Introduction to HP ALM(Quality Center)

Quality Center was initially a test management tool developed by Mercury interactive.
It is now developed by HP as Application Life Cycle Management Tool (or) ALM that
supports various phases of the software development life cycle.
ALM is a web based tool that helps organizations to manage the application lifecycle right
from project planning, requirements gathering, until testing & deployment, which otherwise
is a time consuming task
ALM also provides integration to all other HP products such as UFT and Load Runner.

Why use HP ALM?

The various stakeholders involved in a typical project are

Developer

Tester

Business Analysts

Project Managers

Product Owners

These stakeholders perform diverse set of activities that need to be communicated to all
concerned team members.
If we do not maintain centralized repository to record, maintain and track all the artifacts
related to the product, the project will unquestionably FAIL.
We also need a mechanism to document and collaborate on all testing and development
activities.

Enter HP ALM!

It enables all the stakeholders to interact and coordinate, to achieve the project
goals.

It provides robust tracking & reporting and seamless integration of various project
related tasks.

It enables detailed project analysis and effective management.

ALM can connect to our email systems and send emails about any changes(like
Requirement change, Defect raising etc..) to all desired team members.

Evolution of ALM
It is important to understand the history of ALM.

Quality Center was earlier known as Test Director which was developed by Mercury
Interactive.

In 2008, Version 8 was released and the product was renamed as Quality Center.

Later, HP acquired Mercury Interactive and rebranded all mercury products as HP.

So Mercury Quality Center became HP Quality Center

In 2011, Version 11 was released and Quality center was rechristened as HP ALM.

Architecture of QC
Now let us understand the technology part of HP-ALM. ALM is an enterprise application
developed using Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) that can have MS SQL Server or Oracle as
its back end. ALM has 3 components Client, Application Server and Database Server.
1. HP ALM client: when an end user/tester accesses the URL of ALM, the client
components are downloaded on the client's system. ALM client components help the
user to interact with the server using .NET and COM technologies over a secured
connection (HTTPS).
2. ALM server/Application server: Application server usually runs on a Windows or
Linux platform which caters to the client requests. App server makes use of the Java
Database Connectivity (JDBC) driver to communicate between the application server
and database servers.
3. Database servers: The Database layer stores three schemas.

Site Administration schema: It Stores information related to the domains, users, and
site parameters.

Lab Project: This schema stores lab information related to functional and
performance testing on remote hosts, Performance Center server data.

Project schema: Stores project information, such as work item/data created by user
under the project area. Each project has its own schema and they are are created on
the same database server as the Site Administration schema.

HP ALM Editions:
HP ALM is a commercial licensed tool and HP distributes ALM in 4 different flavors

ALM Edition Feature Comparison

Each one of the license allows users to access certain ALM functionalities. Following Table
lists the features that a particular license give you =

Lets study why would you purchase a particular version and whom is it suited for

HP ALM Essentials This is for corporates that need just the basic features for
supporting their entire software life cycle. It has access to requirements management,
test management and defect management.

HP QC Enterprise Edition This license holds good for corporates who would like to
use ALM exclusively for testing purposes. It also provides integration with Unified
Functional Tester (UFT).

HP ALM Performance Center Edition This license best suits for organizations who
would like to use HP ALM to drive HP-Load runner scripts. It helps the users to
maintain, manage, schedule, execute and monitor performance tests.

ALM Workflow
To learn the ALM workflow, Let's first study a typical test process-

We being with planning and drafting, Release details. Determine no of Cycles in each
release & Scope of each release

For a given Release and Cycle we draft the Requirements Specifications.

Base on the requirements, Test plans and test cases are created.

Next stage is executing the created tests plan

Next stage in this test processes is tracking and fixing the defects detected in the
execution stage

During all stages, analysis is done, and reports and graphs are generated for test
metric generation.

HP ALM provides a module catering to each stage of the Testing Process. We will study them
in detail in later tutorials.

How to install HP ALM

Before Installing ALM 12.0, one has to understand the system requirements. We will go
through how to perform a standalone installation on a Windows Environment. Users should
meet all the below prerequisites for installing ALM Successfully.

Operating Systems

Databases

Browsers

MSOffice

User should use one

of the following
One
of
the
following
browsers to access
Users should be
installing ALM on one Databases should have ALM, after
To allow importing
been installed before installation.
of the following
data from Excel/Word
proceeding to
Windows Server
to ALM, users should
installing ALM.
Microsoft
edition Operating
have preinstalled one
Systems.
Internet
of the following MS
Oracle 10.2.0.5
Explorer 8 32
Office Suites.
Bit
Microsoft
Oracle 11.2.0.3
Windows
Microsoft
Microsoft
Server 2008 R2
Office 2010
Enterprise SP1
Internet
Microsoft SQL
SP2 32 Bit
64 Bit
Explorer 9 32
Server 2008
Bit
R2 SP2
Microsoft Office 2013
Microsoft Windows
32 Bit
Server 2012 Standard Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft
64 Bit.
Internet
2012 SP1
Explorer 10 32
Bit
Here is workflow of the installation process

Part A: Downloading

Step 1:

Goto HP ALM site

Select "Try Now" Tab

Click "download HP ALM Now" button.

Step 2: The download wizard appears

Enter all the required details

Click 'NEXT'.

Step 3: Accept the license terms and click 'I Agree'.

Step 4: Select the installer for Windows ,shown below:

Tip: Its recommended you use HP Download Manager or some other software as the
installation file is big and prone to fail due to network issues

Part B) Installation
Step 1:

Unzip the installer. You will see the folder structure as below

Right click the setup.exe and 'Run as Administrator'.

Step 2: Select ALM Platform Installation for Windows environment. The extraction process
will continue.

Step 3: The Welcome page of the installation opens. Click 'NEXT' to Continue.

Step 4: Upon clicking 'Next' from welcome page, the license agreement dialog opens. Upon
accepting the license agreement, user will be able to proceed with the installation.

Step 5: After accepting the license agreement, folder selection dialog opens. The HP ALM
will be installed in the selected location.

Step 6:

An Installation summary would be shown to the user before commencing the

installation process.

Review the summary and click install

Step 7: Upon clicking the 'Install' button in Installation summary dialog, the installation
process kicks off.

Step 8: Upon completing the installation, the status is displayed to the us

Installation complete!

Part C) Configuration
So far, we have just installed/copied across the necessary installation files for ALM. Upon
successful installation, the installer will continue with server configuration wizard
Step 1:. Use 'Evaluation Key' and select 'Application Lifecycle Management' and click
'NEXT'.

Step 2: Enter the Server Details. You should have preinstalled oracle/MS SQL Server. Select
the appropriate database credentials and click 'Next'.

Tip: Use MS-SQL(SQL Auth) because, ALM easily get installed with this option while MS SQL(Win Auth) is more error prone due to OS registries and UAC settings
TroubleShooting
If you get Error "failed to validate database parameters" inspite of entering Valid Database
parameters, then do following
1. In command prompt check Port 1433 is listening. Use command netstat -an
2. In SQL Server Configuration Manager > SQL Server Network Configuration > Protocols
for MSSQLSERVER > Enable TCP/IP Protocol. Restart the SQLServer.
3. Double click TCP/IP in the "Protocols for "Your Instance"" and go to IP addresses tab.
Find IPAll drop down and set the port to 1433. Click Apply, than ok and restart the server,
this should also be able to resolve this issue.
Step 3: Enter the Site Admin Database Schema Name and password. After entering the
details, Click 'Next'.

Step 4: The Security page in the server configuration wizard opens. You can check 'Use
Default Value' and click 'Next'.

Step 5: Enter 'Site Administrator' User ID and Password. DONOT forget these credentials as
these details would be required to login to ALM successfully.

Step 6: Select the File Repository Path where all the ALM Data would be stored.

Step 7: User can also select the Port that they would like to install. In this case it is
8181(default is 8080 which you can override) and click 'NEXT'.
Note: The Default Port 8080 might be used by other applications, hence it is better to choose
other port numbers.

Step 8: Leave the HP ALM Service as empty as your Windows login credentials would be
used by default. Click 'Next' to continue.

Step 10: Enter the server details to setup mail server for HP ALM. This is used to send emails
using ALM. If you do not want to specify, click none and move ahead

Step 11) A configuration summary is shown before proceeding. Click Next

Step 12) Configuration proceeds

Step 13: Upon applying the configuration if successful, status message would be shown
appropriately. Click 'Finish' and ALM service will be started if 'Start ALM Server' has been
checked.

Step 14: Now we can launch Quality Center by using the URL : http://localhost:8181/qcbin/.
The ALM 12.0 would be launched as shown below.

Create a Domain, Project, User in HP ALM

In order to work with ALM, you need to

Create Domain

Create Project

Create Users

In practice, these would be created by ALM Site Administrator as an end user WILL NOT
have access to Site Admin page.

How to Create a Domain

Step 1) Launch ALM and click 'Site administration' from the home page. User will be popped
up to enter the credentials. Enter the Credentials that we have created during Installation.

Step 2) The Admin Dashboard is shown. Click on Create Domain

Step 3) In the pop-up Enter Domain Name (in our case "Banking") and Click OK

Step 4) The domain would be created as shown below.

How to Create a Project

Step 1) Select the Domain under which projects are to be created. In this case it is 'Banking'
Domain, and click 'Create Project' as shown below

Step 2) The 'Create Project' wizard opens. Select 'Create and Empty Project' from the list and
click 'Next' button.

Step 3) Enter the Name of the Project and click 'Next' as shown below.

Step 4) Select the appropriate Database type and enter the following. In this case, we have
selected 'MS-SQL' as we had installed Hp-ALM with MS-SQL as backend. If you had
installed ALM with Oracle as your database server, please select 'oracle'.

(1) Database server name

(2) Database Admin User Name
(3) Database Admin Password and click 'Next'.

Step 5) Select 'Admin' user and click 'Next'. No other users are displayed as we haven't
created any users in ALM.

Step 6) The summary dialog is displayed and Click on 'create' button. You will also notice
that there are two check boxes in this window.
1. Activate Project If unchecked, project would still be created but users will not be
able to access this project area.
2. Enable Versioning This will enable version controlling feature which restricts the
users from editing the same work item (requirements, tests) at the same time to avoid
overwriting the changes made by one user over other.

Step 7) The project creation status would be displayed as shown below.

Step 8) The project 'GURU99_BANK' has been created successfully under 'BANKING'
domain as shown below.

How to Create a User

Step 1) In order access HP ALM , a user profile needs to be created. In order to create users,
site admin has to click on 'Site users' Tab.

Step 2) Click 'Add user' icon from 'Site users' tab as shown below.

Step 3) The 'Add user' dialog box opens. Enter all the necessary details and click 'OK'.

Step 3) The Added user will be displayed in 'user list' as highlighted below along with the
other existing users.

Step 4) Now we will need to map the user to the project areas as the newly created user
WILL NOT have access to any of the projects. It is enough to create a user only once to have
access to multiple project areas.
In this case we have added the user 'Guru99' to 'GURU99_BANK' Project area which is
under 'BANKING' domain.

Release Specifications: Understanding the Management

Tab in HP ALM

Management Tab helps users to organize and track releases and cycles.

