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Perfecto Mobile : Unveils Fully Integrated Mobile Test Automation Solution for HP QuickTest Professional

2011-07-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

Perfecto Mobile, provider of the MobileCloud platform for test automation and monitoring of mobile applications and websites, today announced its complete native solution for automated functional and regression testing for mobile applications within the HP QuickTest Professional (QTP) product.

"As mobile applications become business critical, enterprises need automated mobile testing solutions that plug into their existing quality processes," said Eran Yaniv, CEO at Perfecto Mobile. "It is our mission to address these challenges with MobileCloud for QTP, the first mobile test automation solution fully integrated with HP QTP.” MobileCloud for QTP is a fully integrated mobile test automation add-in within HP QTP, combining native QTP scripting and flow control with Perfecto’s cloud-based automated mobile testing solution. The integration enables enterprises to easily extend their functional testing environment to cost-effectively support mobile applications.

Featuring a single integrated user interface and rich image-enhanced reports, MobileCloud for QTP supports device-agnostic mobile scripting and facilitates collaboration among globally distributed teams. With complete integration with HP QTP, which also tightly links to HP Quality Center, enterprises now have the ability to centralize their test management across the organization and gain visibility into their overall mobile quality management.

"As smart-phone empowered mobile applications continue to gain momentum, they also bring new challenges to organizations to manage application development and testing costs,” said Jonathan Rende, general manager and vice president, Applications, Software, HP. "MobileCloud for QTP allows organizations to simplify and scale mobile testing while lowering overall costs, through extended ALM practices and improved collaboration among globally distributed teams.”

About Perfecto Mobile

Perfecto Mobile is the provider of the MobileCloud platform for test automation and monitoring of mobile applications and websites, utilizing a wide selection of REAL mobile devices accessible via the web. Users can rely on Perfecto Mobile’s handsets and tablets to develop, test, deploy and monitor their mobile apps and services without having to physically obtain them.

For further information about Perfecto Mobile, please visit http://www.perfectomobile.com

src : http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20110629006101/en/Mobile-QTP/QTP/Quick-test-professional

QC Integration : JIRA Bridge for HP Quality Center

2011-06-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

Orasi Software’s JIRA Bridge for HP Quality Center is a solution that enables companies to harness the full potential of Atlassian’s JIRA and HP Quality Center software by synchronizing defect and requirement information between the two tools. The bridge enables a true collaboration between software quality assurance and development teams by seamlessly coordinating information between your teams, while offering your development and software quality assurance (QA) teams the flexibility to use the tools that best fit their needs.

Effective communication between teams is critical to overall quality and efficiency in the development process. The JIRA Bridge for HP Quality Center manages information sharing by automatically creating issues when test cases fail during test cycles. Without placing an extra burden on your team, the tool also enables you to gather metrics on your round-trip issue resolution process to drive the stability and reliability of release cycles.

To ensure that your software quality assurance team is in sync with your development team, there is no better solution than the JIRA Bridge solution.

Features:

Based on standard integration platform provided by HP’s Quality Center Synchronizer
Graphical Administrator console for managing integration schedule, rules and field mappings
Graphical Integrity reporting to ensure integration rules are correct – every time
Bi-directional synchronization of issue data between JIRA v3.11 and later (including v4.2) and HP Quality
Center 11.0, 10.0, 9.2 or 9.0
Supports customized JIRA Workflow definitions and multi-workflow environments
Provides a standard Windows installer that automatically installs and configures your integrated
environment in minutes
Supports multiple mapping of many JIRA projects to one physical HP Quality Center project
Customizable business rules to define field mappings between JIRA and HP Quality Center
Synchronizes document attachments between JIRA and HP Quality Center
Data value translation between systems (e.g., QC Status New = JIRA Status Open)
Advanced logging and email notification

For more information about the JIRA Bridge for HP Quality Center, please click here

Migrating From HP Mercury QTP To PushToTest TestMaker 6

2011-05-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

TestMaker is the leading open source alternative to HP Mercury tools (Load Runner, QuickTest Professional, Quality Center.) TestMaker provides immediate compatibility with thousands of new Web objects in Rich Internet Applications (RIA, using Ajax, Flex, Flash) without any test coding. Then repurpose test objects to be functional tests, load and performance tests, and production monitors.

PushToTest TestMaker- The Single Platform for Functional Testing, Regression, Load and Performance Testing, and Business Service Monitoring

Evolving business requirements, as well as ongoing technology innovations, drive change in every aspect of the software development industry. Organizations are shifting their IT architecture towards Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and SOA. They are updating their internal methodologies to become more agile. These changes create new challenges for their internal IT operations departments. To keep pace and succeed in this environment requires new test tools and methodology. PushToTest believes four qualities are needed to be successful in constructing, testing, and monitoring modern software and services:

The TestMaker platform provides:

Repurposing to Accelerate Application Time-To-Delivery: Saving Time, Money, and Test Maintenance A single platform for Functional Testing, Regression, Load and Performance Testing, and Business Service Monitoring, all from the same single test script. Pass smoke tests, surface performance bottlenecks, and enforce Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in one product.

