and efficient platform to work on. With a small amount of training and induction in key areas like the test lab and defects module, anyone can work effectively within this tool.

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

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Buyer's Guide
OpenText ALM / Quality Center
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about OpenText ALM / Quality Center. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
LV
Head of Testing at Pick n Pay

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.

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BJ
Program Test Manager at B and H Designs

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.

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Saket Pandey - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a hospitality company with 51-200 employees

Our team was able to do a part of the maintenance, and we required the support cell's help with some of the features. The support team is excellent and helpful. 

I recommend Micro Focus ALM if you're looking for a solution that can help you for a small duration in the C2 or C3 stage when you want to grow. But it is wise to avoid hanging around with it for long. The solution is a bit costly, but simultaneously, it is cost-friendly for the organization for a reasonable accuracy rate, preferably above 99%.

I rate the Micro Focus ALM as an eight out of ten.

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LG
IS Director, ERP PTP Solution Architecture at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

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.

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Paul Grossman - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead QA Engineer at Guaranteed Rate

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.


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Krishna Puti - PeerSpot reviewer
Director - Quality Assurance Engineering at QualiZeal

I will definitely recommend the solution to others. I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

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AravindKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Test Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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MB
Global Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

We are customers and end-users.

From my perspective, it's a great tool, however, the world is now moving towards DevOps. That said, they could bring some capabilities with open-source tools like Azure DevOps. It might add better value for users. That said, this solution is a very stable, very user-friendly tool. The integration, however, is an issue.

If somebody's looking for an independent tool for test management, it's good, however, for other areas where you need to get the full integration without investment on other add-ons, this solution won't easily allow this.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

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Mohana Bommena - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

ALM is a good product but you need to be mindful of how it scales on your devices that you use because we use smaller devices compared to what we used to use in the past. The laptop screens have reduced in size so you need to make sure that they scale to the resolution of the device.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

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Alice MacNeil - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Quality Engineering at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center has always met our requirements, which is why any minor issues we've had with requirements traceability have never really been a big deal. But there really hasn't been a whole lot of change in those areas in several years. I'm sure that they are working on a roadmap, which I haven't gotten to see yet only because I haven't been pushing to see it, but I understand that there's much in the works. 

I would give Micro Focus ALM Quality Center an eight out of ten overall. 

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VC
Camera Software Engineer at L Soft Corp

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.

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Don Ingerson - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Automation Engineer at Global Fortune 500 Company

Write out and document all the steps and resources beforehand, and make sure everything is in place before implementing. Make sure you read the minimum requirements listed in installation instructions needed for all hardware (i.e. servers, etc.) and double-check it to ensure it is met.

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it_user669378 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President - Test Management Lead at DBS Bank

Below is a checklist for others considering a test management solution:

  • CIO sponsorship
  • Number of projects
  • Number of concurrent users
  • Standardization needs
  • Ease of control and management
  • Access rights for individual roles
  • Event driven workflow customization
  • Extending beyond test management to TDD, BDD, test data management, test environment, and CI/CD tools.
  • Focus on where you want to solve each problem and identify relevant tools for each of these.
  • Availability of skilled resources
  • Hiring the right resources to manage: There are easily millions of test management users, but it is not easy to find a true-bred expert.
  • Keep in touch with what’s happening in the industry. You need to be focused and not swayed easily.
  • Know your stuff.
  • Support all your users and make life easier for them.
  • Integration with automation tools, performance tools, security tools, and Jenkins/Bamboo/Team City.
  • Define the test process that ties in with your test management too.l
  • Form a training team to constantly train users.
  • Open API for customization
  • Export of info to MS Excel.
  • Ease of migration.
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it_user468120 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Program Manager-Quality Assurance at NBC Universal

It's a big solution, I'm just using one part of it. For the other part of it, there are a lot of improvement that needs to happen, so just looking at my little piece isn't enough.

It all depends what your needs are. If you are very modernized, and have short cycles, you should evaluate other tools also. It all depends on your needs because each organization is very different. Maybe some organizations have lots of money and they want to go ahead and go for the big shop, and they can do that.

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AS
Data Insights & Analytics Solution Architect at BT - British Telecom

I would recommend Micro Focus ALM Quality Center to others.

I rate Micro Focus ALM Quality Center an eight out of ten.

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AY
Managing Partner at Verve Square Technologies

Security is driven by the different user login credentials that are created by the admin. This is pretty typical. In this aspect, all their tools are good.

For risk-based testing, I used to have a different version of ALM that gave me a confidence level. Currently, I don't think our company has bought the version where you implement risk-based testing. However, it does help me to get the required inputs from the tool. Then, I have my own way of going about risk based testing.

I have seen the Single Sign-On. It's nice, but we don't use it in our current project due to a few constraints and a few user experience related issues. Sometimes, people don't want to change and just want to do it the old way. That is why we stopped using it.

I would rate the solution as a nine (out of 10) to keep pushing them to include more features.

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IM
Senior SW Quality Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Very quickly, you can work with the solution. Though, there are user in my company in which this solution seems very complex. I would recommend that users take the courses offered to them. In addition to getting the manual, reading, and learning it, users have to try the solution, e.g., I create a playground for them to try out the solution for a few hours. Here they can try out the requirements and play with it. 

If you think logically and practically when using the solution, it works fine.

From the start, visualize the application. The initial tree on how to start is very important.