A release has a definite start date and end date that corresponds to a group of changes
that will be deployed to the end users in that time interval

A cycle which falls within a release has a set of development and testing efforts in
order to achieve a common goal.

ALM users can track the progress of the project in real time by analyzing the releases
tree to ensure if it matches the release goals.

It also enables users to get a quick snapshot of the quality of that release which
displays the outstanding defect and defect opening rate.

Why do we need Management of Release and Cycles in ALM?

In reality, when a product development happens, there are various release for a particular
product

Each release is broken down into a number of cycles. Let's say we have got 2 releases
with each having 2 cycles of development and testing for Guru99 banking application.

Each Release has also a predefined scope and milestone associated with it.

For each cycle there is a specific number of requirements.

Each requirement has a number of test cases associated with it.

Upon executing tests, the defects are logged and mapped to the corresponding tests
after which we can trace requirements and defects.

The Management Tab

This module helps us to create and manage releases and cycles which is the first step before
proceeding to create any work item such as requirements/tests/defects. It also helps us work
with project planning and tracking. Following functionalities are vital in this tab.

Creating Releases

Creating Cycles

Creating Release Scope

Create Milestone

Note: before starting with exercise, refer this interactive tutorial to learn how to login in ALM

How to Create a Release

Creating releases is the first step in ALM and all other work item such as requirements, test
cases and defects are traced based on the releases/cycles.
As explained in workflow, we will have two releases this year for Guru99 banking
application with the following timelines.
Release Name

Start Date

End Date

2017 R1

01/01/2017

21/06/2017

2017 R2

01/07/2017

31/12/2017

Step 1) First step is to navigate to Management tab and click on "Releases" Tab. The landing
page would appear as shown below:

Step 2) Before creating a release, we can create a container/folder by clicking on a "New

Folder" icon in releases module as shown below. Give the folder name 2017

Step 3) Next step is to create new releases. To create a new release, click "new
release" button and the New Release dialog opens. Enter the following mandatory details
1. Release Name
2. Start Date of the Release
3. End Date of the Release
4. Brief Description about the release (Optional)

Step 4) After Entering the above details click "OK". The Release will be created as shown
below.

Likewise you can create other Release R2

Step 5) Upon Selecting a particular Release, one can see the tabs that are relevant to the
Releases.

Step 6) Now let us understand the important tabs available under "Releases" Module. Select
Details Tab to retrieve the information about the details of the release that was provided
during the creation of the Release.

Step 7) Select Release Scope Tab that provides the details about the scope of that release. We
haven't created scope for this release; hence the scope list is empty. Creation of milestones
and scope will be dealt in detail in a separate module.

Step 8) Master Plan provides the pictorial representation of the timeline. If cycles are created,
the master plan would include cycle timelines for that release as well.

Step 9) Status Tab shows details about the release regarding the overall progress of that
release.

When the release is created afresh without any work item such as
requirements/tests/defects added to it, the status would be displayed as shown below.

The status would be displayed as shown below when user maps the work items such
as requirements/tests/defects against the release.

How to create Cycle

In reality, each one of the releases is further broken down into cycles and let us understand
how to create cycles in ALM. Let us say in our case there are two cycles in a release.
Release

Cycle Name

Cycle Start Date

Cycle End Date

Cycle 1

01/01/2017

31/03/2017

Cycle 2

01/04/2017

30/06/2017

Cycle 1

01/07/2017

30/09/2017

Cycle 2

01/10/2017

31/12/2017

Release R1

Release R2

Step 1)Select the Release under which you would like to create cycles and click on "New
Cycles" button and the new cycles dialog box opens where the release timelines are
prepopulated as this cycle is created under the selected release. User has to enter the
following mandatory details in 'New Cycles' Window:

Name of the Cycle

Start Date of the Cycle

End Date of the Cycle.

Description (Optional)

Step 2)Once all the cycle is created, user can access the same under created Release as shown
below.

Step 3) Select a particular cycle to access details of that cycle.

Step 4) Now let us understand all the other important tabs present under "Cycles". User can
attach any attachment under 'attachments' Tab. 'The Progress tab' gives the status of that
cycle under the selected Release.

The Progress will be displayed as shown below when user created the cycle without
any workitems(requirements/tests/defects) mapped against it.

The Progress will be displayed as shown below after user has mapped
workitems(requirements/tests/defects) to the cycle.

Step 5 ) The Quality Tab provides the information such as defect opening rate and number of
outstanding defects which is the preliminary information about the quality of the current
cycle.

When the user has created the Cycle the 'Quality' Tab will be displayed as shown
below as there are no workitems are mapped against it.

The 'Quality' Tab will be displayed as shown below once the user has mapped work
items against that release.

How to Create Release Scope

Each Release has a scope and milestone associated with it that can be added under "Release
Scope" Tab under Releases.
Step 1)Upon clicking on "+" icon in releases scope tab of releases module, New Scope dialog
opens.

Enter the following details.

1. The name of the scope which is the only mandatory field
2. Priority of the Scope Item
3. Owner of the Scope.
4. Description about the Scope.

Step 2) Upon clicking on "OK" button, all the added scope is shown in the "Release Scope"
tab as shown below.

How to Create MileStone

Step 1) New Milestone can be created only under a release using a "New Milestone" Icon as
shown below.

Step 2) While creating a milestone following fields are mandatory.

1. Name of the Milestone
2. Start Tracking Date
3. End Tracking Date.
4. Description

Step 3) The created Milestone is shown as below.

Step 4) Now user can map a milestone scope against the created project scope. To perform
the same, select the milestone and navigate to Milestone Scope and select the corresponding
scope and map it.

All About Requirements Specifications module in HP

ALM

Defining the Requirements is one of the preliminary phases for software development
lifecycle.

Defining Requirements refers to what has to be delivered to the clients at the end of
that specific release.

Establishing requirements with brevity and clarity upfront would result in minimal
rework after development is completed.

This module in ALM enables users to define, manage and track requirements.

We will make use of the sample application (GURU99 Banking) to understand it better.
In this tutorial we will learn

How to Create Requirement

How to Upload Requirement using Microsoft Excel

How to perform Coverage Analysis (Requirement Traceability)

How to create Requirements

Step 1) Click on 'Requirements' in 'Requirements' module.

Step 2) Let us maintain all the requirements for this release(2017 R1) in a specific folder so
that it would be easy for us to access. In addition to that we would like to show the distinction
between 'Functional' and 'Non Functional' requirements by placing them in different folders.
1. Click 'New Folder' Icon under Requirements Module
2. Enter the Name of the Folder as "2017 R1" to easily identify the requirements for this
release.

Step 3) The created folder would be shown as displayed below.

Step 4) Now let us create a folder for 'Functional' Requirements where are all the Functional
requirements documents/work items are maintained.

Step 5) The Created Folder will be displayed in 'Requirements' module as shown below.

Step 6) Similarly create 'Non Functional' Folder. Upon creating both Functional and Non
Functional folder, we will have the folder structure as shown below.

Step 7) Click 'New Requirements' icon in the requirements page as shown below.

The 'New Requirements' dialog opens up and user has to enter the following mandatory
fields.
1. Enter the Name of the Requirement
2. Select the Requirement Type

Step 8) User can also enter the following Non-Mandatory fields.

1. Author
2. Priority
3. Reviewed
4. Target Release
5. Target Cycle
6. Description and Comments.
Step 9) Requirements also allows users to enter the requirements in 'Rich Text' format
directly as shown below.

Step 10) Usually, requirements are captured in a word document. They be uploaded under
attachments tab as shown below. ALM also support all other file types like .xls, .jpg etc. After
uploading click Submit button.

Step 11) The requirement would be displayed to the user as shown below:

How to Upload Requirements using Microsoft Excel

Sometimes, user won't be creating requirements manually. It is easy to upload all
requirements in bulk rather than creating each one by one, which is a time consuming
process. In order to facilitate uploading into ALM, HP has come up with an Addin with which
the user can upload from MS excel/MS Word directly. Let us understand the step by step
procedure to upload requirements into QC from Excel.
For uploading Requirements, we need to understand the workflow:

Part A - Downloading:
Step 1) Navigate to ALM home page http://localhost:8181/qcbin and click on "Tools" from
the list of links.

Step 2: Click on "More HP ALM Add-ins" Link from the add-ins page as shown below.

Step 3) Select 'Add-ins for Microsoft Applications' and select 'Microsoft Excel' from the link
as we would be using MS Excel add-in to upload the Data into HP-ALM.

Step 3) Select HP-ALM Microsoft Excel Add-in for ALM 12.00 link.

Step 4) Select HP-ALM Microsoft Excel Add-in for ALM 12.00 link. Users can also refer to
the 'Read-me' Guide and 'Add-in' Guide. Upon clicking on the link, the add-in set up file will
be downloaded to default location/user selected location.

Part B Installation:
Step 1) Select the downloaded add-in and perform a right click on the downloaded file.
Select 'Run as Administrator'.

Step 2) Select the downloaded add-in and perform a right click on the downloaded file.
Select 'Run as Administrator' so that we can install the add-in.

Step 3) Select the installation type. Here we have selected 'For All Users' which was the
default setting. If you wish to install only for the current user please select 'For Current User
Only' and click 'Next'.

Step 4) Upon completion of the installation, user would get the status message. Click 'Finish'
Button.

Step 5) To verify if the add-in got successfully installed, open Excel and navigate to 'Add-ins'
Tab. You will find an option 'Export to HP ALM' which means the 'add-in' got installed
successfully.

Part C Uploading Requirements into ALM :

Step 1) Before uploading the requirements from excel, we need to prepare the excel such that
it can be uploaded.
1. Select the Fields that you wish to upload into ALM and create a header in Excel for
those fields.
2. Enter a valid data in each one of those fields as shown below.

Step 2) After selecting the data to upload, click 'Export to HP ALM' from 'Add-Ins' .

Step 3) The ALM Export Wizard opens. Enter the HP ALM Server URL and Click 'Next'.

Enter the user name and password for authentication and Click 'Next'.

Step 3) Select the Domain, Project Name into which we would like to upload the
requirements and Click 'Next'.

Step 4) Select the type of data that we would like to upload. In this case, it is requirements.
We can also upload Tests/Defects which we will deal with it later.

Step 5) Enter the New Map name. The first option, 'Select a map' is disabled because we
haven't created a map so far. Hence we should create new map name and click 'Next'. We
haven't selected 'Create a Temporary map' as we would like to reuse every time for uploading
'Requirements'.

Step 5b) In this dialog, user has to choose the requirement type behavior. If we are uploading
only one type of requirement, then we should select 'Single Requirement Type'.
We are uploading different requirement types. Hence we have to map against the
corresponding column in excel. As per our template, Column 'E' carries the requirement type.

Step 6) Upon Clicking 'Next', the mapping dialog opens as shown below.
1. The left pane grid items that are listed correspond to the fields that are available for
upload in HP ALM. Please note that the fields marked in 'RED' should be mapped
as they are mandatory fields.
2. The right pane grid items refer to the fields that are mapped so that values in Excel
will flow into those corresponding fields of ALM.