The Fastest Way To Surface Problems TestMaker's unique correlation technology surfaces the root cause to performance problems and mitigation. TestMaker correlates observations of Threading, Database connection, memory, network, and CPU utilization in your Java application server to the specific load and performance tests running at any given time. In a single product TestMaker performs load generation and root cause analysis from application front-end to the back-end.

The Least Expensive Test Environment To Operate
Run tests from your own equipment, from our cloud computing environment, or both.

Immediately Ready For The Modern World
Rich Internet Applications (RIA, using Ajax, Flash, Flex,) Service Oriented Architecture (SOA,) Web services, and REST

Easy To Build Tests, Easy To Operate Tests
Record/Playback for Web applications, Graphical tool to build tests for SOAP/REST applications, plus powerful support for unit tests written in Java, Jython, Ruby and dynamic scripting languages.

Experts To Save You Time And Money
The fastest way to get started: The PushToTest Proof Of Concept (POC) built with TestMaker. For example, one recent POC test took just 4 days from start to results.

Attend live workshop, Frank Cohen, CEO and Founder at PushToTest : http://www.pushtotest.com/migrate-hp-mercury-qtp-pushtotest-testmaker

For more info : http://www.pushtotest.com/

QTP support for 64bit apps

2010-12-06T23:52:00.000-08:00

Below is the information that is published in the HP support site about the 64-bit App and OS support :

64-bit application support
Using QuickTest Professional version 10.0 and below to test 64-bit applications is not supported. QuickTest Professional supports testing on applications based on Win32 API and MFC. QuickTest Professional version 11.0 supports test particular techonologies on 64-bit applications after installing patch QTP_00699.

64-bit operating system support
QuickTest Professional 10.0 and 11.0 supports:

Windows XP 64-Bit Edition—Service Pack 2/Service Pack 3

Windows Server 2003 64-Bit Edition—Service Pack 2

Windows Server 2003 R2 64-Bit Edition

Windows Vista 64-bit Edition—Service Pack 1

Windows Server 2008 64-Bit Edition ()

Windows Server 2008 R2 Edition ()

Windows 7 64-Bit Edition (*)

**Note(*):** These environments require patches QTP_00626 and QTP_00644
For more information see Document ID KM744522 - QuickTest Professional 10.0 Product Availability Matrix and Document ID KM543959 - QuickTest Professional 10.0 Readme
QuickTest Professional 9.5 supports:

Windows XP 64-Bit Edition—Service Pack 2

Windows Server 2003 64-Bit Edition—Service Pack 2

Windows Vista 64-bit Edition or Windows Vista 64-bit Edition—Service Pack 1

Windows Server 2008 64-Bit Edition

Note: For more information see Document ID KM480579 - QuickTest Professional 9.5 Readme
QuickTest Professional 9.2:
QuickTest Professional 9.2 supports Windows XP 64-Bit Edition-Service Pack 1 and Windows 2003 64-Bit Edition. Note: For more information see Document ID KM18464 - QuickTest Professional 9.2 Readme
QuickTest Professional 9.0/9.1 supports:
QuickTest Professional 9.0/9.1 supports Windows XP 64-Bit Edition-Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2003 32-Bit Edition-Service Pack 1, or Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-Bit x86). Windows 2003 server 64-bit is not supported.
QuickTest Professional 8.2 (and below):
QuickTest Professional 8.2 (and below) does not support 64-bit operating systems.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HP releases patch (QTP_00699) to support 64-bit Applications in Windows 7

Download : http://support.openview.hp.com/downloadAPatch.jsp?patchName=QTP_00699.EXE&prodName=qtp&prodRelease=11.00

Installation instructions

Please review all instructions and the Hewlett-Packard 
SupportLine User Guide or your Hewlett-Packard support terms
and conditions for precautions, scope of license, 
restrictions, and, limitation of liability and warranties,
before installing this patch.
------------------------------------------------------------
1. Back up your system before installing a patch.

2. Execute the patch:

        QTP_00699.EXE

During the installation, if you select to save the original
files, those files will be copied to the directory
\Patches\QTP_00699\orig
e.g. "C:\OpenView\Patches\QTP_00699\orig"

TFS Bug Item Synchronizer 2.0 for Quality Center

2010-12-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

src: http://onroad.juvander.fi/Community/blogs/news/archive/2009/03/30/released-tfs-bug-item-synchronizer-2-0-for-quality-center.aspx

Next major version of popular TFS Bug Item Synchronizer for Quality Center is now released.
TFS Bug Item Synchronizer is an tool which allows testing and development teams to work together using tools built for their usage. Testers enter defects in Quality Center and when defect is created and updated into TFS, developer can fix it, link all changes to it and mark it as fixed. After this the tester will continue process on Quality Center side to verify the fix. Similar to this developer can create a work item and have it synchronized over to Quality Center for testers to verify the fix.
With this tool it is possible to synchronize both Quality Center Defects and Requirements with TFS work items.
Testers will only need to use Quality Center and developers TFS, no need to have both applications on both teams as this tool works totally on the server side.
This version supports

Quality Center 10.0
Quality Center 9.2
Quality Center 9.0
Quality Center 8.2
TestDirector 8.0
Team Foundation Server 2005
Team Foundation Server 2008 SP1

Major new features include following:

Conflict resolution for cases where both Quality Center and TFS items have changed. This resolution works field by field.
Added possibility to synchronize TFS work items with Quality Center Requirements
Support for Quality Center Release and Cycle –fields on both Defect and Requirement section
Support for multiple TFS servers

Full Release Notes can be found in here: TFS Bug Item Synchronizer Release Notes.
TFS Bug Item Synchronizer 2.0 for Quality Center can be downloaded from Download section in this site.
Installation includes 14 days fully functional trial version, full version can be purchased from here.