We would like to implement Single Sign-On, but there is a problem with it in my company. All different solutions have to be signed on individually in our company. Right now, we are trying to work with Oktana, but Oktana won't go into production in our company if there isn't a possibility of another login.

In the last release, there was nothing really new nor useful.

I would rate this solution as an eight (out of 10).

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Rafael Ferreira - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Systems Manager at Bradesco Seguros

I would rate ALM Quality Center six out of 10.

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VR
Team Lead at Accenture

ALM will help your business. It will save time. It makes it easy to validate everything in the latest build. It's easier to plan, cycle-wise. That is one advantage. It also makes it easy for the managers to analyze the results and the progress of the test cases. They are able to track things minute-to-minute. You can use the virtual controls to see the reason a particular test has been edited, using check-in and check-out. That is also a good feature.

Along with ALM the business is also moving to JIRA. I don't know exactly what the business strategy is there, but they're moving to JIRA as one of the sources for creating defects. They're also mapping all the requirements to JIRA.

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Tomas Hald - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at IT Hald Redo AB

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. 

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Anil Kulkarni - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director/Practice Leader at Cirruslabs

I rate this solution 10 out of 10. 

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SR
Tools Architect at S2 Integrators

I'm both a consultant and a user. I'm a Micro Focus partner.

It's all about what you need. If you really want to deploy a good test management tool, which gives benefits and helps you manage everything, and you're really serious about test management and application management, then go for it. If you just want a tool that takes care of something from testing an ALM, you're not as serious and likely don't need this. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

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WJ
Test Advisory, Management & Implementation at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees

We don't have any technical concerns about the Micro Focus ALM Quality Center. Probably, it's on a different piece of Micro Focus solution called MF Connect which connects the ALM to the DevOps so that's a different one.

My advice to others looking to implement Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is that using it successfully depends on the person and the project. It may not be the same for other people, but installing it and using it offers less hassle, but I won't suggest it for everybody because analysis needs to be done when using this solution for particular projects. Users need to think about their requirements and if their requirements are not being met, then this tool may be obsolete, but as a test management stand-alone tool, it's a good tool.

I've been using this solution full-fledged and I don't see any improvements which I required in this project. I started to use this product when it was in Mercury, and Mercury then went into HP, then into Micro Focus, so I'm a longtime fan of this HPQC ALM thing. But these days, things are working differently in Agile. So Agile: It works on stories and so forth, but there is no repository of requirements or any kind of history of things. There, a project comes and it works in an Agile fashion. I don't know how good this tool is when used in an Agile perspective, but I'm sure that it is a good test management tool.

I'm rating ALM based on two points. One rating is for the product. The product is good, it's great, but when compared to other products with the latest methodologies, or when rating it as a software development tool, then I'll rate it a five out of ten because there's a lot of other great tools where you can interconnect them, use them, scale them, and leverage. It all depends on the cost.

As a stand-alone test management tool, I'm giving it a nine out of ten.

If I'm trying to scale and I'm spending more money, my rating will go down. If it's able to scale with less money like Jira, Confluence, or some other tool like Xray, then scaling may be done faster with less cost to the user.

Wherever you put five out of ten, I would say to upgrade that to seven out of ten.

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MC
Test Management Architect at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Testing is going to be testing. And the same challenges that you have in any of the different industries are going to be the challenges that you have in the ours, the insurance and financial industry, as well.

You know from DevOps to Agile, to Shift Left to Cloud, to managing your test assets efficiently and effectively, industry is really not going to make a difference.

I've been in a number of different sectors over the years. I've been in QA about 25 years, and having been in the natural gas industry, financials, insurance, HR systems. They are all pretty much the same challenges around testing. So I don't see a discrepancy in terms of the application you're testing. It's almost agnostic to the challenges that are innate with trying to test, within any type of development environment. Now, it just happens to be a more self-service DevOps model, where application teams make those decisions. But there's still always going to be those QA challenges.


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it_user570888 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Systems Consultant at Wells Fargo

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor to work with are:

  • They need to be stable.
  • They need to be financially sound.
  • They need to have a good technology and support base.
  • They also need to be responsive to the company, because it's a big company, so we expect people to respond.

I would advise a colleague considering this solution to start with a plan. Make sure you know what it is that you want to accomplish with Quality Center, and only add fields that will meet that. Use your current documentation, your current processes, to help design the fields and the projects for it, rather than just adding things one at a time. Don't allow a "wild west," which is where anybody can add fields, add workflow. You want to manage that from the top down.

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BW
Sr. Test Automation Engineer with 201-500 employees

I always used ALM and UFT. However, I had training and evaluated IBM JAZZ tools.

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it_user487383 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

As far as we know, it's the best tool on the market right now. They're considered the Cadillacs of the testing tools right now. Don't necessarily go with their most recent version code release right now. It kind of depends on what your needs are and the size of computer shop that you've got.

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it_user299589 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Automation Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Quality Center is a very powerful tool. It is not only a defect tracking tool but also a management tool. It can be used for everything from creating requirements and test plans to test creation, execution and defect reporting.

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FK
Executive Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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

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ST
IT Quality and Architecture Senior Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

It's all about the mindset. ALM has a lot of features. We, ourselves, are only using about 30 percent of the features. If you are expecting that when you start deploying ALM you'll be using everything it has, that's not the case. Of course the tool has all the features, but there are some customizations that can be done based on your needs, and the Micro Focus team will be able to help you with that. It's all about setting expectations and telling them exactly what you want.