Now let us understand how to map the fields in Excel against the fields in ALM.
Select the Field that user would like to map and click on the arrow button as shown below.

Enter the column name in Excel that corresponds to the appropriate column name in HP
ALM.

Map all the required columns in excel against the appropriate fields in HP ALM. After
mapping all the required fields, click 'Export'.

Step 8) Upon successful upload, ALM displays the message as shown below. If errors appear
please fix the issue and try re-uploading the same.

Step 11) Now let us verify the same under 'Requirements' Tab. All the requirement details
including attachments are uploaded as shown below.

How to do Coverage Analysis (Requirement Traceability)

Once the user has mapped all the requirements, tests and defects as discussed in each one of
those chapters, we will be able to generate coverage analysis and traceability Matrix.
Coverage Analysis helps us to understand the test coverage against a specific requirement and
details about number of tests passed/failed/not executed.
Step 1) Navigate to requirements module and Click on 'View' Menu and select 'Coverage
Analysis'.

Step 2) The coverage Analysis will be generated against each one of the requirements placed
under 'Requirement Tab' with consolidated status on a folder level.

Step 3) Upon expanding the folder, the coverage analysis will be displayed as shown below.

Step 4) Click on each one of those coverage analysis status to get a drill down report.
1. Click on the Status of a specific Requirement. The coverage Analysis will be
displayed with the number of failures.
2. Click 'Show Test Coverage' which will show the detailed test status attached to the
selected requirement.

Step 5) Uponclicking 'Show Test Coverage', the test execution status against the selected
requirement will be displayed.

Traceability Matrix :

The traceability matrix enables the users to determine the extent of relationships
between requirements and other requirements (or) between requirements and tests.

The traceability matrix lists source requirements and their associated requirements
and tests. The Matrix displays the total number of relationships for each source
requirement.

Step 1) First Step is to navigate to 'View' Menu and select 'Traceability Matrix'.

Step 2) The Traceability Matrix page opens as shown below.

Click 'Configure Traceability Matrix'

The 'Configure Traceability Matrix' Dialog Opens.

Step 3) The criteria for generating the traceability Matrix is shown below.

Click 'Filter' under 'Define Source Requirements'

The 'Filter Requirements' Dialog opens. Click the filter criteria button.

Select Filter Criteria Dialog Opens. Select 'Functional' from the list

Click 'OK'.

Step 4) The Filter requirement dialog displays the filter criteria as selected by the user. Click
'OK'.

Step 5) The Configure Traceability Dialog is displayed

1. With the selected 'Requirement Type'
2. Click on 'Filter by linked Tests' link.

Step 6) Let us generate the traceability matrix between requirements and tests. Hence upon
clicking on 'Filter by linked tests', the following dialog is displayed to the user.
1. Enable 'Filter by linked tests'.
2. Select 'Linked to' the following tests.
3. Let us generate the traceability matrix for those requirements that has got more than 5
tests. Hence select the Filter criteria as 'more than'
4. Enter a value. In this case it is '5'
5. Click 'Ok'

Step 7) Following screen is displayed to the user with all the requirements and its
corresponding tests if the specified traceability matrix criteria is met.

Step 8) User can also click on 'Generate Traceability matrix' that can be exported to excel.
1. Select the details for which the traceability matrix has to be generated.
2. Click 'Generate Traceability Matrix'.

Step 9) The File save dialog is displayed to the user.

1. Choose the location where the traceability matrix need to be saved.
2. Enter the File Name
3. Click 'Save'.

Step 10) Upon clicking 'Save' Button, the traceability matrix is generated to the user.

All About Test Plan Module in HP ALM (Quality Center)

After defining requirements, development team kick starts their design and
development process while testing team start designing tests that can be executed
once the build is deployed.

Success of any product depends on the testing processes and the quality of testing that
is being carried out. A Good test plan results in a bug free product.

ALM supports maintenance and execution of manual, automation and performance

tests as ALM is seamlessly integrated with all HP products such as HP UFT and HP
Load Runner.

In this tutorial you will learn

How to Create Test Plan

How to Upload Tests using Microsoft Excel

How to create Test Resources

How to Create Test Plan

Step 1 ) Similar to requirements, let us create a placeholder/folder for each one of the test
types such as Functional and Non Functional.
1. Click on Test Plan link from the ALM Home page
2. Click 'New Folder' Icon
3. Enter the Folder Name as 'Functional' and click 'OK'

Step 2) The created folder would be displayed as shown below.

Step 3) Similarly let us creates subfolders for 'Manual' and 'Automated' Tests under
'Functional' Folder. Hence the Final Folder Structure will be as shown below:
Note: We will NOT be able to create automated test scripts/Performance test scripts from
ALM; instead it has to be created from respective HP tools such as UFT for functional and
Load runner for performance. It is then saved into ALM so that they can be scheduled,
executed, monitored and reported.

Step 4) It would be better to create a New folder for each one of the modules of the
application so that we don't dump all manual tests in one folder. For Complex applications
there would be thousands of tests which would be difficult to handle if they are not aligned
properly.

Step 5) Now Let us create a Manual Test for the 'Login' Module by clicking on the 'New Test'
Icon in 'Test Plan' Tab.

Step 6) Enter the following details for creating the new test successfully.
1. Enter the New test Name
2. Enter the Type of the Test. In this case it is 'Manual' Test.

3. User can also enter other non-mandatory fields such as date, Description as shown
below.
4. Click 'Submit' once all the details are entered.

Step 7) Once the test is created, the created test will appear under the 'Manual' tests folder
with other tabs generated as shown below. Let us discuss each one of these tabs in details in
upcoming steps.

Step 8) Click 'Design Steps' tab and click on 'New Step' icon as shown below. The Design
step details dialog box opens
1. Enter the Step Name
2. Enter the Step Description
3. Enter the Expected Result

4. Click 'OK'

Step 9) Repeat the Step#6 and enter all the relevant steps to test the functionality. After
creating all the required steps, 'Design Steps' tab displays all the created steps as shown
below.

Step 10) Parameters, helps the user to assign a value to a variable that allows the user to
execute the same test with different sets of data. In this case, the user name and password can

be two parameters which would be assigned with a value. We will understand the importance
of having parameters while test execution which will be dealt in Test Lab module.
Now, Let us see how to create parameters.
1. Select the test step against which we would like to add the parameter.
2. The 'Parameter' Icon will be enabled. Click on the same as shown below.

Step 11) The Parameter dialog will open as shown below. Click on 'New Parameter' button.

Step 12) The test parameter details dialog opens.

1. Enter the parameter name
2. Assign a Value to the Parameter
3. Click 'OK'.

Step 13)
The 'parameters' dialog is displayed back to the user
1. With the created variable
2. The value
3. Click 'OK'.

Step 14) Now we can notice that the parameter is added in the 'Test Step' itself as shown
below.
Repeat the same for password field as well.

Similarly, create parameter for Password Filed

Step 15) The created parameters can be viewed/edited in the parameters tab. This dialog also
helps us to create, delete the parameters associated with the tests.

Step 16) The attachment tab allows the user to upload any type of file such as 'xls', 'jpg' etc.

Step 17) The test configuration helps us to reuse the test for different use case scenarios. Let
us understand how to work with test configurations with an example. By default there is a test
configuration that is specified as that of test name.
Note: We CANNOT delete the default test configuration but we can edit the same.

Step 18) Let us say the login functionality can be performed by three types of business users
such as 'helpdesk', 'manager' and 'cluster head'.
Let us rename the default test configuration to 'helpdesk' by editing the name field of the 'Test
Configuration'.

Step 19) Now let us add the other two more test configurations viz manager and cluster
head. Click '+' icon under test configurations.

Step 20) The 'New test Configuration' dialog opens up.

1. Enter the Test configuration name
2. Enter other non-mandatory parameters such as 'created by' , 'creation date',
'description'
3. Click 'OK'.

Step 21) Repeat the same step as above to create one more test configuration for 'cluster
head' and the entire test configuration will be displayed to the user as shown below. This will

allow the testers to execute the same test individually against all the created configurations
during test execution which will result in no rewriting of tests.
Test Configuration should NOT be confused with test parameters. Hence we should
understand the difference between parameter and test configurations. The Parameters are
used to create variable and assign values for a specific step (parameterizing the test) while
test configuration is applicable for all the steps and generally used to test different business
use cases/Workflow. During Execution users can change values of the created parameters
while a test case is executed for the selected configuration.
For Example, An online bill payment Application, user can select the payment mode. In case
of 'Credit Card' Payments, user can either select master card, visa or American express. Each
one of those having its own customer reward points. In order to test it, we can design a test
such that each one of them are added into test configurations to verify the reward points.

Step 22) The 'Req Coverage' Tab helps the testers to map the test against a particular
requirement(s) which helps users to generate coverage and traceability.
1. Click on 'Req Coverage' Tab.
2. Select the 'Requirement' which should be mapped against this particular test case
3. Click '<=' button to map the selected requirements against the test. We can also map
multiple requirements against the same test.

Step 23) The Tab 'Linked Defects' shows empty as we haven't executed any test/raised any
defect against the test case. This tab will be populated with the defect details if the defects are
posted against the test case at the time of creating the defects.

Step 24) History tab shows the list of changes made over time against this particular test case
right from time of creating the test.

Uploading Tests:
Sometimes, user won't be creating test cases manually as it is pretty much time consuming
process. Most Organizations develop manual tests in excel and upload into ALM in bulk
rather than creating each manual tests one by one. In order to facilitate uploading into ALM,
HP has come up with an Addin with which the user can upload from MS excel/MS Word
directly. Let us understand the step by step procedure to upload requirements into QC from
Excel.

How to Upload Tests using Microsoft Excel

Step 1) Before uploading the tests from excel, we need to prepare the excel such that it can
be uploaded.
1. Select the Fields that you wish to upload into ALM and create a header in Excel for
those fields.
2. Enter a valid data in each one of those fields as shown below.

Step 2) After selecting the data to upload, click 'Export to HP ALM' from 'Add-Ins'.

Step 3) The ALM Export Wizard opens. Enter the HP ALM Server URL and Click 'Next'.

Step 4) Enter the user name and password for authentication and Click 'Next'.

Step 5) Select the Domain, Project Name into which we would like to upload the tests and
Click 'Next'.

Step 6) Select the type of data that we would like to upload. In this case, it is tests. We will
also upload Defects in the upcoming chapters.

Step 7) Enter the New Map name. The first option, 'Select a map' is disabled because we
haven't created a map so far. Hence we should create new map name and click 'Next'. We
haven't selected 'Create a Temporary map' as we would like to reuse every time for uploading
'tests.

Step 8) Upon Clicking 'Next', the mapping dialog opens as shown below.
1. The left pane grid items that are listed correspond to the fields that are available for
upload in HP ALM. Please note that the fields marked in 'RED' should be mapped as
they are mandatory fields.
2. The right pane grid items refer to the fields that are mapped so that values in Excel
will flow into those corresponding fields of ALM.

Step 9) Now let us understand how to map the fields in Excel against the fields in ALM.
1. Select the Field that user would like to map and click on the arrow button as shown
below.

