What is HP ALM(Quality Center) in Software Testing | Software Testing Tool

In this article, you will learn the following:

• What is a Quality Center?
• History of Quality Center
• Why is it used as a test management tool?

What is a Quality Center?

It is a test management tool that is popularly known as Application Lifecycle Management. It helps in organizing the various phases of the software development life cycle such as project planning, requirements gathering, testing, and deployment which saves a lot of time. It is developed and launched by Mercury Interactive. It also helps in tracking project health and standards that allow product owners to gauge the current status of the software. 

History of Quality Center

• Earlier it was known as Test Director, which was developed by Mercury Interactive. 
• In 2008, its Version 8 was released and it was renamed as Quality Center. 
• After a few years, it was acquired by HP and all the products of Mercury Interactive were known as HP. 
• Hence, Mercury Interactive Quality Center becomes Hp Quality Center. 
• In 2011, its Version 11 was released and again it was renamed as HP ALM. 

Why is it used as a test management tool?

There are so many partners in the product like: 

• Developer
• Tester
• Business Analysts
• Project Managers
• Product Owner

HP ALM manages all phases of the software development life cycle thoroughly along with documentation. The partners need to communicate on various levels with the team through HP ALM, it becomes very simple. There is no need to maintain a centralized repository to record, maintain, and track all the activities related to the product manually with the help of HP ALM we can perform all the tasks easily. 

The tasks related to each phase:

• Project Manager: It documents the project planning, task allocation, and bug tracking which can be easily done through HP ALM. 
• Developer: The primary task of a developer is to maintain version control and build servers. 
• Business Analyst: It tracks the requirements of a project, manages QoS, and analyzes the requirements. 
• Product Owner: It manages the portfolio of the product and performs stakeholder communication. 
• Tester: It manages the test cases. It performs automated testing, load testing, and manual testing. 

These tasks can easily be done through HP ALM in the following ways:

• It allows all the project partners to interact and communicate with each other to achieve the project goals.
• It gives robust tracking and reporting of project progress. It provides the seamless tracking of various project-related activities. 
• It provides detailed project analysis and effective management.
• It is connected with our email systems and sends out emails to all the team members of the project about any changes.