Initially, we were not sure what we wanted to see. But after some time we understood that there are so many features. For example, the reporting part: ALM has automated reports but they require some things to be entered at first. If your team has the skill to set up your own stuff, that's good. If not, the Micro Focus team can support you. ALM can automate reports so that, at the end of the day, it sends out an email so your team doesn't actually have to prepare all that information and send it.

To make full use of ALM you have to invest some of your time. It has a lot of features. Most people will just use the basic stuff and they will be happy with it. But if you start exploring it, you will find it has a lot of capabilities. And they are all included in the licensing cost. Don't just go with the flow and keep doing what you're doing. Spend some time and ask ALM the right questions and they'll be able to help you. You will get more benefit out of the tool. That is one thing I have learned in using the solution.

Micro Focus is still investing in the product and releasing valuable features. We have been asked to upgrade our version so that means they are working on upgrading features and are fixing bugs. In previous versions, I was seeing that things were a bit slower. It took time to actually load. But now, my team is saying that it is fine.

In terms of security, ALM has controlled access. Every user has his own login and password. We restrict access. There is one admin on our team and he's the guy who controls who accesses our systems. Before we create a user ID for someone, they have to go through a review process. We need to understand which team he is working for and for how long he will need access. In that way, we keep things in control. As for uploading our data, I don't think anybody will be able to access it. It's pretty secure.

Right now we have 35 licenses for 35 concurrent users. But the number of actual users is around 400. It's being used by our testing guys as well as business people and even our senior management. If they want to see reports in real time, they log in and see them. From that perspective, it is really helping us.

We don't have many people involved in maintaining it. I don't have a dedicated person on our side to manage it. Micro Focus manages everything. I have one point of contact and she takes care of everything.

For me and for our organization, it's a really good product. I'm really happy with it. It's a 10 out of 10. It meets my needs completely.

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it_user79980 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Expert at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Be sure to have a DBA available when you install. There have almost always been changes needed to the DB when I have installed the application.

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it_user458409 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Community Manager at Orange

If you have the money then you can go with ALM, as it's a very good product. You won't have any surprises with it so that's good. Otherwise, there are some open source solutions that are a little bit less functional, but you can play with them and get them to work, products like Squash TM or things like that.

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PA
Head of Testing - Warehouse Solutions at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

I rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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Anouar RAID - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior SAP Functional Consultant at YAAS IT

At least sixty people who are part of different departments are using Micro Focus ALM Quality Center in the organization I'm working for now.

There are people who use the solution once a day, while there are people who use it twice a week, etc. It depends on their positions.

I'm rating Micro Focus ALM Quality Center six out of ten. What would make it an eight or a nine for me is improving the dashboard and adding a management tool that would be useful for management reviews.

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it_user739545 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP lead software engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

To someone looking at Quality Center, I would tell them: It's a good tool to use and the support is good. However, if you want a fancy and modernized tool with a fancy outlook, then Quality Center is not a good tool for you.

Most important criteria when choosing a vendor: personal style. I want to know who will be continually knowledgeable.

  • They know what they are selling.
  • They respond back quickly with accurate information.

If someone talks to me, and I try a few times, but I cannot get clear information from them, I may disqualify this vendor completely.

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it_user638460 - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Director at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees

It’s too expensive for most organizations compared to some other tools on the market. I’d look at QASymphony, Borland, and of course IBM, before committing to any of them.

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it_user326448 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Test Analyst and Automation Engineer at Unum

Try and have a play with it and don't be afraid to customize. We've got this big workflow in ours, so you can control the rules a lot better as to who can do what, who has access, and what they can see. Out of the box, it's a bit vanilla and there's the risk that someone could be given wrong permissions and accidentally do something they shouldn't.

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DG
Senior Specialist - Quality Engineer at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

This is a product that I do not recommend but if someone were in a situation where they were intent on using it, my advice is definitely to plan it out ahead of time. Don't try to wing it and learn it on the fly. Have someone who knows the tool and can set up the proper authorization because otherwise, it will be like ours, which is a mess.

I would rate this solution a three out of ten.

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SF
Sr. Manager - SAP Authorization & Complaince at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would recommend others to find another tool because the interface itself is very outdated. It looks very '90s. There are a lot of better, cheaper tools out there. That's all I can say.

I would rate Micro Focus ALM Quality Center a five out of ten. It must have version control and electronic signatures.

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DP
Tool Administrator at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees

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.

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it_user739560 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior manager IT at a transportation company

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.

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it_user567597 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President, IT Application Services at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

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.


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it_user303603 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Test Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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.
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JR
Software Engineer

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.

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CG
Presales Consultant at Oracle

It’s a great product for managing an end-to-end lifecycle process. It’s easy to use once you get the hang of it. One of the biggest pluses is having all your test assets in one place – requirements, models, test cases, test results, bugs, reporting, tracking (it’s unbeatable in my opinion).

It's also great that HP has now lowered the Saas cost for ALM - it was too high in my view.

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it_user739584 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Manager at a individual & family service

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: support and stability of the product. These are the two most important things to us. We want to have continuous improvement, because there are places to improve; we also don't want rapid changes, because they do affect the user, so that balance is important.

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it_user470463 - PeerSpot reviewer
Quality Assurance Software Management at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

When selecting a vendor to work with, the most important criteria are flexibility, availability, and scalability.

I would say it's a good tool. You have to invest the time into learning the different ins and outs of the tool, and become educated on it. I think it can scale as much as you allow it to, but you have to put the time into learning what it has to offer.