QTP 11 - What's New - New Features

2010-12-01T04:10:00.000-08:00

HP QTP 11 - What's New??

Download Now!!

XPath and CSS based object identification :Identify objects not only using normal object identification but with XPath and CSS identifier properties.

The new improved results viewer provides an executive summary page with summary data, pie charts and statistics for both the current and previous runs and a quick link to the previous run results.

You can now create reg ex with the help of syntax hints. Regular Expression Evaluator is available to test regular expressions that you have created.

Identify objects not only in relation to each other but in relation to neighboring objects. Objects identified with ordinal identifiers are good only as long as they maintain their relative positions with respect to each other in the new build of application. In case if this position changes or gets interchanged, ordinal identifiers may go for a toss. HP has now introduced Visual Relation Identifier

With the help of LoadFunctionLibrary statement, you can now load a function library when a step runs instead of at the beginning of a run session.

Since QTP is integrated with Service Test, you can now test your GUI and non-GUI based apps in a single run.

Record Support For FireFox is now available.

QTP 11 is capable of receiving Java or .NET log framework messages from your application which can then be embedded in the run results.

You can use the new EmbedScript/EmbedScriptFromFile and RunScript/RunScriptFromFile functions to embed JavaScripts in all loaded browser pages. You can use these scripts to perform operations on, or retrieve data from, the browser pages in your application.

QTP 11 now supports Web 2.0 Toolkit Applications out-of-the-box similar to any other add-ins

You can instruct QTP 11 to automatically parameterize test steps at the end of record session.

Silverlight Add-in To test objects in Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 3 applications. [After installation, Silverlight Add-in is displayed in the Add-in Manager as a child add-in under the WPF Add-in]

You can use WPF and Silverlight Add-in Extensibility SDK to develop support for testing third-party and custom WPF and Silverlight controls that are not supported out-of-the-box

Useful for concurrent license users. With redundant license servers you can create failover, so that if your main license server fails, your remaining servers maintain availability of your licenses without causing any downtime or loss of licenses for users.

src: http://www.learnqtp.com/new-features-qtp-11-aka-functional-testing-11/
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1452494

HP Quality Center - Agile Accelerator

2010-09-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

The HP Quality Center Agile Project Accelerator is a complete solution to help manage Agile development projects with the following features:

Ability to manage both Agile development efforts and testing efforts within the same Quality Center project
Pre-built process workflows and rules to guide Agile processes
Easy to configure pre-built Agile user roles and related privileges
Agile reports and graphs to track progress, such as Burn-down, Burn-up and velocity graphs

The Agile Accelerator can be imported into Quality Center as a base project with pre-defined Agile workflows, configurations and rules to start managing the Agile methodology driven projects out of the box. The pre-built content helps accelerate the development effort and testing efforts within the same Quality Center project.

Demo Video:

HP QC Agile demo

Download : HP Quality Center 10.0 Agile Accelerator downloads – no expiration

DataSheet : HP Quality Center Agile Accelerator Data sheet (0.15MB, PDF)

article src:

http://h20338.www2.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/messaging/feature-software-scale-agile.html

https://h10078.www1.hp.com/cda/hpms/display/main/hpms_content.jsp?zn=bto&cp=1-11-127-24^1131_4000_100__

ROI for HP SOA Quality Solutions (QTP, QC)

2010-08-09T02:52:00.000-07:00

HP Forums - Quality Center

2010-06-15T04:24:00.000-07:00

HP Forums - Quality Center

IT Resource Center Forums > Management software and system tools > Quality Center

Link : http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/categoryhome.do?categoryId=895

This category is for discussions around HPS Quality Center. Topics are related to:

- QuickTest Professional
- TD for Quality Center
- WinRunner
- Business Process Testing
- Delivery Dashboard
- Service Test Management

Connect to QC Site Admin Api - SAClient.SaApi

2010-02-16T22:20:00.000-08:00

src : http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1321283

Using VBScript:

Dim objSAClient, resp
Set objSAClient = CreateObject("SAClient.SaApi.9")
'you have to know which is the correct reference to the SiteAdmin

'then login as admin:
objSAClient.login "http://ipaddress/sabin", qcuser, qcpassword

Using PHP:

$objSAClient = new COM("SAClient.SaApi.9") ;
'you have to know which is the correct reference to the SiteAdmin

'then login as admin:
$objSAClient->login "http://ipaddress/sabin", qcuser, qcpassword

NOTE:
If you want to know what is the reference for the SAAPI you have to go to the regedit, "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SaClient.SAapi\CurrVer" and see what is the current version and use it.