2. Enter the column name in Excel that corresponds to the appropriate column name in
HP ALM.

3. Map all the required columns in excel against the appropriate fields in HP ALM. After
mapping all the required fields, click 'Export'.

Step 10) Upon successful upload, ALM displays the message as shown below. If errors
appear please fix the issue and try re-uploading the same.

Some of the common errors are listed below :

The Subject/Path is invalid/unavailable or NOT mapped by the user.

The Field 'Test Type' has a value other than Manual. Automated tests CANNOT be
uploaded using Excel.

Test Name field is Empty or NOT Mapped.

Status shouldn't have values other than Design, ready, Imported, Repair.

Step 11) Now let us verify the same under 'Tests' Tab. All the test details are uploaded as
shown below.
Note : Users can also perform re-uploading of tests. In case of re-uploading the test cases, if
the test name already exists and if there is just a change in step description then the test will
be overwritten with the existing one. If the test name is different from the uploaded one, it
uploads as a new test.

How to create Test Resources

The Test Resources enables users to manage resources that are usually picked up by
automated/performance tests. Users can upload the script which can be used by one or more
tests. They can also be downloaded/edited and uploaded back again into test resources.
Let us see how we can make use of Test Resources module effectively. This module is
demonstrated by uploading the same excel file into test resources that we used for importing
the tests from excel into ALM.

Upload of Test Case excel is recommended so that we can edit the tests whenever required
and re-upload only the modified test cases. It is also easy to add new tests and upload just the
newly added tests.
However we can also upload other types of files such as .xls, .vbs, .qfl etc.
Step 1) Navigate to Test Resources module as shown below. The test resources module page
opens.

Step 2) Create a 'New Folder' by clicking on New Folder Icon as shown below. The New
folder dialog opens. Let us create test resource for all three tests viz Manual, Automation
and Performance.

Step 3) The folder is created as shown below.

Step 4) Similarly let us create two more folders viz Automation and Performance. After
Creating a folder for each one of the test resources, the final folder structure will be as shown
below:

Step 5) Let us create a New test resource by uploading the excel file that we have created for
writing manual tests which were uploaded into ALM. Select the folder where user would like
to upload the test resource.

Step 6) Enter the name of the test resource and also select the type of the resource and click
'OK'.

Step 7) Upon creating the test resource, now we need to upload the resource so that it is
available under 'Resource Viewer' Tab which will be used across tests.
1. Click 'Resource Viewer' Tab
2. Click 'Upload File' and select the file for upload

Step 8) After uploading the file, the Status will be shown to the user and it will be available
for download.

Note: The Following types of Test Resources are uploaded that can be used for executing the
automated tests.
1. DataTable
2. Environmental Variables
3. Function Libraries
4. Recovery Scenarios
5. Shared Object Repository

Working with Test Lab in HP ALM

Once the test design is completed, test execution will take place with the help of Test
Lab module.

One common term you will come across in HP ALM in the Test Set module of Test
Lab. If your mind triggers images of some sort of collection or a set, you are correct.
Test Set is infact a collection of test cases that we intend to execute.

Test cases from the Test Plan module are called into the Test Lab module.

Changes done to test cases in the Test Lab module do not affect the parent test cases
in Test Plan Module. You are free to experiment. Hence the name Test Lab

It is better to give the test set name same as that of the module name so that all the
tests within the module are contained in same test set which would be easy to execute
and track.

Each test set folder is assigned to a particular cycle. This enables users to group the
tests together that will be executed in a particular cycle.

This module also helps user to track the progress of the cycle as the tests are executed.

The Test Lab module consists of the following functionalities and let us understands
each one of those in detail.

In this tutorial we will learn

How to Create a Test Set
How to Execute Tests
How to create Test Run Schedule
How to Analyze Test Result

How to Create a Test Set

Step 1) First step is to create a root folder as a container for having the test sets. We can name
it in line with the release and cycle so that it is easy to track.
1. Goto 'Test Lab' Module under 'Testing' Tab
2. Create a new Folder by Clicking on 'New Folder' icon.
3. The 'New Test Set Folder' Dialog opens. Enter the name of the folder as '2017 R1
Cycle 1'.
4. Click 'Ok'

Step 2) The Test Run Folder would be created as shown below.

Step 3) Select the created folder and assign 'Cycle' to it which means the entire test set should
be executed for Cycle 1.

Step 4) Enter the name of test set and click 'OK'

Note: The Target Cycle field is disabled as the target cycle is selected at the folder level(2017
R1 Cycle 1).

Step 5) After creating the test set, we need to select the tests and add it to the test set.
1. Select the Test Set.
2. Navigate to 'Execution Grid'.
3. Click 'Select Tests' Button. The Test Plan Tree opens up.
4. Select the Tests to be executed for this Cycle.
5. Click '<=' button.

Step 6) Upon adding tests from test plan tree, all the configuration parameters of the selected
tests are displayed to the user. User can edit the configuration before adding it to the test lab.
Note: User has no control over test configuration selection in test Lab. Hence the entire
configuration will be added to the test set by default. In case one of the selected
configuration is NOT part of the cycle, after adding the tests, delete from the test lab.

Step 7) After selecting the configurations, the selected tests are added to the test set. In this
case we have selected all three configurations; hence we can find three instances of '01Login Test'.

Step 8) Repeat the above steps to create more test sets and select all the relevant tests planned
for this cycle. After creating all test set, the structure of test set will be as shown below:

Step 9) The other important tab that we need to understand is 'Execution Flow'. Select
'Execution Flow Tab' which displays the order in which the tests would display during the
execution. Users can also change the execution order using this tab which will be dealt in a
separate section of this module.

How to Execute Tests

Step 1) Created test sets are now ready for execution. Tests can be executed using two
options.

Run Test Set This option allows user to execute all the tests in a selected test set.

Run This option helps user to execute just the selected test.

Step 2) Let us execute the entire test suite of the Login module by selecting 'Run Test Set'
option. Upon clicking 'Run Test set' it displays the user with two options.

1. Manual Runner (default) The order of the tests displayed during the execution
would be as that of the order that is displayed in the test set grid.
2. Automatic Runner The order of the tests displayed during execution would be
shown as that of the order set in the execution flow tab.
Let us proceed with the default option.

Step 3) The Manual Test runner is displayed to the User. In this Dialog let us understand the
important features.
1. Begin Run Helps to kick start the execution
2. End Run Terminates the current Execution and closes the manual runner.
3. Cancel Run Cancels the execution of the current tests.
4. Attachments Helps us to attach screenshot/any other information related to the this
test execution
5. New Defect Upon clicking on it new defects dialog opens using which a defect can
be posted.
6. OS Info Gives information about the operating system in which the tests are
executed.
7. Run Name Unique Time stamp using which the test results can be analyzed at later
point in time.
Click 'Begin Run'.

Step 4) Manual test runner with test controls and steps are displayed to the user. Let us
understand the functionalities available in this test runner dialog.

Add a Step during the test execution time.

Delete a Step during the test execution time.

Pass Selected

Fail Selected

Shows the Parameter for the selected Test Step

Allows user to capture screenshot and add attachments during run time.

Allows user to add defect during run time.

Shows the user with a Compact View of the test runner

End execution

1. Step Numbers created during test design stage

2. Description of the selected step.
3. Expected Result of the selected step.

Step 5) Thenext test in the test set will be displayed to the user. Repeat Step 3 and Step 4 to
execute the test and mark the status accordingly.

How to create Test Run Schedule

Testers can control the test execution with the help of "Execution Flow" Tab. Testers can also
specify date and time for executing a particular test instance. We can also schedule the test
based on the results of another specified test instance in the Execution Flow.
Now, let us understand how to schedule the test flow in HP-ALM.
Step 1) Select "Execution Flow" tab from Test Lab module.

Step 2) Double click on the specific test against which the schedule needs to be set. "Test
Run Schedule" would be displayed as shown below. We can notice that there are no execution
conditions that were set by default.

Step 3) To Add an execution condition, click on "+" icon as shown below.

Step 4) The New execution condition dialog opens up.

1. Select the test from test drop down. All the tests in the test set will be displayed
2. Select the condition. It can take either 'Passed' or 'Finished'.
3. Click 'OK'.

Step 5) The test run schedule is displayed with the added execution conditions.

Step 6) The Execution flow realigns automatically as show below. According to the below
displayed flow, the test 'Cluster Head' will be executed only when the '02 Reset Button
Check' is finished.

Step 7) Nowlet us understand how testers can specify the date and time in execution flow for
executing a particular test. It is more helpful when testers know about the readiness of a
specific functionality or for scheduling automated tests.
Let us say, the manager login profile would be ready only after a specific date. Hence testers
can execute the same by specifying the conditions in 'Execution Flow'.
Double Click on the test for which the execution flow criteria needs to be set.

Step 8) Now,
1. Navigate to 'Time Dependancy' Module
2. Select 'Run at Specified Time'
3. Enter the Date on which you would like to execute
4. Enter the Time when you would like to execute the test

5. Click 'Ok'.

Step 9) Theexecution flow tab will be realigned as shown below. This kind of scheduling is
very much helpful for automated tests which follow the same steps.
Note: Ifthe scheduled date and time has arrived, then ALM would automatically launch the
tests. It holds good for automated test as test would be executed without any manual
intervention. The Precondition for triggering the tests automatically is that the host should be
ready(shouldn't be powered off or locked) and it should be in a state to trigger the test. If it is
a manual test then there won't be any effect.

How to Analyze Test Result

Step 1) Once the test execution is done, testers can view the results in the "Test Runs"
module. It contains the results of test instance runs and test set runs.
1. Goto "Test Runs" in "Testing" Tab and the window opens as shown below:
2. The Run Name is a unique value generated for each one of those test executions.
3. 'Status' shows the final status of the test execution.
The detailed Result can be viewed by clicking on the 'Run ID'.

Step 2) The Run details dialog opens up and user will be able to view the detailed result.
1. Goto 'Report' tab of the 'Run Details' window.
2. Testers can check the status of each one of those test steps.
3. Click 'Ok' to close the dialog.

How to integrate UFT(QTP) with ALM (Quality Center)

ALM allows integration with other HP products such as HP UFT and Hp Load
Runner.

HP UFT is a functional automation tool that supports automation of both windows

based and web based application. It also supports multiple technologies such as .NET,
Java, Siebel, SAP etc.

In this section we will understand how to drive UFT scripts from ALM. It consists of
various configurations and steps.

Prerequisite for this module is that both ALM and UFT must have been installed.

Following is the roadmap one needs to follow in oder to run UFT tests using ALM

Part A - Add-in Installation:

Step 1) Navigate to the ALM landing page (http://localhost:8181/qcbin/) and select 'Tools' as
shown below.

Step 2) The Add-in page and 'HP ALM connectivity' link should be clicked.

Step 3) Click 'Download HP ALM Connectivity' link and the exe file would be downloaded
in the specified location.

Step 4) Right click the downloaded file and 'Run as Administrator'.

Step 5) There won't be any installation wizard that the user has to go through if UFT is
preinstalled. User only receives the installation status as shown below.

Part B Connecting UFT and ALM

Step 1) Open UFT and you will notice the presence of ALM as one of the menus as shown
below.