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it_user377415 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

For testing processes and improvements, I would suggest you use this product. But, if you're looking at cost, then that might be a concern, but no doubt it is the best tool for testing.

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it_user678 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Expert at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Same advice as for any Test Resources Management product: KISS – "Keep it simple, stupid."

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it_user485034 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software QA Lead at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

We don't have time to develop a lot of reporting and our customers want a lot of reporting. It's hard to have the expertise to write the scripts in the version that we have now. That's a major pain point for us, something that's missing. Another thing is we always hear about it performance. We have a huge load balance environment to try to speed up the performance but there's always some things that are slow in ALM. Just basic navigations are running automated tests is a big thing we hear. People want to run the tests as past as possible but they feel like they're limited by ALM sometimes.

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it_user470478 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Quality Assurance Analyst at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It works for us in terms of being able to track our test cases, absolutely being able to store results if we want to put in defects and build metrics. It is a pretty decent tool.

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it_user360525 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

My advice would be to research the full system requirements you need for the initial install. In corporate environments, once you've got it up and running, it's more difficult to get off of it. Also, plan to scale up based on projected CPU and space that you'll need to get.

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it_user285057 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

ALM/Quality Center is expensive, but it has its value and, in certain cases, the Enterprise edition is way too much, but it is very stable and reliable. You should review v12 Webclient solution for requirements management.

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it_user280944 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Analyst at a mining and metals company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Use all that his product can offer as there is no need to buy others that can do the same tasks that HP Quality Center does. It's a complete tool that you can customize according to business/IT/user needs.

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JG
Principal consultant qa architect at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees

When selecting a vendor to work with, I want to see that the technical people are really knowledgeable of what they're talking about. I want to know that the tool can give me what I need, not just, this is a standard proof of concept. I want to see what I need to see, and I want to know that, down the road, I'll be able to either get out of it what I need or be able to learn or have somebody come in to help me get out of it what I need. Because if I'm not getting out of it what I need, then I've wasted my money.

I give it a nine because nothing is perfect, there's always room for improvement, especially when you're talking about an app system as large as ALM is. I've been using it for so long it's kind of second nature for me to think about where its strengths are, and know that if I can't get something done one way there's always another way around it. Or I can integrate something into it or build work flow to make the UI behave the way I want it to.

Regarding advice to a colleague about ALM, remember that your process and your methodology should be driving what you need out of their tool and not the other way around. Tools can do some really cool stuff. You may look at it and say, "Okay, maybe we could get some value out of this feature that we're not doing today." But don't make that the driving force. It really needs to be able to support what you're doing and force the things that you want to get out of it. Because there's a truism in reporting: If you don't capture the data you can't build a report that's meaningful. So make sure it can get you what you need.

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VS
IT Solutions Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Go ahead with this tool. It is for the project management and test execution.

Do consult a few of the other folks using this tool to understand the tricks.

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it_user567885 - PeerSpot reviewer
Testing Center Manager at Groupement des Mousquetaires

Use ALM because it's simple; it has all information you need to communicate with all people involved in a project, whether they are in IT or not IT. This is the aim of the testing lifecycle.

The most important thing when choosing a vendor is that the product is user friendly and can integrate with all your old modules. It helps to have one application rather than multiple applications to connect with all the different companies.

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it_user326448 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Test Analyst and Automation Engineer at Unum

It is still the best QA tool on the market that integrates with most of other tools we use. It allows everyone who wants to be able to see the current quality of the project and control the QA process.

Fully understand the different options out there and the license types. Other tools may offer similar and you will probably want to customize some of the options to get the best out of it. Have not tried the cloud option which would take away any implementation and upgrade issues.

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it_user5136 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager of eCommerce at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's a great tool for a company looking to establish a scalable solution that will give you flexibility as you grow, BUT I would highly suggest you have individual(s) with the expertise to care for and feed it.

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KA
Application Development Manager at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees

It's important to check that the product is compatible with your use case. 

I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

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it_user742740 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Quality Assurance Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

HPE ALM is a relevant product that assists with test delivery, execution, and management within a project-driven environment. I would recommend others to check out the HPE ALM Help Center and product pages for additional information before making a decision.

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it_user740445 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist with 5,001-10,000 employees

Do the simple implementation, do not customize it because you will have more problems.

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it_user568008 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director Global QA at NICE Actimize

We chose HPE because I had good experience with them when I was Test Director. In term of overall experience, HPE provides a good experience for the users and a lot of benefits which you cannot find with other vendors.

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it_user484959 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Service Transition and Quality Management at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield

I think it's a great platform. It does a lot for us, but the fact that our users don't want to be in the application is weird. They'd rather work in a spreadsheet and then upload their results to the actual server. Now it could just be their behaviour pattern, but I think if it was a little easier for them to kind of work in, they would have an easier time with it.

Although on the plus side, the fact that it's open like that and you can just connect, maybe that's a positive too. So it's kind of a plus/minus. The UI they said, "Hey, I don't really like UI," but the fact that you can just upload your stuff from your work space, which could be a spreadsheet, it could be Eclipse, it could be a script that you're working in and it just directly uploads, they love that.

When you talk about easy use from an integration standpoint, definitely high marks there, but the UI is just something they really do not like. I personally, as the person who has to get all the data and metrics out of it, the data model is horrible. It's a constant complaint that I have. The new Octane platform kind of solves that. I just wish they had put some of that into ALM because the product marketing strategy is you have to have both.