For QC 9.2 :
The URL in the format http://[:]/sabin.

For QC 10.0 :

The URL in the format http://[:]/qcbin.

HP QTP Extensibility Accelerator demo

2010-02-04T09:48:00.000-08:00

See how the HP QuickTest Professional Extensibility Accelerator lets you to test Web 2.0 apps ‘out –of-the-box’ and easily extend your existing tools to support future Web 2.0 development.

src : http://h30423.www3.hp.com/index.jsp?auto_band=x&rf=sv&fr_story=2535f2613537a9e3491ca53047faf913c0666d2e

QualityCenter/QTP integration best practices

2010-01-27T22:38:00.000-08:00

This session will cover common issues, tips and tricks, and details of HP Quality Center and QuickTest Professional integration.

Attend and learn about:

Details of integrating HP QuickTest Professional and Quality Center, including an explanation of how QTP assets and tests are stored in QC and how QTP communicates with QC
Troubleshooting common integration issues
An explanation of what QTP/QC log files are and how to use them
How to use TDAPI/OTA in QC
What's new in QTP/QC 10

We’ll also give you a chance to ask questions.
We look forward to your participation at this HP Software & Solutions Customer Connection Member Event.
Register today!
Wednesday, February 1008:00am PDT 11:00am EDT 17:00 CET

Meet the Experts: Unraveling the mystery of HP Quality Center patches

2009-08-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

Are you confused over the way patches are released by HP compared to how the process used to work when Quality Center was part of Mercury Interactive? Not sure how to find the latest information on a patch for your OS? Do you know what to do if the installation fails? Have you ever wondered why the HP Quality Center Client Files download after a patch is applied? In this webinar, Sandy Myers, a senior technical support consultant for HP Quality Center, will address some of the common concerns and processes involved with patching HP Quality Center server.

Topics will include:

· Mercury versus HP processes

· Types of patches

· Patch-release schedule

· Patch notification via SSO, KBs

· How to install and uninstall a patch

· What .vpd properties are, and what to do if a vpd.properties file is corrupted

· How to roll back a patch manually

· High-level differences between Quality Center 9.0, 9.2, and 10.0 patch processes on the server side

Meet the Experts: QuickTest Professional

2009-08-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

Join Sasha Rabinovich, senior technical support consultant for HP QuickTest Professional, to hear about technological challenges that testing professionals face today and about ways in which QuickTest Professional can meet those challenges. You’ll learn how to test for memory problems with QuickTest Professional, how to debug Web extensibility using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and how to use self-solve knowledge to search patches. Rabinovich will also cover the latest enhancements in QuickTest Professional 10.

Access this HP Software Customer Connection Member Event through the below link :

Meet the Experts: tips and tricks for upgrading to HP Quality Center 10.0

2009-08-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

HP experts Muhammad Sami and Philipp Schwarze, senior technical support consultants for HP Quality Center, will cover topics of interest to Quality Center customers who will soon be moving to Quality Center 10 or are planning to move to Quality Center 10. Specific topics include:

§ Supported environments for Quality Center 10 installation

§ Upgrade path for Quality Center 10

§ Purpose of the Verify tool

§ Purpose of the Repair tool

§ Verification Report details

§ Usage of exception file while upgrading projects

Access this HP Software Customer Connection Member Eventusing the below link:

AccuRev to Support HP Quality Center 10.0

2009-06-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

Article Source: EON:Enhanced Online News

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--AccuRev Inc., a member of the HP Quality Management Ecosystem Partner Program, today announced support for HP Quality Center 10.0. AccuRev is extending its current issue-based change management integration to include software configuration management (SCM) for development and quality assurance (QA) teams leveraging their current investment in HP Quality Center 10.0.

AccuRev provides software development process automation and source code versioning to ensure full traceability between requirements and source code changes. The integration with HP Quality Center 10.0 improves the traceability of all development work and provides a firm foundation for application lifecycle management (ALM) based on the strong auditing, transactional, and compliance features of both systems.

“Working with HP, we plan to offer our customers an effective collaborative environment to manage all software development assets, from source code, requirements, tests, and other binaries all within the same tool,” said Cliff Utstein, vice president of marketing, AccuRev.

“Customers need to take a pragmatic approach to managing the application lifecycle in order to reduce costs and risks,” said Ankur Agarwal, senior product manager, Software & Solutions, HP. “AccuRev’s agile SCM and software process optimization capabilities combined with HP Quality Center help customers ensure that applications meet the needs of the business through end-to-end traceability of all business-critical artifacts.”
Availability

AccuRev integration with HP Quality Center 10.0 will be available from AccuRev in Q3 2009. For more information, contact your local AccuRev sales representative at 1-800-383-8170.

About AccuRev Inc.

AccuRev optimizes and automates the software development process to allow organizations using Agile or other development process models to accelerate their throughput and release higher quality software. AccuRev’s flexible and efficient approach to managing the software release process together with code assets is relied on by organizations challenged with doing Agile and parallel development, transitioning to Agile development practices, or managing geographically distributed and offshore teams. AccuRev ensures greater project visibility, optimal team collaboration, and software asset reuse to deliver more software at over 30 percent faster than traditional file-based, branch and label SCCM solutions. AccuRev, the fastest growing SCCM company, is used by over 500 global enterprises including Polycom, Texas Instruments, American Airlines, Orbitz, Thomson Financial, Verizon Wireless and Lockheed Martin.