Step 2) Navigate the ALM menu and select ALM connection.

Step 3) ALM connection dialog opens.

1. Enter the ALM server URL
2. Enter the UserName
3. Enter the Password and click 'Connect'

Step 4) Upon successful authentication, the ALM files would be downloaded as we are
establishing connection between ALM and UFT for the very first time.

Step 5) The ALM connection dialog waits for the user to select the domain and project.
1. Select Domain
2. Select the project
3. Click 'Login'

Step 6) The ALM connection dialog displays the status.

1. Connected to the Server and lists the details about the server address and user name.
2. Connected to the project and lists the details about the project.

3. Click 'Close'

Part C Saving Script into ALM

Let us understand the various components that are required for Executing an UFT
Script.

Main Driver Script The Entry point for any UFT Script that has .mts extension.

Library The relevant Script/Function Files that can either be of extension (.vbs) or
(.qfl).

Object Repository It is usually of Shared Object repository by nature and has .tsr
extension.

DataTable Used for parameterizing the tests. Usually an Excel file.

Note: The Idea behind this chapter is to understand ALM and UFT integration and NOT
to learn how to write UFT scripts.

Step 1) First step is to save the Main Driver Script into ALM from UFT. Navigate to 'File'
Menu and choose 'New Test' as shown below.

Step 2) The New Test Dialog opens.

1. Select the type of test.
2. Enter the Name of Test.
3. We need to choose the location as ALM (by default it would display the UFT installed
location). Click on 'Browse' Button.

Step 3) The 'Select Location' Dialog opens up.

1. Choose 'ALM Test Plan' Tab.
2. Double Click 'Functional' folder to open its subfolders.

Step 4) The 'Select Location' Dialog opens up with the subfolders of 'Functional' Folder.
1. Double Click 'Automation folder.
2. Click 'Select'.

Step 5) The 'New Test' Dialog is displayed back to the user

1. With the selected test location pointing to ALM.
2. Click 'Create'.

Step 6) Now let us verify if the test has created successfully by logging into ALM.
Navigate to 'Test Plan' Module.

You will notice that the test script 'Guru99_Bank_Auto' is created under 'Automation'
folder.

Under details tab, we can also find that the test type is locked down as
'QUICKTEST_TEST' which means it is an UFT script.

Step 7)Now start developing the Script in UFT and save the script which can be accessed in
ALM by selecting 'Test Script' Tab of the created test.

Step 8) Next step is to save the associated function library files under 'test resources' module
of ALM which would be picked up automatically during execution.
For this script, we have two function libraries associated with the created test script out of
which one contains all functions related to the application and one which contains function
which will help the users to generate the output text result file.

Step 9) We need to save the associated library files in ALM under 'test Resources'.

Click 'New Resource' button

The 'New Resource' Dialog opens up

Enter the Name of the Function Library

Select the type as 'Function Library'

Click 'OK'

Step 10) The created test resource will be displayed to the user as shown below.

Step 11) Now we need to upload the .vbs onto the created test resource.

Click 'Resource Viewer'

Click 'Upload File'

Step 12) The upload file dialog opens up.

Select the Path where the .vbs file is located

Select the File that has to be uploaded.

Click 'Open'.

Step 13) Upon uploading successfully, ALM displays the status to the user. Click 'OK'.

Step 14) The uploaded test resource can be viewed using 'Resource Viewer'.

Step 15) Repeat the steps 8 to 14 to upload one other function file associated with the test.
After uploading the 'generateresult.vbs', the resource viewer would be displayed as shown
below.

Step 16) Now we need to upload the relevant 'Object Repository' files under 'test resources'
module, similar to how we have uploaded function libraries.
1. Click 'New Resource' Module
2. The 'New Resource' Module window opens up.
3. Enter the Name of the test resource.
4. Select the type of the file as 'Object Repository'.
5. Click 'OK'

Step 17) The Test resource is created as shown below. Now user needs to upload the
repository file.

Click 'Resource Viewer' Tab.

Click 'Upload File' Button.

Step 18) Now upload the shared object repository file.

Select the File where it has been stored.

Click 'Open' button.

Step 19) Upon uploading successfully, ALM displays the status to the user. Click 'OK'.

Step 20) The test resource can be viewed right from ALM as shown below.

Step 21) The last test resource that we need to upload is the 'Test Data' Sheet which contains
the parameterized test.
For Demo purposes, we have automated 4 tests cases. The designed Test data is shown as
below. Now we need to upload the same in ALM.

Step 22) Create a new resource with name 'TestData' and select the type as 'test Resource' and
select 'OK'

Step 23) As explained from step 17 to 19,uploadthe test data excel file and uponsuccessful
upload the Created 'test data' would be displayed as shown below.

Part D Settings in UFT

Step 1) We have all the associated files loaded into ALM, we have to ensure that the
automation script picks up the library file, OR and data file from ALM. Let us understand
how to associate function libraries to the test script dynamically from ALM.

Step 2) The Object Repository also has to be picked up from 'Test Resources' Tab of ALM.
Let us see how to load the Object repository dynamically during runtime.

Step 3) The Test Data has to be imported into the 'Global' Sheet of UFT. To perform the same
we should ensure that we have the following piece of code before making an attempt to
access the parameters mentioned in the data table.

Step 4) We Should ensure that we allow other HP products to interact with UFT. To perform
the same, goto 'Tools' -> 'Options' as shown below.

Step 5) The Options Dialog opens up.

Select 'GUI Testing' Tab.

Select 'Test Runs'

Enable 'Allow other HP products to run tests and components'

Click 'OK'

Part E Executing Scripts in ALM

Step 1) Create a test suite in 'Test Lab' Module for execution. Let us create a 'New Folder' for
automated test suite.

Select the 'Test Lab' Module

Select the folder under which we like to create the new folder

Click on New folder icon

Enter the name of the folder

Click OK.

Step 2) New Folder would be created as shown below:

Step 3) Now we need to create a test set under the created folder.

Select the folder

Click 'New Test Set' button

Enter the Name of the Test Set

Click 'Ok'

Step 4) Like manual tests, after creating the test set, the test instances need to be added from
test plan tree.

Select the created test set

Click 'Select Tests' button. The Test Plan tree opens up.

Select the test

Click '<=' button

Step 5) The added test would be displayed as shown below.

The added test displays the type of test as 'QUICKTEST_TEST' automatically.

Click 'Run' Button to trigger the execution.

Step 5) The automatic test runner dialog opens up. Let us understand all the available
features within this window.

Run all Allows us to execute the test set completely.

Run Allows us to execute only the selected test instance.

Run all tests Locally The test would be kicked off in the local host. If Unchecked
user has the capabilities to enter to host name in which the tests has to be executed.

Enable Log Creates an execution log file during the test run. To view the execution
log after text execution, Select 'View Execution' from 'Run' menu of the same
dialog.

Click 'Run' to trigger the test.

Step 6) UFT will be launched in the background while the script is being executed. The run
status will be displayed once the test execution is completed as shown below. Close the
window.

Part F Analyzing the Results:

Step 1) The execution grid is displayed back to the user upon closing the 'Automatic Runner'
dialog.

With test execution status updated.

The inbuilt UFT test report can be accessed by clicking the 'Launch Report' button.

Step 2) The inbuilt UFT test report will be shown to the user.

Step 3) The detailed results can be accessed using 'Test Runs' module. Like manual tests, the
detailed result displays all the information.

Step 4) The test also generates a text result file which can accessed from the attachments
section. The text file is generated by the script(test framework) which is NOT the inbuilt
report of UFT. To access the same perform the following:

Select the 'Run ID'.

The 'Run details' dialog opens up.

Goto 'Attachments' Section.

A result file will be available for the users to download. Double click on the text file.

Step 5) The text result file is opened in notepad. The result file will be displayed as shown
below.

Defect Management in HP ALM (Quality Center)

A defect is logged during the test execution, when expected result and actual result
don't match with each other.

Defect module in HP ALM not only helps users to post the defects but also enables
them to track and gives the overall quality of the release at any stage of the
development process.

Default Defect Life Cycle in ALM:

Status

Explanation

New

When a defect is posted, the default status is 'New'

Open

When the defect is accepted by developers it is moved to 'Open' Status

Rejected When the defect is rejected by developers it is moved to 'Rejected' Status

Fixed

When the defect is fixed by developers it is moved to 'Fixed' Status. Testers would
pick up all defects for testing that are in status 'Fixed'.

Reopen If the testing has failed, the defect is moved to 'Reopen' status

Closed

If the testing has passed, the defect is moved to 'Closed' Status.

Note:
Users can also configure the defect life cycle by adding new defect statuses. Adding new
defect status would be dealt in project customization chapter.
In this tutorial we will learn
How to Create a New Defect
How to Link Defect to a Requirement
How to Upload Defect using Excel
How to search a Defect
Email Notification of Defects

How to Create a New Defect

Step 1) Navigate to defects Tab in Quality Center and Click on "New Defect" button.

Step 2) The "New Defect" Dialog Open up. Fill in the following mandatory information.

Enter Detected By Field

Enter the Detected on Date By Default current date would be picked up

Set the severity level of the defect.

User can also enter other information and enter a brief description about the defect

Step 3) Tester can also attach screenshots/other relevant files associated with the defect using
'attachments' tab.
1. Click 'Attachments' Tab
2. Click 'Attachments' Button
3. Select a File from the File explorer dialog.
4. Click 'Open'

Step 4) Upon clicking 'Open' we will be able to see that the file is attached under the
attachment section.
1. The Selected file has been uploaded
2. Click 'Submit' to post a defect after which it generates a defect ID.

Step 5) The defect is posted, the same be accessed in Defects Tab as shown below. You can
also notice that the defect ID is generated upon posting the defect.

How to Link Defect to a Requirement

Users can link a defect with other defects or link a defect with requirements. By Linking
defects and requirement we can generate coverage analysis graph and traceability matrix.
Step 1) After creating the defect, testers can map the linked requirements against it. To do the
same,
1. Click on 'Defect ID'
2. The defect details dialog opens as shown below.

Step 2) To Link entities,

1. Navigate to 'Linked Entities'
2. Click 'Others' for linking requirements against this defect.
3. Click 'Link' button and choose 'by Id'(we can also select based on a requirement
name)
4. Enter the Requirement ID against which this defect has to be mapped.
5. Click 'Link' Button

Step 3) After clicking link button the defect details window displayed back to the user with
the added link as shown below.

Step 4) Once the requirement is linked against a defect, the requirement displays with the
link symbol against it as shown below.

Step 5) Once the requirement is linked against a defect, the requirement traceability matrix
can be generated. To generate the traceability matrix navigate to view menu of 'Requirements'
and select 'Traceability matrix'. The generated traceability matrix would be generated as
shown below.
Note: Please refer the tutorial 'Requirements Module' for generating traceability matrix where
the steps are elaborated in detail.

How to Upload Defect using Excel

Every time users won't be in position to create each one of those defects manually.

This module helps users to upload the defects from excel into ALM. This really helps
when users want to migrate from one defect management system to ALM.

The process remains the same as that of uploading Tests and requirements.

One has to ensure that the excel file is prepared in a format such that ALM allows
importing of the data.