Have a well-defined process, have a strong reporting structure, meaning in your process you want a lot of measurability. If you define your output, the reports and the questions you need to answer from what you're doing, which your process should be managing for you. In our company, we are very specific about what our executives and stakeholders want.

We have a very well-defined set of measurements that we have to take. We then put a process designed to ensure those measurements are always taken. That then allows you to deal with your outputs and your reporting structure, which then allows you to properly architect your tooling. The technology is very flexible. You have to decide as a client area how you really want to use it and that's going to start with what your business needs are the values that you're trying to get out of it.

That's the biggest advice that I have, it's not even on the technology. The technology will do great things for you if you have a plan and a structure and you know what you want it to do for you. Half the time they don't know, they want the tool to do it for them and it's the other way around. So that's what I advise people to do.

Think about it, have a vision, have a plan, tie that to outcomes, and measure those outcomes. If you're answering the right questions and asking the right questions, your technology will really enable you. You've got to look at it from that standpoint.

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it_user470463 - PeerSpot reviewer
Quality Assurance Software Management at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

I wouldn't rate it a 10 because it doesn't have the ability to do all the things the developers use today, like TFS. Overall I would recommend it, because of its ease of use. It doesn't take much to get up to date on it and to learn the process of using it for your test-case execution in ALM.

You don't have much time to spend on education. You don't have two weeks for them to learn an application. So, because it's easy to use, I would definitely recommend it for that reason.

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it_user471417 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT QA Test Manager at a leisure / travel company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It doesn't do Agile very well. We can make it do it, but it wasn't designed to do it either. That's not being fair to the product. It's a waterfall-based product. You should go straight to HPE Agile Manager.

View full review »
MG
Principal Consultant at Inspired Testing

I would advise maybe to look more at ALM Octane if a company is in an Agile and DevOps transformation program. This product wouldn't really be suitable if that was the case.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a three out of ten.

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KG
Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

We're just customers. We don't have a business relationship with ALM.

If you want a good tool that is robust and is very user-friendly and capable of supporting a program with multiple streams or multiple workstreams, ALM would be the perfect tool. It can basically track all of your testing. It also allows you to collaborate with all of your testers, stakeholders, etc. 

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten due to the fact that it's user-friendly, and it has the ability to track various projects or various workstreams of a program. Also, the test scripts are reusable. For example, let's say if we are going to utilize those same test scripts for another project, a couple of years down the line, they are available, and you can do real-time updates within ALM. That's really helpful.

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it_user739578 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pp at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

When looking at a company to work with, it's as simple as knowing that the products are mature. We know that if there are going to be issues, we're going to be able to find solutions or some work around for them. It's as simple as that. There's a lot of competition out there. Especially in the open source space, but for you to get support on open source, that's probably a whole different ball game.

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it_user736815 - PeerSpot reviewer
Subject Matter Expert at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Think about the below before you start implementing this product:

  • What’s the total user base you are expecting to on-board?
  • How many projects/countries/entities are going to be on-boarded to the platform, and then design the hardware configurations accordingly.
  • Do you have any other tools which need to be integrated with this product? Is there any ready-to-use integration already available or do you need to build it from scratch?
  • Note that this product does provide the ability to control user access and provides security.
  • Talk to your network security team and check if anything specific needs to implemented along with this product, like dual factor user provisioning, reverse proxy, TLS 1.1, TLS 1.2. Does this product support all these?
  • Check the organization plan in terms of roll-out of latest Operating Systems, Browsers. Does this product support those latest OSs, browsers, versions, etc?
  • Hire a HP ALM administrator expert who can guide you to implement the product in the right manner.
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it_user568158 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Test Manager at Almac Group

From a testing perspective, it is a great product for system test and delivers everything that you need. It gives you the complete package and full visibility from your requirements to creating tests, test execution and defect tracking. Definitely a great tool.

When looking at vendors, we look for reliability, trust. If you do have an issue, you want to know that somebody is going to take an interest in it.

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it_user302679 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - System Engineering at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For most large companies/installations, you will need to establish a core testing tools support group. This group can handle the care and maintenance of the application itself, the plug-in tools, user management, and deployment to various project teams. I would think taking this one within an isolated project team would be asking for headaches. Many organizations have turbulent histories with centralized testing -- it seems to typically depend on what is business critical -- not only externally, but internally (HR Payroll, for instance -- most companies can't tolerate issues with defects around payroll..

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it_user104988 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Performance Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
It's a good product and definitely can be considered in cases of large enterprise projects. View full review »
it_user975 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Expert at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
I have used HP Quality Center (QC) for over 3 years in an industrial setup. QC is a versatile Quality management tool that offers test case and defect management capabilities along with a customizable reporting process. It also integrates with other defect and requirement tracking tools, making it a good fit in multi-team environments, as well as integrated application environments. QC does have an involved initial setup, but once it's done, it is fairly easy to use by testing and defect management teams. However, as QC comes with a high license and maintenance cost, it is more suitable for large projects in terms of cost. View full review »
CJ
National Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Generally, it is pretty good for what it does. As a standalone tool for managing testing, it is good.

I would give Micro Focus ALM Quality Center an eight out of 10.

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PG
Performance and Automation Testing Squad Lead at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Do your homework on it to really understand how it works. I've worked at a number of different organizations that have had Quality Center, Test Director, and ALM. They have all been set up differently. I'm also guilty of having gone in as an external contractor and setting it up the way that I want it to run too. But if the time is taken to set it up properly, you will get strong value from it.