Connect to Quality Center OTA Client using PHP

2009-06-02T02:18:00.000-07:00

CODE:

$qcurl =$_GET["qcurl"];

$usr =$_GET["usr"];

$pwd =$_GET["pwd"];

$dmn =$_GET["dmn"];

$prj =$_GET["prj"];

$tdc = new COM("TDApiOle80.TDConnection") or die("Unable to instantiate Quality Center OTA API COM Object");

$tdc->InitConnectionEx($qcurl);

$tdc->Login($usr, $pwd);

If ($tdc->LoggedIn == 1)

echo "
Connected";

Else

echo "Check the Attributes";

$tdc->Connect($dmn,$prj);

If ($tdc->Connected == 1)

echo "
Logged In : Domain - $dmn | Project :$prj ";

//$tsttMgr = $tdc->TestSetTreeManager;

//Disconnect from the project

If ($tdc->Connected == 1)

{ $tdc->Disconnect();

echo "
Disconnected";

}

//Log off the server

If ($tdc->LoggedIn == 1)

$tdc->Logout();

//Release the TDConnection object.

$tdc->ReleaseConnection();

echo "
Released Connection.";

Some Q&A regarding COM & PHP -> http://www.php-center.de/en-html-manual/faq.com.html

MKS for HP Quality Center

2009-04-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

Improve Software Quality and Enhance Development and Quality Assurance (QA) Team Efficiency

MKS supports integrations with market leading, complementary development lifecycle tools, including leading software testing technologies. Our deep integrations result in a well managed cohesive development environment that is highly functional and user friendly.

"Quality Assurance is a crucial component of any IT project and is the responsibility of everyone involved - not just the QA Engineer, which makes it imperative for companies to ensure close, consistent collaboration between development, QA, and the business."

- Mark Sarbiewski, Senior Director, Solution Marketing, Software, Hewlett-Packard Company

Benefits of MKS and HP Quality Center (formerly Mercury Quality Center) integration for improved software testing:

Support IT governance by directly linking software change to defects

Improve communication between QA and Development with continuous process

Delivers complete traceability, closing hte loop between defects found in QA and fixed in development

Reduces project risk, providing assurance that QA is testing against the most current set of requirements

Connect Development and QA Teams with Integrated Process and Workflow Management:

HP Quality Center is integrated with the process and workflow capabilities of MKS Integrity to build a continuous and two-way process flow between Application Development and Quality Assurance teams.

Requirements authored in MKS Integrity can be synchronized into the Requirements Module of HP Quality Center, ensuring that testing requirements are directly related to the requirements being authored by the business analysts.

After testing is completed, defects identified with HP Quality Center are automatically cycled back into the development process via MKS Integrity, and travel with associated development artifacts such as source code or documentation. The integration enables organizations to establish an enforceable and auditable process for defect resolution, improving software quality, enhancing development and QA team efficiency, and supporting IT governance initiatives.

About MKS

MKS, the global application lifecycle management (ALM) technology leader, enables software engineering and IT organizations to seamlessly manage their worldwide software development activities. With its flagship product, MKS Integrity, MKS offers support for all software development activities through a single enterprise application, resulting in better global collaboration and higher productivity. MKS supports customers worldwide with offices across North America, Europe and Asia.

The MKS Integrity platform shows how a strong platform for application change and IT management can provide the foundation to meet the biggest challenges facing the Fortune 500 today - prioritization of IT spending, driving higher productivity, outsourcing and offshoring, and the reinvention of their IT infrastructure themselves.

Source: http://www.mks.com/solutions/hp_quality_center

HP Quality Center 10 from a Test Manager’s Perspective

2009-04-28T03:39:00.000-07:00

by Serge Baumberger

The new Version 10 of the HP Quality Center (QC) is now available. Yet what are the actual advantages of the new QC compared to its predecessor from a Test Manager’s perspective?

Below, I will take a look at some of the new features and changes, and I will answer the question whether one should even make the switch.

The Most Significant Changes

The new QC Version 10 has seen a series of changes, of which the most significant ones are:

Version control
Baselining
Integrated dashboard
Shared libraries
Cross Project Customization

Version Control

Finally, QC has been provided with a fully integrated version control. In past versions, one had to make do with third-party integration, which generally stumbled rather than ran. The version control, if desired, must first be activated for every individual project via the SiteAdmin. Once this is done, all entities falling under the version control become Version 1. QC entities include requirements, tests, test resources, and business components. If one wishes to add a test step to a test case for example, one is automatically requested to check this test case. As soon as there is more than one version of an entity, one can compare various versions against each other or retrieve an older version.

Summary: The whole thing is intuitive and easy to operate. But what’s the use of having eight versions of a requirement, when one doesn’t know which software release a version belongs to?