Step 1) Create the excel file with the required columns that user wishes to upload as shown
below.
The Field 'attachments' takes the local path where the screenshot/any other attachment is
kept. Users have to just mention the path of the attachment so that it would be picked up for
uploading into ALM along with the other details of the defect.

Step 2) Now,
1. Navigate to 'Add-ins' Tab
2. Select 'Export to HP ALM'

Step 3) The ALM Export Wizard opens. Enter the HP ALM Server URL and Click 'Next'.

Step 4) Enter the user name and password for authentication and Click 'Next'.

Step 5) Select the Domain, Project Name into which we would like to upload the tests and
Click 'Next'.

Step 6) Select the type of data that we would like to upload. In this case, it is Defects.

Step 7) Enter the New Map name. The first option, 'Select a map' is disabled because we
haven't created a map so far for uploading defects. Hence we should create new map name
and click 'Next'. We haven't selected 'Create a Temporary map' as we would like to reuse
every time for uploading defects.

Step 8) Upon Clicking 'Next', the mapping dialog opens as shown below.
1. The left pane grid items that are listed correspond to the fields that are available for
upload in HP ALM. Please note that the fields marked in 'RED' should be mapped as
they are mandatory fields.
2. The right pane grid items refer to the fields that are mapped so that values in Excel
will flow into those corresponding fields of ALM.

Step 9) Now let us understand how to map the fields in Excel against the fields in ALM.
1. Select the Field that user would like to map and click on the arrow button as shown
below.

2. Enter the column name in Excel that corresponds to the appropriate column name in
HP ALM.

3. Map all the required columns in excel against the appropriate fields in HP ALM. After
mapping all the required fields, click 'Export'.

Step 10) Upon successful upload, ALM displays the message as shown below.

How to search a Defect

The Defect module contains all the defects that are logged right from the very first defect it
has been logged.
Hence user would be in a position to search defects based on certain criteria.
Step 1) Navigate to 'Edit' Menu and choose 'Find'.

Step 2) TheFind dialog would be displayed.

1. Enter the Field name based on which the search has to be performed ( In this case we
use Defect ID to search)
2. Enter the Value
3. Click 'Find Next'

Step 3) ALM displays the item in the background as shown below.

Email Notification of Defects

Assigned users will automatically receive an email if there is a change in

status/assigned to fields, provided the email configurations are set appropriately by
ALM admin

The Email would be triggered based on setting under 'Alerts' tab of project
customization module (refer to Project Customization for details).

Let us say the assigned user 'Glenn' has to receive email when the defect status moved to
'Fixed' status. The email would be sent as shown in the below. The screenshot is taken after
receiving an email (from MS Outlook).
1. The mail is sent to 'Glenn'
2. The mail has the details about the defect
3. The mail is triggered because the status has moved from 'Reopen' to 'Fixed' as shown
below.

All About Dashboard & Analysis in HP ALM

ALM allows users to generate reports and graphs at any time during the software
development process.

Project reports in ALM enable users to design and generate customized report by
accessing the project information which will help stakeholders in taking informed
decisions.

User can create graphs or project reports in the Analysis View module. They can also
save the graphs and reports in the Analysis View module for future references.

In this tutorial we will learn

Analysis View

Business View Graph

Quick Entity Graphs Generation

Generating Excel Report

Generating Project Report

Dashboard

Analysis View
Analysis view module enables users to create, manage and view analysis items such as
graphs, project reports and Excel reports.

Entity Graph: ALM enables users to generate graphs based on certain entity type such as
requirements, tests, test instances, test runs or defects. For each entity, different graph types
are available that are listed below.

Most commonly used graphs are

Requirement Coverage Graph

Requirement Summary Graph

Test Set Summary Graph

Defect Progress Graph

Defect Summary Graph

Defect Age Graph.

Now, Let us generate an Entity Graph based on 'Defect Summary' criteria.

Step 1) Navigate to 'Dashboard' Tab.
1. Select Analysis View
2. Click 'New'.
3. Select 'Graph Wizard'

Step 2) Let us generate 'Entity Graph'. We can also generate a Business View Graph and click
'Next>'.

Step 3) The "Select Entity Type" Dialog is displayed to the user.

1. Select the entity for which the Graph has to be displayed
2. Select the Graph type.
3. Click 'Next'.

Step 4) The Wizard also allows you to choose projects. The user has capabilities to add the
same graph configuration across projects.

Step 5) The Wizard also allows you to enter a filter criterion. If there is NO Filter applied, the
graph is generated by considering all the data available in Defects module.
Note: Filter can be applied against a specific release/cycle. If NO Filter is set, the graph
wizard picks up all the defects that are posted till date into consideration.

Step 6) The Wizard allows user to choose X-Axis and Group by a certain field and click
'Finish'.

Step 7) The graph is generated as per the criteria set by the user in Graph wizard. We can
'Add it to the Analysis Tree' so that we can just refresh the chart to get the current status.

Step 8) Upon clicking on 'Add to Analysis Tree' the save dialog opens up.
1. Enter the Name of the Graph
2. Select the folder where user would like to save the Graph
1. Private The Graph is saved against the current user profile. Others won't
have access to the same
2. Public The generated Graph would be visible to ALL the project users.
3. Click 'Save'.

Step 9) The graph would be added to the Analysis tree as shown below.

Business View Graph

A business view graph involves only those project entity fields that represent information
which is useful from a business perspective.

Business views can either be based on single entities such as Requirement or Defects, or it
can be based on more complex relationships between entities such as Defects with Linked
Requirements/defects with linked tests.
Though on a high level, both business view graph and entity graph look at the same, at this
juncture let us understand basic different between entity graph and business view graph.
Entity Graph

Business View Graph

This graph is strictly associated with only This Graph is either based on single entity or
one type of entity (defect or Requirement based on relationship between defect and
or Test) in ALM
Requirement or defect and tests

The fields involved are those that are

contained within that specific entity.

The fields involved are those that represent

useful information from a business perspective.

Step 1) Click '+' and Select 'Graph Wizard'.

Step 2) Select Business View Graph and click 'Next>'

Step 3) Select Defects from the Filter criteria and click 'Next>'.

Step 4) Use the current project data to generate the graph and click 'Next>' to continue.

Step 5) Let us filter based on Severity and click 'Next>'

Step 6) Enter the criteria for 'X-Axis' and Grouped By fields and Click 'Finish'

Step 7) The Graph is Generated based on the Criteria selected. Click on 'Add to Analysis
Tree'.

Step 8) The save dialog appears for users to save the generated graph.
1. Enter the Name of the Graph

2. Select 'Private' or 'Public'

3. Click 'Save'.

Step 9) The created graph is saved in Analysis Tree as shown below.

Quick Entity Graphs Generation

Step 1) The Entity Graph can also be generated without going through the Graph Wizard. A
Quick Graph can be generated by clicking on 'New Graph' by clicking on '+' icon.

Step 2) The New Graph dialog is displayed.

Select the Entity

Graph Type

Graph Name

Click 'OK'.

Step 3) The Created Graph enables users to make changes to the Configuration based on their
requirements. We have selected Defect Count on Y Axis and Grouped based on 'Status'.

Step 4) Click 'View' Tab to generate the Graph for the specified criteria.

Generating Excel Report

Testers can also generate excel reports based on business views which reflect only
those project entity fields that is useful from a business perspective.

The reports are created and configured with in Microsoft Excel and then uploaded to
the Analysis View module.

Step 1) Click 'Add New' Button and select 'New Business View Excel Report'.

Step 2) Enter the report name and click 'OK'.

Step 3) Click 'Install Addin'.

Step 4) The Installation Status is displayed to the user as shown below.

Step 5) OpenMS Excel and one would find a new Tab by name 'HP ALM'. Select 'HP-ALM'
and click 'Login'

Step 6) ALM Login Dialog opens up.

1. Enter Login Name.
2. Enter Password.
3. Click 'Authenticate'.
4. Select the Domain.
5. Select the Project.
6. Click 'Login'.

Step 7) Now,
1. Click 'Add' Button.
2. Add Worksheet Dialog Opens up. Select 'Defects' as we want to generate 'High' /
'Very High' and 'Critical' defects report.
3. Click 'OK'

Step 7) The excel report is generated with all the defects list and user can configure the same.
1. Click 'Filter' Tab from Worksheet configuration.
2. Click 'Severity' Field.

Step 8) The 'Select Filter Condition' dialog opens up.

1. Select the Filter condition
2. Click 'OK'

Step 8) Now we need to save the same against the excel report that we have created.
Click 'HP ALM' tab and click 'Save to ALM'.

Step 9) The 'Save Business View Excel Report' Dialog Opens up.
1. Enter the Report Name
2. Select the same report that we created in Step 2.
3. Click 'Save'.

Step 10) Confirm Save Dialog box opens up. Click 'Yes' to Continue. This dialog pops up as
user is trying to overwrite with the one that is already created.
Note: The ALM asks for overwriting the existing excel report as we have selected the same
report name that we have created in Step 2. In Step 2 the report was NOT configured and
loaded but it was just a placeholder for the report. Only after performing this step the excel
report is available for the user to generate and save in excel format.

Step 11) Now user can generate the report from ALM. Click 'Generate'.

Step 11) Now report displays based on the criteria set by the user.
Note: User can get the updated report by regenerating the excel report, if there is an addition
or deletion of defects or if there is a change in the severity of the defect.

Generating Project Report

Project reports enable users to design and generate detailed reports containing
information for a specific project.

Users can also define sections and sub-sections each listing records of a specified
ALM entity.

Users can customize the layout and the template format for each section.

The Project report can be generated as HTML, Microsoft Word, or PDF formats.

Step 1) To Create a new project report, click '+' icon from Analysis Module and select 'New
Project Report'.

Step 2) The new project Report Dialog box opens. Enter the Name of the Project and Click
'OK'.

Step 3) The changes are reflected in the screen as shown below

1. The Project Report is created.
2. Click 'Add Report Section Button.

Step 4) The add report section dialog is displayed.

1. User has to enter the type of section that they would like to include
2. Enter the name of the Section
3. Click 'OK'.

Step 5) The Requirement section is now added to the report.

Step 6) Now we will add test report section.

1. Click 'Add Report Section'.

2. Select 'Type of Report' to be inserted from 'Add Report Section' dialog

3. Enter the name of the report section.
4. Click 'OK'.

Step 7) The report section with the name 'Tests' would be added as shown below.

Step 8) Similarly create a section for defects and the final report layout will be as shown
below. Once added click 'Generate' button.

Step 9) The report would be generated by connecting to server.

Step 10) The project report would be generated as specified by the user. User can save the
project report from the generated window. If the generated format is a doc or docx, it can be
saved from MS word. If the selected file format is HTML, save it from the appropriate
browser. If the generated report is in PDF format, save it from PDF reader.

All About Dashboard

This module helps users to design a dashboard page by selecting and arranging graphs
on the page based on their requirements.

This module is very helpful for stakeholders/project managers to get a quick snapshot
about the project status.

Step 1) To Create a Dashboard page,

1. Click Dashboard View
2. Click 'New Dashboard Page' icon
3. New Dashboard Page dialog opens. Enter Name of the Dashboard Page.
4. Click 'OK'.