The biggest lesson I've learned from using Quality Center is that, when it's used well, it's an exceptionally powerful tool. When you use all the features of it, when you have things that are standardized and locked, it's a really handy tool in governance around testing and projects. But in an environment where you've got multiple external contractors or vendors coming in, where they all tend to bring their own way of doing things, it's good that it's flexible enough to accommodate that, but at the same time it leaves you with a bit of a mess to clean up afterwards.

It's really about making sure when you do implement it that you understand your process, you understand your workflows, you understand the standards that and the reporting that you want out of it, and you set it up accordingly. If somebody comes in and says, "Oh, I want to know what my defect aging is," you can say, "Well, here's the report that does that," if everything's filled out properly.

I've seen it set up really well in a couple of places, and it was really good to have it set up well because we could get the information out of it when we needed it and we could ensure that things were tested properly.

When it comes to connecting all related entities to reflect project status and progress, we have to do a little bit of tweaking, but we can customize it. We can always do better with the cross-project reporting. But the biggest issue we have is that we need to re-centralize testing to get the standards enforced. At the moment, since we've moved out and become very Agile, we've become very lax as well in being able to keep the likes of test cases — in particular regression suites — up to date. That is one of our reasons for reestablishing a centralized testing team. It's nothing to do with the product. It's just that everybody decided, "Hey, Agile's the way to go," and a lot of people with Agile thought, "Oh, we don't have the formality and the structure and standards around testing," which was not good.

At the moment we're in a bit of a state of flux because we've had the whole Agile movement start to hit us. Unfortunately, that meant that there was a decision to decentralized testing and put it out into the different Agile squads, which in turn meant that there was no standard way of doing things. Now that we're engaging in a transformation program, we need to re-establish that standard way of doing things, because we're working with third-party vendors. We're centralizing, ensuring that things are handed over in the format that we want, ensuring that the third-parties are utilizing ALM as the tool set for their test case repositories, and as the defect management tool as well. Being an industry-wide, and understood, standard tool, it's very easy for us to go to our partners and say, "You've got to use ALM because that's what we're using." We are still going to be Agile, but we'll be doing centralized testing.

I wouldn't say Quality Center has reduced the time required for testing. It's a tool. It supports our testing process. It gives the governance and standards around the testing that's done, but as a tool it doesn't reduce the time for testing. Something like automated testing will reduce the time for testing. However, by association, I suppose it might reduce testing time because it's where we execute our automated scripts from.

We haven't found that Micro Focus is still investing so much in Quality Center and releasing valuable features. They did do a big push to go towards Octane and we trialed that. Because we have multiple best-of-breed tools in the organization, Octane could plug-and-play with a lot of them, but then it became an overhead to be able to manage and maintain. 

With ALM in Australia at least, there's enough support and development going on. I know the APIs into ALM have improved, and they needed to because aspects were pretty clunky. Now that we've got a REST API that we can use, that's a lot better. So they're sort of keeping up.

I would rate Quality Center at about eight out of 10, but I have a testing background. I'm very stingy when it comes to rating things. I don't think I've ever rated anything to 10.

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it_user349722 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager of Operations at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

It is the standard upon which all products are gauged.

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it_user197508 - PeerSpot reviewer
Performance Test Architect and HP ALM Expert at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

I would recommend going towards another solution unless you have an entire HPE shop. Other similar products offer more features, are lighter, and are very light on the pocket book, too. We are also moving away from this product, primarily due to licensing costs

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it_user544794 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Systems Consultant at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
  • Be thoughtful and consistent.
  • Know your current business process and incorporate it into the application.
  • Ensure that the management is handled at an enterprise level, as opposed to a department or group level. This allows the application to grow in a supportable direction, while allowing a certain amount of flexibility.
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it_user280062 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner with 51-200 employees

Do your research and talk to an expert regarding the product. Having demonstrations and trial access to the product helps with decision making. Understanding the requirements and your current environment helps guide the discussions with an expert. Understanding the limitations will also help.

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ND
Consultor de tecnologia - QA at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10. 

If you are looking in the market to compare this solution with other tools that are maybe less expensive, I think that the ALM is more expensive than the others. I think that ALM is the best in class, depending on the size of your project. I recommend ALM for big companies with 1,000 to 3,000 users. Medium and small companies can use other, less expensive tools.

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MR
Sr. Solution Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

You need to take a look at what you're doing right now and how your test requirements, defects, and so forth are organized. If you can, try to bring them under one umbrella. ALM Quality Center does all of those things. In the past, I found a lot of customers using a variety of tools to do these different things. One for requirements management, one for defects management, one for testing, and so forth. It is much easier if you can bring everything under the same umbrella, that is, ALM Quality Center.

ALM Quality Center is geared towards waterfall type projects, and a lot of customers are moving away from that right now. Octane is a solution for the agile model. In ALM Quality Center, we have what's called a test lab and a test plan so that you can organize your tests. The same capability is not there in Octane. It would be nice to bring that feature over into Octane so that we can easily see what are the tests and organize the tests any way we want.

I would rate Micro Focus ALM Quality Center an eight out of ten.

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AB
Test Specialist at a consultancy with self employed

Make sure you have your build requirements and which features are important. Are you running projects for DevOps, agile, etc.? Also, make sure that you can evolve your tooling and not stay on the same tooling for years, knowing that your business users grow faster and have different needs.