Baselining

Along with version control comes baselining, which is intended to answer the question above. Using the new “Management” module that replaces the “Releases” introduced in 9.x one gets to the baseline function via the “Libraries” tab. This enables one to obtain a summary of a complete testing release and retrieve it if necessary. In this way, a test set can be pinned to a baseline in the test lab. In other words, as of now, the manual copying of entire trees into the test plan module is a thing of the past. At last, test managers will be able to properly organize software that has multiple parallel releases (in production, current release, future release).

Summary: Setting up the baseline works very well. While creating it, a log keeps one updated on what is currently taking place. However, setting up baselines probably needs to be done during off-peak hours since it can take a while for larger QC projects.

Integrated Dashboard

Equally interesting for test managers is the new integrated dashboard that can be found on the left-hand navigation bar where the “Management” module is, too. The special feature of the new dashboard does not pertain to the graphics, which are not particularly appealing, but the “Cross-Project” functionality. It is now finally possible, when working on a QC project, to get an overview of all of one’s ongoing projects. These dashboards are freely configurable and can be designated to be personal favorites or publicly accessible. Special Excel reports also enable direct access to the database via SQL. The generated reports can then be graphically processed at the same time by means of VBScript.

Summary: The new dashboard module is quickly customized and achieves its purpose in ongoing projects. What is missing is a sensible way of printing content for a given project meeting, for example.

Shared Libraries

Libraries, which are located in the “Management” module, can be re-used and distributed with Version 10. A library represents a collection of entities in a QC project, including their relationships to each other. When dealing with many similar projects, it offers the advantage of not having to repeatedly create entities. Libraries can be imported from project A into project B, compared against each other, or even synchronized. A library also allows one to collect the same entities as in versioning. Defects are not included, but they can be shared with the new “HP Quality Center Synchronizer” manually among several QC projects. As mentioned, the advantages really only present themselves when one has many and/or large-scale projects. I suppose that is why this functionality is available only in the QC Premier Edition (also available are the Standard and Enterprise editions).

Summary: It remains to be seen whether this function will actually be used in real-world applications. In my opinion, it makes perfect sense to be able to take over pre-defined assets from another project so that one doesn’t have to keep re-inventing the wheel.

Cross Project Customization

And now here’s the last big change: Cross Project Customization. Many organizations have defined standards, such as a uniform defect status field or a standardized priority scale, for their software quality-related areas. However, these fields and lists were often changed or even deleted by QC project administrators. Some companies have even gone to great lengths in using their own programming to define a template that can be distributed to all QC projects, thereby establishing a uniform standard.

For all those who want to spare themselves this time and effort or do not wish to keep an in-house programmed interface going, there is a solution. Site Administrator now provides a way to link projects with a template. If the template is changed, the delta can then be passed on later at the right point in time. This function has been awaited not only by test managers who like to have the same configuration in all their projects, but especially also by the respective operators of QC installations, namely the system administrators. Cross Project Customization is also only available in the Premier Edition.

Summary: This change is awesome! Finally, testing organizations or Test Factory managers are able to implement a certain basic standard in their projects. Once this is accomplished, nothing can get in the way of standardized, across-the-board reporting.

Is an Upgrade Worth It?

The new Version 10 is an absolute milestone not only for tests managers. It also makes life easier for testers, Test Factory managers, as well as QC system administrators. The new functions have been anticipated for quite some time and have been implemented in the new product in a well-conceived manner.

However, there are still questions about how stable the new version is (my tests ran flawlessly) and how simple a migration of a larger installation might be. If these questions receive favorable responses, one should absolutely consider switching over to the new version!

Source: http://www.beteoblog.com

HP Announces Center Management for Quality Center 2.0

2009-02-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

In June 2008, HP released HP Center Management for Quality Center 2.0 software to help customers manage HP Quality Center software as a shared Center of Excellence (CoE). The solution facilitates this process by providing 'out-of-the-box' quality management best practices for project and resource management.

It allows you to create a centralized quality function with pre-packaged content and workflows to automate key processes for quality management, including service request types, security groups, custom reports and dashboard modules, as well as tracking and managing HP Quality Center administrative tasks.
Our unique solution combines proven practices from quality experts and HP Project and Portfolio Management technologies and provides a simpler and faster way to manage center demand, training, and administration.

HP Center Management for Quality Center can help you:

Efficiently manage the application project lifecycle and QA testing timelines, resources and skillsets
Enforce process and compliance through automation and enforcement of project and resource management processes
Manage and enforce quality gates and controls
Automate and manage HP Quality Center adminstration processes
Ensure continuity and consistency of skills and process development
Modify and measure improvements in your quality management processes
For more information about Center Management for Quality Center, visit our webpage at https://h10078.www1.hp.com/cda/hpms/display/main/hpms_content.jsp?zn=bto&cp=1-11-127-24^26176_4000_100__
or contact your HP sales representative.

Article src : http://h30046.www3.hp.com/country/us/en/portal/content.php?topiccode=CC_Center%20Managent%20QC

HP Quality Center 10.0 - Taking Quality Management to a New Level

2009-01-20T02:05:00.000-08:00

HP is Launching HP Quality Center 10.0 on 30^th January 2009.

Click Here: HP Quality Center 10.0 - Taking Quality Management to a New Level

There is a Detailed Webcast that talks about Whats New in HP Quality Center 10.0.