Step 2) Thecreated dashboard is displayed as shown below.

1. The created Dashboard page
2. Click 'Configuration'.
3. Graph Tree is displayed from where user can select all the graphs
4. Add it to the dashboard page by clicking on "<=" Button.

Step 3) The configuration should now display the selected graphs.

Step 4) Select the View Tab to display the selected graph.

Step 5) Let us understand the icons that appear on the right hand side of each one of the
graphs.
1. Generate Graph Generates/Refreshes the Graph after changes.
2. Go to Graph Analysis Tree From Dashboard, it takes user to the Analysis Tree.
3. View Graph in Full Screen Displays the graph in full screen mode.

HP ALM GUI: Ultimate Guide

There are plenty of common functionalities in ALM that are available across modules. Now
Let us go through how to make use of those common functionalities in this section.
In this tutorial we will learn
How to use Filter
How to use Find
How to Replace
How to use Flags
All About History Tab
How to send Email
How to use Column chooser
How to Set Defaults
How to use Favorites

Lets look into them one by one -

How to use Filter

Filter dialog ALM users to perform a filter operation based on the defined criteria. This
Option is available in following modules.

Requirements

Test Plan

Test Lab

Defects.

Let us perform a filter operation in defects module.

Step 1) Toperform filter operation,
1. First check if there is any preexisting filter. If the status is 'NO Filter Defined' then the
user has NOT currently seeing filtered data.
2. Click on 'Filter Button'

Step 2) The Filter dialog opens. Now Let us do a filter based on 'Severity'. Click on the
'Severity' field button as shown below.

Step 3) Uponclicking on the button, the 'Select Filter Condition' dialog opens up.
1. Select the condition based on which one has to filter.
2. The condition would be displayed in the condition field.
3. Click 'OK'

Step 4) The Filter dialog is displayed back to the user

1. With the selected 'Filter Condition' as shown below.
2. Click 'OK'.

Step 5) The defect screen is displayed to the user

1. With the filtered data.
2. The Filter condition that is applied on the data.

How to use Find

This Find functionality enables ALM users to search for a particular record in a tree or grid
based on the value of a particular field, folder or a subfolder.
This feature is available in the following modules.

Requirements

Test Plan

Test Resources

Test Lab

Defects.

Step 1) The Find functionality can be accessed by either pressing the keystroke 'ctrl+F' or by
accessing 'Find' Functionality directly from 'Edit' Menu. For Demo purpose let us perform
'Search' on 'Test Plan' Module.

Step 2) The Find Dialog opens up for the user as shown below.
1. It shows the Folder and Field against which the search has to be made.
2. The value that needs to be found.
3. The search area has to be selected. It can be a folder name or test name.
4. The search criteria can be specified.
1. Exact Match Only the words that match the entered string would be
displayed

2. Case Sensitive The entered search string would be searched for case
sensitiveness. Let us say, the entered string is 'Account'. ALM will display the
results if and only if the grid values matches the exact case. Only the
occurrences of 'Account' would be displayed and NOT 'account' or 'aCcount'.
3. Use Wildcard The entered string would be matched against the wild card
criteria specified by the user. Wild Card characters are helpful if the user is
NOT aware of the exact search string. The only supported wild character is '*'.
For Example, if we want to see the occurrences of 'Accounts', we can use wild
characters to match the target by searching the string as *acc*.
5. Click 'Find'

Step 3) The search results would be displayed as shown below.

How to Replace
The replace functionality in ALM enables users to find and replace specific field values in a
tree or grid. Users have an option of replacing a field value for a selected record or replacing
for all records in the tree or grid.
This feature is available in the following modules.

Requirements

Test Runs

Defects

For Demo purpose, let us search and replace a string in 'Defects' Module.
Step 1) Let us say we want to replace occurrences of the word 'Account' with 'A/c'. There are
3 instances where the text 'Account' appears in defect description field as shown below.

Step 2) The Replace Functionality can be accessed by navigating to 'Edit' Menu.

Step 3) The Replace Dialog box is displayed to the user.

1. Enter the 'Search' Field Name
2. Enter the Value that needs to be found.
3. Enter the value that has to be replaced with the search string value.
4. Click 'Replace All' to replace all the occurrences or Replace for just replacing a
specific occurrence.
Note: User can replace a specific occurrence by clicking on 'Find Next' to focus on the
appropriate record which can then be replaced by clicking on 'replace' button.

Step 4) The Replace results are shown to the user with the number of occurrences it has
replaced and the number of times it has skipped the search string in the entire module.

Step 5) User can now navigate to the defects module and we can find that all the occurrences
of 'Account' are replaced by 'A/c'.

How to use Flags

The Flags Functionality in ALM helps users to do a follow up by adding a follow up flag
against a specific work item.
This feature is available in the following modules.

Requirements

Test Plan

Test Lab

Defects

For Demo purposes, let us understand the 'Flag for Follow up' Functionality by flagging a
work item in requirements module.
Step 1) The Flag functionality can be accessed by
1. Selecting the requirement against which the flag for follow up should be done.
2. Click on 'Flag' Icon.

Step 2) Upon clicking on the "Flag" icon, the "Flag for Follow up" Dialog is displayed to the
user.
1. Enter the Date on which the follow up should be done.
2. Enter a brief description on why it has to be followed up.
3. Click 'OK'

Step 3) The Flag for Follow up is created and user will be able to see the flag icon against
that work item as shown below.

Step 4) When the follow up date matches with the current date, the flag for follow up would
be displayed in RED color as highlighted below.

Step 5) User can also clear the flag once the follow up is complete. To perform the same,
1. Click on the Follow up icon against the work item
2. The Flag for follow up dialog opens. User can click on 'Clear' Button as shown below.

Step 6) Upon clicking on 'Clear' button, the confirmation dialog is displayed to the user. User
can click 'Yes' to clear the flag for follow up against that work item.

Step 7) Upon clicking 'Yes' from the confirmation dialog, the flag for follow up is cleared
against that requirement.

All About History Tab

This History tab enables ALM users to view all the changes made to the selected work item.
The History includes date, time, the old value and the new value (changed value) for that
work item.
This feature is available in the following modules.

Requirements

Test Plan

Test Lab

Test Resources

Test Runs

Defects

For Demo purpose, let us see the history of a selected defect.

Step 1) Open a defect and defect details dialog is displayed to the user.
1. Navigate to History Tab
2. User can find the list of all the changes for this defect.

Step 2) Let us understand the history of the selected defect.

1. In Change#1 only new value columns are populated as the defect is created for the
first time.
2. In Change#2 the Field 'Status' is changed from 'New' to 'Open'
3. In Change#3 the Field 'Severity' is changed from 'High' to 'Low'

How to send Email

Send Mail Functionality in ALM, allows users to send an email about the details of an entity
to other users. The user has an option to include attachments and history while sending an
email.
This feature is available in the following modules.

Requirements

Test Plan

Test Resources

Test Runs

Defects

Step 1) The 'send mail' feature can be accessed by directly performing a click on 'Send by Email' icon as shown below.

Step 2) The 'Send E-mail' Dialog is displayed to the user.

1. Add users who need to be in 'To' List.
2. Add users who need to receive mail in 'CC' List.
3. The Subject is prepopulated, however user can edit the subject before sending an
email.
4. User has capabilities to include 'Attachments' as well. This option corresponds to the
attachments against a work item. Hence user cannot add any additional attachments
from their hard drive while sending an email using the below dialog.
5. If' History' checkbox is checked the history of the work item will also be included in
the mail.
6. Click 'Send'.

Note:

We can also send email to the other users who are NOT in ALM database by directly
entering their email addresses in To or CC list.

It is also understood that we will be able to add ALM users if and only if the user's
email ID is updated in ALM database.

Sending an Email option sends all details such as test data, steps, status of each one of
those steps.

User also has an option to include attachments and history of that specific work item
while sending the email (You cannot add attachments from your local hard drive)

Step 3) The Status of the email would be displayed to the user upon clicking 'send' button.

How to use Column chooser

Column Chooser option in ALM allows users to choose the columns that the user would like
to see against each work item. The columns that are not chosen by the user will be hidden
from the users view.
This feature is available in the following modules.

Requirements

Test Plan

Test Runs

Defects

For demo purpose, we will understand the column chooser option by selecting only the
relevant columns in defects module.
Step 1) Click 'Column Chooser' icon as shown below.

Step 2) The Column Chooser Dialog is displayed to the user.

1. Select the Fields under 'Visible Columns' Section that you would like to hide it from
your view
2. Click '<' Button to push the selected column to 'Available Columns' List
3. After pushing all the unnecessary columns from 'Visible Columns' list to 'Available
Columns' list, Click 'OK'.
4. The order of the columns can be controlled with the help of the 'up' and 'down' arrows
under 'Visible Columns' pane.

Note: The order of columns displayed in defects module would be same as that of the order
specified under 'Visible Columns' section.
Step 3) Now, only the selected columns are displayed to the user as shown below.

How to Set Defaults

Set defaults allows the ALM users to set default values for certain fields which will be
prepopulated when user creates a new work item of that type.
This feature is available in the following modules.

Tests.

Defects.

For Demo purpose, let us understand how to set default for a list of fields in 'Defects' Module.
Step 1) The 'Set Default Values' Option can be accessed by navigating to 'Edit' Menu as
shown below.

Step 2) The 'Set Default Values' Dialog box is displayed to the user.
1. Select the Field name to which you would like to have a default value.
2. Enter the Value of the field name which has to be defaulted every time.
3. Click 'Add'

Likewise, we will add default values for other fields

Step 3) Uponadding all the Default values, the 'Set Defaults Values' Dialog would be as
shown below.
1. The list of all fields and their default values are listed.
2. Enable 'When creating an entity use these values automatically' so that whenever user
clicks on 'New Defect' Icon from defects module these fields would be defaulted to
the preset values.
3. Click 'OK'

Step 4) Now click on 'New Defect' button in defects module. The default values are
populated against those fields that are added under 'Set Defaults' dialog as shown below.

How to use Favorites

Favorites in ALM behave the same way as that of "Bookmarks" on a web-browser. Favorites
allows user to navigate to a specific page with just a single click.
Favorites can be saved either private or public.

Private The added Favorite is available only for the current user.

Public The added Favorite is available across all project users.

Usually in ALM, the favorites are added on a filtered page. Let us say, as a tester I want to
access the medium severity open defects that are assigned against my name. To achieve the
same I need to apply 3 filters one for filtering the severity, second for filter the defect status,
third for filtering the name.
But using favorites we can access the defect which meets the above said criteria in a single
click.

This feature is available in the following modules.

Requirements.

Test Plan.

Test Lab.

Defects.

For Demo Purpose, Let us apply favorites for accessing defects that are in 'Open' Status and
that are having 'medium' severity.
Step 1) Before adding a favorite, let us apply filter for displaying medium severity open
defects.

Step 2) Now navigate to 'Favorites' Menu and select 'Add to Favorites'.

Step 3) The 'Add Favorite' Dialog box opens.