Micro Focus does invest enough, but most investments are now going towards ALM Octane. I've seen that they are investing in adapters where you can say, "We're going to migrate from ALM.net to ALM Octane," if not entirely, then partially. There will always be projects in ALM.net, and they will keep maintaining ALM.net because there are many customers on it. Customers do need to realize that IT is changing and that you need to modernize as well.

I would rate this solution as an eight (out of 10), though I would rate it less for DevOp/agile.

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SK
IT Business Analyst at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

If someone is researching solutions, they should know that this solution is stable, centralized, and scalable. If they need integration, then this is the tool to use.

When selecting a vendor, some important criteria are availability, knowledge, price, and the site where they are getting the product. For example, if we have people doing a project as a team, then it is best if the solution can work in different languages, like German and English.

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it_user335340 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Check the price and compare to other available tools in the market and decide select the one best fits the needs.

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it_user209856 - PeerSpot reviewer
Testing Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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it_user363267 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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it_user330399 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principle Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

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

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PT
System Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Compared to JIRA and other solutions, ALM Quality Center is better for large-scale projects. I would rate ALM Quality Center four out of ten.

View full review »
SD
Head of SAP/ SAP Solution Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

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.

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DK
Talent Acquisition Specialist at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

I would highly recommend this product because it is a very stable product. Around 70% to 80% of organizations are using this product. It is a very stable and popular product.

I would rate Micro Focus ALM Quality Center an eight out of ten.

View full review »
SK
Sr. Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I've worked with multiple tools, when it comes to a Waterfall model of testing, and ALM is the best tool.

The solution enables us to conduct risk based testing but, as a test manager, that kind of testing is only done when there is not enough time for testing the entire solution. That is when we go through the requirements in the ALM Requirements module and see what the most important requirements are that should be tested. Based on that, we mark it as risk-based testing. We create a column and check it as "yes" or "no". Based on that information, it can be filtered and the same test cases will be handed to the Test Lab for testing. That means that the most critical functionality of the solution will be covered. The solution helps segregate, using the requirements, to test scripts.

Micro Focus is investing in the product. It is really good that they are investing in it and that they are releasing new releases. The newest release, currently, is 15, where there are multiple new features. It is useful for our users and, as a company, enterprise-wise, that they further improve the solution.

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it_user671376 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Business Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

When considering vendors we look for stability, support and reliability. And that's probably it. So we probably are not going for small vendors.

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it_user133815 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Manager at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees

Perform the recommended due diligence when adopting any new tool and ensure that the tool adoption correctly addresses the problem being experienced. This is a good tool and if correctly implemented will provide a solution to a number of delivery focused issues within a business.

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it_user345183 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

You must look to implement the minimum system requirements, Configuration, for the server for optimum and efficient use.

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it_user468276 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Technical Lead at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Give it a shot, if you take the time to invest in it, it works.

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it_user739587 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

It's a very good tool. We use it throughout the company. There are just some integration points which could be a little better. But if they're out there, I don't know about them. Maybe having the knowledge and knowing about them would help as well.

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it_user466917 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Director Quality Assurance at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Be aware of the cost aspect, it is very expensive.

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it_user566988 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager

Get input regarding the evolving core customer's unmet needs to help choose the right solution.

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it_user739542 - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP Quality Assurance at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

I had a demo recently that was actually for Octane, but in that demo, I found out about a couple of tools that I actually have access to now that I didn't know about before. One of them was a JIRA integration and the other was a way to create manual task steps, actually just stepping through the application, which could be automated.

I was like, "Wait, I'm near the end of my three-year license, and I'm just now about this?" I was like, "I could have been using this?"

So, those are the new tools I'm looking at, and it actually came up because, as I said, we're renewing our license, and when my rep was talking to me to find out what was my interest, part of it is, "Well, I need your integration." He's like, "Oh, we think we have that." I was like, "Really?"

For anyone looking at this product, I would definitely have them look at other tools, too, and make some comparisons. I would say to them, "Hey, here's how we had to deal with it, and here's what works for us and what doesn't." For the other tools, since we don't have firsthand experience, I could only suggest that they actually do some research.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: response and customer service. Support is very important. Then obviously, still getting a good value for what I'm spending. The product at least needs to be comparable to the other tools that are available on the market.

I have to say that I definitely was looking to move away from HPE initially when I took over the department, because we were getting no support from HPE at all. However, HPE, because we're small in comparison to their other customers, shunted us off to a third party, their reseller, which may ultimately have been a good thing for HPE (now Micro Focus) as well as for us, because we finally got some attention.

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it_user715137 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Analyst at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's better suited as an enterprise tool that can support the licensing cost, instead of for a small shop.

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it_user465633 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Development Engineer at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees

As an advise for developers who will develop such applications I would like to say - always try to support the area in an actual state, i.e., by using modern ideas/technologies if possible. Also, listen to the customer's needs, have flexible customization tools and do not forget about performance.

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it_user567696 - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Alliances at EOH

Specifically for this solution, they need to be in a close relationship to co-develop functionality. They also need to know the vendor is there. That is the biggest plus from an HPE perspective.

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it_user277035 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Manager and Manager Systems Test at a renewables & environment company with 501-1,000 employees

For small companies where audits/lawsuits etc. are not a factor, it's not worth the investment. You should use open source or lower cost alternatives (JIRA project/defect tracking, Test Link open source QC like Test Tool). However, for any company that wants a mature, highly developed platform that is constantly improving, need to survive audits, etc., you must consider HP ALM solutions such as HP Quality Center.