Speaker : Tracy Dedore (Worldwide Outbound Marketing Manager for HP Quality Center)

Direct WebCast Link (You might have to login): http://hpbroadband.com/program.aspx?key=10988QC10ProductLaunch14Jan09

SKY I.T. Group Works with HP Quality Center to Help Customers Benefit in Every Aspect of Application Lifecycle Management

2008-12-29T02:23:00.000-08:00

New York, NY – December 10, 2008 - http://www.skyitgroup.com/SWAPPID/102/SubPageID/35740

SKY I.T. Group, heavily focused on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and a premier software alliance member with HP, today announced a wide range of software support, consulting services and training to assist customers with their shift to HP Quality Center 10.0. With extended functionality built into this release, Sky I.T. Group has already put motions into delivering the most complete process-driven solutions around HP Quality Center. These solution complementary offerings will help customers govern change across the entire application lifecycle.

“The vast majority of software project failures occur directly as a result of poor release management, limited-to-no requirements gathering, lack of test management and analysis," said Lydia Casillas, VP, HP Software Solutions Group at SKY I.T. Group. "To circumvent this, organizations need to bridge the gap between business and IT more effectively via better communication with one another and by coordinating different phases of the application lifecycle – including releases and requirements – to improve quality, prioritize and manage change. This is the key to business alignment and the success of software projects."

“Working with HP Quality Center, we help combine every major phase to manage the application lifecycle into one comprehensive web-based platform. This provides teams with the real-time information on the actual state of software development in their organization necessary to make intelligent, informed decisions, while delivering unique functionality and a significant return on investment,” said Jay Hakami, President at SKY I.T. Group.

SKY I.T. Group’s ALM services around HP Quality Center 10.0 are designed to meet the needs of every line of business involved in the application delivery processes. SKY I.T. Group will make it easy for any size organization to roll-out the new release of HP Quality Center with cost-effective professional services including:

HP Quality Center Migrations
Installation/implementation & QuickStart Services
HP Quality Center authorized training
Automation Framework development
Test Management Consulting & Process Improvement
Test Management Assessments & Audits

To learn more about SKY I.T. Group Application Lifecycle Management service offerings around Quality Center 10.0, visit http://www.skyitgroup.com

"Organizations need to take a smart approach in managing the application lifecycle for cost and risk reduction," said Mark Sarbiewski, senior director of products, Software and Solutions, HP. "SKY IT Group's services complement HP Quality Center as part of HP's approach to Application Lifecycle Management to help customers modernize their applications to better meet the needs of the business now and in the future."

About SKY I.T. Group

SKY I.T. is a leader of comprehensive application lifecycle solutions and services for effectively and efficiently managing the software development lifecycle. Located in New York City, Sky I.T. Group is dedicated to assisting customers in every aspect of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). ALM improves software quality and productivity with tools, services and training. SKY's expertise ranges across an assortment of industries including banking, brokerage, insurance, technology, education, pharmaceuticals, retail, manufacturing, distribution, telecommunications and others. Since 1997, many customers have benefited from the company's solutions that optimize IT investment and produce significant bottom-line return on investment. Visit - http://www.skyitgroup.com or call 1-866-SKY-3500 for more information.

CollabNet Tracker Connector to HP Quality Center

2008-12-28T22:11:00.000-08:00

This integration product allows customers to bi-directionally synchronize Tracker artifacts with Quality Center defect reports, enabling development and QA team members to each work exclusively in their tool of choice while improving the communication and collaboration between teams.

Overview

Integrating development and QA defects eliminates the need to manually enter or update the same information in multiple systems, increasing productivity and reducing error. Defects reports can be more easily and quickly communicated to the development team, while questions or fixes from the development team can be instantly reported back to the QA team.

These efficiency improvements translate to higher quality software delivered at a faster velocity. Best of all, team members do not need to leave their familiar tools to take advantage of this improved process; QA team members can do everything they need in Quality Center and developers can work in their CollabNet SourceForge Enterprise project workspace via any browser, or in Eclipse using the CollabNet Desktop - Eclipse Edition.

Capabitilies

Transfer Quality Center defects to Tracker artifacts
Flexible synchronization architecture
Supports multiple projects and artifact types
Improve communication between QA and Development teams
Reduce the number of Quality Center seat licenses
Reduce the need for user training

About CollabNet

Collaborative Software Development

With more than 1.5 million users, the CollabNet Platform is the most widely used platform for distributed software development. CollabNet transforms the way software is developed by simplifying distributed development and enabling organizations to leverage global development talents to deliver better products and innovate faster.

Using the CollabNet Platform, project members can work as one team throughout the lifecycle of a project, regardless of their location. Unlike traditional software development tools, the CollabNet Platform supports globally distributed teams in a cost-effective way, yielding unprecedented annual savings through reduced development infrastructure costs, increased productivity, improved project visibility, and shared access to software assets.

Recognized and Relied On by Global 5000 Companies

More than 500 companies rely on CollabNet for their distributed development, offshoring, outsourcing and partner co-development efforts. In April 2007, CollabNet acquired SourceForge Enterprise Edition from SourceForge.com, bringing under one roof the two leaders in distributed software development.

