Quick Overview of New Features of HP ALM a Wonderful Substitute of HP QC 10.0

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Quick Overview of New Features of HP ALM a Wonderful Substitute of HP QC 10.0

In the last article we have brought to you the information on upgrades in the certification exams like HP QC 10.0 & HP QTP 10.0 to newer versions like v11.x.

Now we are discussing some of the key enhancements in the v11.x version that every user of HP QC eagerly desires to know. First of all let us try to remember that older QC 10.0 is now called HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) 11.0

The key enhancements in ALM 11.0 include the following:

1) HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) 11.00:
ALM empowers IT to manage the core application lifecycle, right from the requirement�s stage till deployment. ALM supports you through all phases of the application lifecycle management.

2) New Manual Test Runner (HP Sprinter):
You can now run manual tests

in ALM from the Test Lab module using the new HP Sprinter. Sprinter provides enhanced functionality and a variety of tools to assist in the manual testing process, including:a) The ability to create and annotate screen captures
b) Capture movies of your run
c) Record and run macros on your test application
d) Automatically enter data into fields in your application
e) Automatically include the list of your steps or user actions in any defect you submit
f) Replicate your user actions on multiple machines with different configurations

3) Optimized Project Repository System:
Project files are now saved over an optimized repository system that ensures better performance for common actions, and extends the capacity of the file system.

Files in the project repository are stored in an optimized folder structure that allows maximum storage space. In addition, any two files with identical content are stored in the repository only once. This results in a significant reduction in disk space. For example, if you attach the same file to several ALM records, the file is stored only once in the project repository.

4) Usability Enhancements: Eight Major usability enhancements include;

a) Module Navigation: A new module navigation sidebar enables quick access to the modules available in ALM.

b) Favorite Views: You can now add subfolders to help you organize your favorite views. For example, you can create folders to organize favorite views by product, release version, or team.

c) Library Enhancements:
i) The library creation process has been improved.

ii) Export baseline and library comparison results. You can now save baseline and library comparison results in .csv file format.

d) Requirements Enhancements: The following enhancements were made in the Requirements module:

i) Requirements Ordering: Previously, requirements were added to the requirements tree by order of creation. To arrange the order, you sorted the tree by selected fields. In ALM 11.00, you can move the requirements in any logical order in the tree.

ii) Rich Text Editor: The rich text feature has been improved in ALM 11.00.

e) Test Execution Enhancements: The following enhancements were made in the Test Lab module:

i) New Tabs:
The Test Lab module now contains two main tabs

1) The Test Sets tab displays the test sets tree view.
2) The Test Runs tab displays all project runs in a grid.

The Test Sets Grid View is no longer available.

ii) Run management:
You can now view and filter all runs for your project in a single grid view. This is available from the new Test Runs tab in the Test Lab module.

iii) Draft runs:
You can now set a test as a draft run to instruct ALM to ignore the run results. This enables you to try out tests while they are still in development or after they have been modified without impacting statistics such as test or coverage status.

iv) Run State field:
The new test run State field enables you to track the status of a run in progress.

v) Blocked run status:
A new status has been added to test runs. The Blocked status indicates that the test cannot run. This enables you to distinguish between tests that were not completed, possibly due to lack of time, and those that could not be completed for some other reason, such as network problems or hardware failure.

vi) Execution summary:
You can now instruct ALM to send a summary of test results in an email to specified users when test set execution completes. This option is available from the Automation tab.

vii) The Test Instance Properties dialog box has been renamed the Test Instance Details dialog box.

f) Dashboard Enhancements: The following enhancements were made in the Dashboard module:

i) New Modules: The Dashboard module now contains two sub-modules:

# The Analysis View module: It contains the analysis items that were previously displayed in the Analysis View tab.

# The Dashboard View module: It contains the dashboard pages that were previously displayed in the Dashboard View tab.

ii) Graphs: The following enhancements are introduced in graphs:

# Sharing Graphs: You can now share graphs for viewing in a Web browser, without downloading an ALM client.

# Configuration Options: In progress and trend graphs, you now have full control over the time period that is covered by graphs.

g) Task Manager: You can now view the progress and status of asynchronous tasks run in your project. The new Task Manager dialog box enables you to view tasks that run in the background, such as creating a baseline or importing a library.

h) Session Reconnect: When your ALM session is inactive for a period of time, the session expires. Previously, this required you to log out and log in again, which includes reloading project customization.