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it_user270912 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Tester at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Make sure it is easy to use for your roles. If you have technical people, other solutions may be better (like resources with VB expertise, etc.). Make sure you implement it as organized by system functionality, not by project.

My current company is just starting to use it, and they keep copying test plans for each project instead of reusing original test plans, which is a waste of time and resources.

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it_user265974 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees

There are so many other tools available in market, so before investing a huge amount in Quality Center, you should analyze other tools as well.

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it_user253323 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Manager - Test Automation with 1,001-5,000 employees

Prospective buyers should know that it doesn’t support all browsers and that browser costs are high.

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ND
Consultor de tecnologia - QA at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees

My company is just an end-user and customer. We aren't a reseller or partner.

I'm using a variation of version 12. It may be version 12.3.

If you have a large enterprise like me (I work in a bank and there are 10,000 people who work here) and have a large setup, this solution is very solid. For a minor company that is a smaller startup of maybe 10 or 20 people, it's a good idea to use another tool that is more flexible. 

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

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it_user739575 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal engineer at a media company with 10,001+ employees

People don't take advantage of a lot of the functionality that the tool has. I think overall it's a very good tool for what it does.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: They know me, and I know them, so having a very good relationship and a very good rapport is very important. If I need help, I can go to certain people, and I can get help.

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it_user437799 - PeerSpot reviewer
Validation Office at a pharma/biotech company with 51-200 employees

We had to modify the product considerably to get it to do what we wanted, especially reporting. It never did fully meet our needs for traceability back to user-readable requirements documentation.

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it_user273456 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer in Test with 201-500 employees

If the company plans to use QTP/UFT then HP QC/ALM is a great option. UFT integrates with ALM and we can run test cases remotely.

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it_user2862 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP of IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Can be beneficial for large companies, but check out alternatives. Some of them might fit the bill for less money.

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it_user437799 - PeerSpot reviewer
Validation Office at a pharma/biotech company with 51-200 employees

I think it is over-priced and would recommend looking carefully at other options.

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EZ
Test Solution Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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

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it_user568668 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

If you go the on-premise route, make sure your system architects and DBAs thoroughly review the installation/upgrade guide. I would also advise establishing a "center of excellence" department which can help build template projects and enforce standards so the users are all using similarly configured projects.

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it_user178353 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Quality Assurance with 501-1,000 employees

Make sure it fits into your cost structure and consider the annual maintenance cost in your evaluation.

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it_user568155 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Test Manager at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Make sure that you set it up correctly, and make sure you use the full range of tools in it. It will provide you with enough information for you to produce reports and get a full understanding from what you have done.

Our most important criteria when we choose a solution are reliability and scalability.

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it_user364170 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We work with many partners and contractors, and they always come in and say "we would like to use another tool." I always challenge them and say, "If you can give me clear advantages on paper of going with another tool, then I'll go." So far, no one's been able to convince me.

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it_user271344 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Its a good tool for a perfect software development company where release/project roll outs happen on a planned basis. It's not a supportive tool for an agile environment.

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it_user279996 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager/Senior Testing Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's the perfect tool for testing purposes, but you need to consider other options if development teams do not use the environments supported by Quality Center.

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it_user285993 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Keep it simple for an easy beginning, and don't waste time with incompetent people.

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NS
Team Lead at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

As long as you can afford it, go for this product. Otherwise, there are less expensive or open source products with almost the same features.

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it_user212025 - PeerSpot reviewer
ALM Administrator & Software QA Pro at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

Use iy out of the box and utilize built in features.

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OO
Software Quality Assurance & Testing Specialist, MTN Nigeria Ltd at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It is a good product, but it still requires customization.

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it_user568005 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - Projects at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Don’t just focus on the technology and buying it, but rather focus on the processes behind the support of the technology. That was our biggest lesson.

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it_user199773 - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Good product.

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it_user70752 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Administrator at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
a. Check the licensing as we had to log off from the tool as the company could not afford a license for every person. This was bypassed eventually by having a client performing the login, get your data out and logoff. View full review »
it_user312843 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Lead at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

It's an excellent tool.

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it_user277032 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Specialist II at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Try MS Test Manager first, particularly if your code is .Net and/or your developers use Visual Studio.

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it_user514626 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Lead

Compare with other test management tools to see their benefits. We did compare with JIRA. Every tool has its own pros and cons. It depends on the organization's needs.

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SC
Project Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Have a skilled person to do the administration. You will love the ease of reporting that results in.

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it_user568128 - PeerSpot reviewer
Process Analyist at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Start slowly.

When selecting a vendor, the most important criteria for me are that they are trustworthy and nearby.

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it_user285987 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

It’s good to use for a big organization.

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it_user110289 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Analyst with 51-200 employees

Majority of the tests done by my company are manual so QC serves majorly as a depository for our client.

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it_user552447 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager

Do the cost benefit analysis, and understand how the product/tool is a solution rather than a nice-to-have because it is flashy. It should fit the organization’s size and needs.

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it_user181566 - PeerSpot reviewer
OATS Engineer-Onsite Consultant at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I highly recommend HPE Quality Center for its simplicity and ease of use whereby Business and Technical teams can see each other's progress and help make better decisions.

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it_user280140 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Be organised, as the tool has the abilities to support this.

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Buyer's Guide
OpenText ALM / Quality Center
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about OpenText ALM / Quality Center. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.