Founded upon open source principles, CollabNet is also the company behind Subversion, the next-generation Software Configuration Management (SCM) solution. Subversion was named sole leader in standalone SCM in the Forrester Wave report for Software Configuration and Change Management, Q2, 2007.

Unmatched Expert Consulting, Training, and Support Services

CollabNet offers comprehensive consulting, training, and support services, all designed to ensure successful deployment, strong adoption throughout your organization, and a faster return on your investment. Each offering includes both prepackaged selections as well as customized services that are tailored to your unique processes and business requirements.

Surgient Integrates Virtual Automation Platform with HP Quality Center 10.0

2008-12-14T22:40:00.000-08:00

Article Source : Surgient Press Release Austin, Texas — Dec. 10, 2008

Software Development and QA Professionals Rely on Surgient Self-Service Virtualization to Centrally Manage Creation of Software Testing Environments

Surgient, the leading provider of self-service virtualization automation and lab management, today announced integration with HP Quality Center 10.0. Software development and QA professionals can now access the new HP solution to create, manage, and tear down Surgient-driven virtual lab environments that dramatically improve the efficiency of the software testing process. Customers are already capitalizing on the products, and today’s integration will allow them to seamlessly upgrade to the new HP product version while continuing to rely on Surgient’s self-service solutions to provision virtual resources for software testing

“The Surgient Platform enables HP Quality Center customers to accelerate test cycles by consolidating test infrastructure and automating the setup of test environments on-demand,” said Sameer Jagtap, vice president of product strategy and business development at Surgient. “Surgient complements HP Quality Center to eliminate two pervasive testing barriers: insufficient or unavailable test infrastructure and the excessive time required to deploy and configure today’s test environments.”

With Surgient’s Virtual Automation Platform and HP Quality Center 10.0, software QA and test managers can centrally manage and allocate test lab resources across multiple, distributed teams.

“Customers want to drive application quality higher, accelerate delivery, and save money all at the same time.” said Mark Sarbiewski, senior director of products, Software and Solutions, HP. “The Surgient Virtual Automation Platform, when integrated with HP Quality Center, enables more effective software testing. It ensures seamless, self-service access to IT resources. This enables organizations to quickly deploy entire test environments on virtual, physical or mixed infrastructure in the test lab or datacenter.”

HP's upcoming Quality Center 10 focuses on cohesion

2008-12-10T20:12:00.000-08:00

Article Source: http://www.sdtimes.com/link/33101

HP QC 10 will arrive in January, according to announcements made by the company at its annual user conference in Vienna, Austria, today.

The biggest change for users of the existing quality assurance suite will be the more cohesive package around the testing, life-cycle management and requirements gathering tools that make up HP QC 10.

Mark Sarbiewski, senior director of products at HP Software, said that QC 10 will use Web-based portals to coordinate all of the work around software projects inside of an enterprise. What's changed in version 10 is the ability to control those projects in a more collaborative way and to extend them out to users who would normally live within the walls of their own projects.

Previous versions of QC, said Sarbiewski, focused on handling development in a project-specific fashion. With version 10, sub-projects and individual components are no longer isolated islands, as connections between requirements, issue tracking and testing persist across project boundaries.

This time out of the gate, requirements can be tied to bugs and workflow can be analyzed by managers, without extra modifications or customizations. The goal is to give developers and business intelligence workers a single place to deal with all of their software creation needs, yet still allow the individual tools of development, such as bug tracking and repository controls, to be interchangeable.

As such, QC 10 is available a la carte. Existing customers may qualify for 0% lease financing, a major new sales pitch at this year's user conference. HP sees a need to make its software more enticing to cash-strapped organizations, and it hopes that this financing effort will drive sales, said Sarbiewski.

QC 10 is also available as a software-as-a-service offering directly from HP. Sarbiewski said that such offerings eliminate the need for IT to implement and maintain development systems. The SaaS offerings behind QC 10 will also be available in January.

Article Source: http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/bethgb/archives/2008/12/hp_announcement_1.php

HP Quality Center 10.0 supports automation of requirements management, performance loading, and testing. This helps ensure that testing is aligned with business requirements. Given the breadth of methods, technologies, and solutions in the enterprise, including agile development with very short iterative cycles, Web 2.0, SOA, composite applications, SaaS and cloud computing, it is becoming more difficult for CIOs to focus on the most critical investments to drive top line revenue and customer satisfaction. HP Quality Center 10.0 automates management of IT assets across the enterprise.

Quality Center 10.0 incorporates ITL 3 practices for ensure service continuity, and manages requirements throughout the entire lifecycle. It helps managers prioritize projects and optimize the application portfolio. They can put in KPIs, resource costs, and monitor projects, even integrating with development tools, to ensure projects stay on track and deliver business value.

The automated workflow capabilities can ensure business requirements are managed through security and quality testing.

Quality Center also addresses another hot topic among CIOs – using virtualization to cut costs. Quality Center can identify hardware platforms with excess capacity that can be better utilized if shared across departments and applications. It also automates monitoring and change management processes. Quality Center requirements management capabilities are integrated with the Universal Configuration Management Database.