Now, when your session expires, you are prompted to reconnect. If the project administrator has not made any significant changes to the project customization, the customization does not reload, enabling you to reconnect quickly and continue working where you left off.

5) New Project Reporting Tool:
A new Project Report reporting tool is available in the Analysis View module, enabling you to design and generate comprehensive reports of project data. Using templates designed by the project administrator for each ALM entity, users create project reports, by selecting the entities that are included in report sections, and defining data filters.

Project reports offer the following advantages:

a) Rich style and layout option using MS Word templates
b) Enhanced performance
c) Single configuration for multiple output formats (doc, docx, html, pdf)
d) Centralized template management

6) Execution of Multiple versions of ALM Clients:
You can now run multiple versions of ALM side-by-side on a workstation. This includes multiple ALM 11.00 clients connecting to different ALM Platform servers, and a single Quality Center 10.00 or 9.2 client.

7) Project Planning and Tracking (PPT) Feature:
Using the Project Planning and Tracking (PPT) feature, you can now track application readiness by defining milestones for activities of an application release in the Releases module. PPT uses key performance indicators (KPIs) to analyze the data of your defined milestones. The overall health and deployment readiness of a release in displayed in the form of a scorecard. The scorecard monitors and tracks how well each milestone is being met on a daily basis.

8) Traceability Matrix view in the Requirements module:
You can now determine the extent of relationships between requirements and other requirements, and between requirements and tests using the Traceability Matrix view in the Requirements module. The traceability matrix helps you verify that all requirements are met, and identify changes to the scope of your requirements when they occur.

9) Management of Test Configurations in the Test Plan Module:
Using the Test Configurations tab in the Test Plan module, you can now design tests that run according to different use-cases, each with different sets of data. Each use-case is called a test configuration. Values for the test configurations are supplied from within your ALM project or from an external data resource.

10) Business Process Model Integration:
You can now import business process models created in external model authoring tools. Importing business process models into the new Business Models module automatically creates a framework of requirements representing each model and activity. You can then create test coverage and assess the quality of your business process models.

In addition, you can add path entities to your models that represent end-to-end sequences of activities, enabling you to test your business flows.

11) Withdrawn Features:
The following features are no longer supported in HP ALM 11.00

a) WinRunner EOL: You can no longer create WinRunner tests in ALM 11.0. However, if you are upgrading from a previous version of Quality Center, you can still run your existing WinRunner tests.

b) Defect Customization: The Visible Fields in Add Defect Dialog Box field in Groups customization is no longer available in ALM 11.0. To determine which Defect fields are visible, use the Select Fields dialog box from the Data-hiding tab of the Groups and Permissions page in the Customization module. Alternatively, you can create a workflow script.

c) Printing Defects: In the Defects module, you can no longer print defects directly from the Defects Grid. Instead, you can export defect data, or generate graphs and reports of defect data.

d) Library Broken Links Verification: The verification of broken links is no longer a part of the baseline creation process in ALM 11.0. The baseline creation process now automatically includes all the related entities that tests in the library need in order to run.

e) Fixed Columns in the Defects Grid: The option of setting non-scrolling columns displayed in the Defects grid is no longer available.

f) Add Required Fields to Grid: When adding a test to a test set, or creating or updating a defect, the option to automatically add required fields to the grid is no longer available. Instead, you can use the Select Columns option to add the required fields.

g) Assigning Existing Sets of Permissions to User Groups: When you create a new user group, you can assign the privileges of an existing user group that has similar access privileges to those you want to assign to the new group. The option of later resetting one user group’s permissions according to another group’s permissions is no longer available.

h) Adding Users to Projects from a Previous Version: In ALM 11.0, you cannot add users to a project from an earlier version before you upgrade the project.

Reference: Notes compiled from HP User Guide on ALM 11.0

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