1. Enter the name of the Favorite
2. Select the folder (private or public) where the favorite has to be saved.
3. Click 'OK'

Step 4) The added favorite can be accessed by navigating to favorites menu and selecting the
same as shown below.

Step 5) The favorite page is displayed.

1. Displays the status with favorite name and favorite type (private in this case) along
with the filter applied on the data.
2. We can see that medium severity open defects are displayed to the user.

How to customize your ALM project

Project Customization enables project administrators to control access to a project by

defining the users who can access the project and it also has capabilities to customize
what type of tasks each user can perform.

One can also customize a project to meet the specific requirements of your
organization.

It also helps is adding/editing new customized user fields that can be added to each
one of the modules in ALM.

In this tutorial we are going to learn following (common) project customizations

Changing User Properties
Project Users
Groups and Permissions
Module Access
Project Entities
Project Lists
Automail
Alert Rules
Workflow
Script Editor
Lets look into them one by one

User Properties
Current logged in user will be able to edit their profile details and it allows user to change
their password.
Note: Only the current logged in user password can be changed even if the user is of type
'Project Admin'.
Step 1) Click on Tools link and select 'Customize' as shown below.

Step 2) The Project Customization dialog is displayed as shown below.

Step 3) To Change the password of the current user, click 'Change Password' in 'User
Properties' Tab.

Step 4) The change password dialog opens.

1. Enter Old Password
2. Enter New Password
3. Enter Confirm Password
4. Click 'OK'

Step 5) User will be displayed with the status message.

Step 6) Usercan also edit the following profile details.

1. Email ID
2. Full Name
3. Phone Number
4. Click 'Save'
Note: Users WILLNOT be able to edit their User Name, even if the user is of type 'project
Administrator'.

Step 7) The Status is displayed to the user as shown below.

Project Users
This module enables users to add and remove users for the current ALM project. One can
also assign users to user groups to restrict user access privileges.
Step 1) Now let us Add users to the Project Area.
1. Navigate to Project Users
2. Click Add User Drop Down.

Step 2) Upon clicking 'Add User' Drop Down,the following methods are displayed to the user
as shown below.
1. Add User by Name Project Admin can add the existing user of ALM to this project
by giving their user name. (The same has been done on Step 1 & 2)
2. Add New User to the Site Add New User to the Site by entering all details, the
same way we have added users from Site Admin.
3. Add Users from Site Add New user by searching based on their name or ID.
Let us see each one of the functionalities.

Step 3) Let us add an userbasedon Name. Ensure that this user is already existing in ALM
Admin database(User created using Site Administration module)
1. Select 'Project Users' from the project Customization window.
2. Click 'Add User'
3. Enter User Name
4. Click 'Ok'

Step 4) The Added user is displayed as shown below.

Step 5) Now Let us add user using the option 'Add new user to 'Site'.

Step 6) Upon Clicking 'Add New User to Site' From 'Add User', the following dialog is
displayed.
1. Enter User Name
2. Enter Email
3. Enter Full Name
4. Enter Phone Number
5. Click 'OK'

Step 7) The user is now added to the current project. The user is added in 'project users' as
shown below.

Step 7) Now let us add project users using the option 'add Users from Site'.
Ensure that the user is already in ALM admin database.

Step 8) The following dialog is displayed.

1. Enter the User Name and click search icon
2. The User Name is displayed
3. Click 'OK'

Step 9) The User is added to the project and displayed as shown below.

Step 10) Project Admin can also remove a user from the project users module.
1. Select the user
2. Click 'Remove User;

Step 11) Confirmation Dialog is displayed. Click 'Yes'.

Step 12) Upon Clicking 'Yes' the user is removed from the project users list.

Step 13) Each one of the user in the 'Project Users' has a membership associated with it.
Note : By default, any added user has just 'View' Permissions only.
1. Select the User Name
2. Select 'Membership' tab

3. The membership for the selected user would be displayed. The newly added user
'Cathy' has 'Viewer' permission

Groups and Permissions:

This module enables project admin to assign privileges to user groups by specifying
permissions.
There are 5 predefined groups in ALM and each one of those user groups has different
permissioning levels.
1. Developer
2. Project Manager
3. QA Tester
4. TD Admin
5. Viewer
Note: By Default any added user to the project area carries just 'View' Permission.
Step 1) Let us see the list of users in 'TDAdmin' Group.
1. Select 'TDAdmin'
2. Under Membership Tab you will notice users not in the group
3. Under 'In Group' section you will notice the list of user within the group. In this case
only 'Admin' is displayed.

Step 2) The Predefined group permissions cannot be edited.

1. Select 'TDAdmin'
2. Navigate to permissions Tab
3. Select any module(Defects in this case)
4. The Permissions cannot be edited even if the current user is a project Admin.

Step 3) The Predefined groups Cannot be Renamed or Deleted.

Step 4) In order to change a group permission, project admin has to add a New Group. Let us
say we need to create a new user group such that those users have 'Edit permission' for
defects module and View permission for others. This means all the permission has to be same
as that of 'View' user except the fact that the user should be able to 'update' the defects. To do
the same,
1. Click 'New Group'
2. Confirmation dialog is shown to the user. Click 'Yes'.

Step 5) Upon clicking yes, 'New Group' Dialog is shown

1. Enter the Group Name
2. Enter the profile

Step 6) The user group is created as shown below. You can also notice that we can
rename/Delete the group because it is created by us. Predefined Groups in ALM cannot be
edited or deleted.

Step 7) To change the permission

1. navigate to 'Permissions' Tab
2. Click 'Defects' Tab
3. Enable 'Update' flage for Defects
4. Enable 'Update' Flag for links

Module Access:
This module enables project Admins to control the modules that each user group can access.
This will prevent users from accessing restricted modules.
Let us say, Developers have nothing to do with test cases, hence they can be prevented from
accessing test plan, test lab modules.
Step 1) The default module access is displayed below. All types of user groups has access to
all modules by default.

Step 2) For demo purpose, let us remove all module access to VIEW user type except defects
module.
Uncheck all the module access against View user except Defects module as shown below.

Step 3) Now let us login using one of the 'View' User Id's to check if the changes have been
applied correctly. From the below snapshot it is very evident that the settings has been
applied as per our inputs as it displays only 'Defects' Module for the view user 'Jim'.

Project Entities:

Project Entities Enables project administrators to modify the behavior of ALM system
fields or define user defined fields.

For example, if we are executing the tests on various builds and we would like to add
a field 'Build Version' in 'Add Defects Module' we can do the same using project
entities module.

Step 1) User defined fields cannot be added under system fields which are Read-only.
1. Select 'Project Entites'
2. Select 'Defect' and select the subfolder 'System Fields'.
3. We can notice that we WILL NOT be able to add 'New Field' or Delete it as system
fields are read-only.

Step 2) To add a user defined field,

1. Select 'User Fields' Subfolder under 'Defects' Module.
2. Click 'New Field'
3. The Field Details would appear as shown below which can be edited.

Step 3) Field details can also be edited as shown below.

1. Rename the Label to 'Build Number'.
2. Check 'Required' which means this field will be a mandatory field for posting a new
defect.
3. Click Save

Step 4) Now we can witness the changes made in the defects module. Navigate to defects
module and user will be able to see the newly created field 'Build Number' which will be part
of 'New Defects' Module.

Project Lists

Project lists Enables project admins to add customized lists to a project. A list contains
values that the user can enter in system/user-defined fields.

For example, the Bug Status list has six predefined status viz New, Open, Fixed,
Reopen, Closed, Rejected. If we would like to add one more status, let us say,
Duplicate, we can do so using this module.

Step 1) To add an item under predefined lists,

1. Click 'Project Lists'
2. Select 'Bug Status'
3. Click 'New Item'. New Item dialog opens.
4. Enter the Item Name.
5. Click 'Ok'

Step 2) Upon clicking OK, the new item is created as shown below.

Step 3) Now we need to save the changes.

1. Click 'save' button.
2. A pop up is shown. Click 'OK'.

Step 4) Now navigate to defects module and verify whether status has the newly added item
in the list.

Automail:

This module enables project Admins to set up automatic mail notification rules to notify users
via email about the changes made to specified defects. This automail feature is strictly
restricted to defects module.
Step 1) To activate automail notifications perform the following steps.
1. Navigate to 'Automail' Link.
2. User can trigger email by selecting any number of available fields in the list.
3. This grid shows the list of fields that user has selected to send mail about the changes.
4. Project Admin can also select the email settings against each one of the available
users.
5. Click 'save'.

Step 2) A pop is shown. Click Ok

Alert Rules:
This module enables project admins to activate alert rules for the current project. This feature
will create alerts and send emails when changes occur in the project. This module holds good
for requirements, associated tests , defects.

Step 1) To Activate alert rules,

1. Navigate 'Alert Rules'.
2. Enable 'Alert Associated with' check box
3. Enable 'send E-mail to' & add corresponding tester/designer.
4. Click 'Save'

The First alert : Test Designer is alerted when a requirement is modified so that
associated tests can be modified

The Second alert: The tester is alerted when a defect changes its status to 'Fixed' so
that the responsible tester can pick up again for retesting.

Workflow:

This module enables project admins to generate scripts which helps in

Customizing the Defects module (add defect Dialog or View Defect Dialog).

With the help of this module, project admins can also write scripts to customize dialog
boxes in other modules, and control the actions that users can perform.

Now let us customize 'Add Defect' dialog for 'TDAdmin' group user type.
Step 1) Under project customization,
1. Click 'Workflow'.
2. Select 'Script Generator Add Defect Field Customization' Link

Step 2) The Add defect field customization dialog opens up.

1. Select the user group.
2. Select the fields that user don't want to appear during add defect dialog.
3. Click '<' link to push the fields out of visible fields list.
Note: Mandatory Fields Cannot be moved out of visible fields list.

Step 3) After pushing all the irrelevant fields out of visible fields list the customization field
dialog is displayed as shown below.
1. The Fields that are pushed out of visible fields list.
2. The fields that would be part of Add defect dialog.
3. Apply Script changes.

Note: Though we did customization using this user interface, the changes are done with
the help of generating scripts at back end. We will also deal with script editing with an
example after this section.
Step 4) Now login as user of type 'TDAdmin' and click 'New Defect' from defects module.
The fields that are selected by the user as visible is displayed in 'New defects' window.

Script Editor:
The script editor functionality helps users to write scripts to customize dialog boxes of
various modules and also control the actions that users can perform within each module.
Let us change the way the 'View Defect' Dialog displays to the user with the help of script
editor.
Step 1) To access the Script editor 1. Navigate to Workflow Tab
2. Click 'Script Editor'.

Step 2) The Script editor is shown to the user as shown below.

1. Select 'Defects Module Script'
2. The comment shows that- this is the area where we need to make changes as it
explicitly displays 'defect details field customization'.
3. It is scripted for each user group. The one that we are seeing corresponds to
'Developer' user group. We need to make changes to 'TDAdmin' user group.

Step 3) Now scroll down to 'TDAdmin' user group where we need to make changes. The
current settings for 'TDAdmin' is displayed as shown below.

Step 4) Let us understand the script.

Let us consider the following line of code in the script
SetFieldApp "BG_ACTUAL_FIX_TIME", True, False, 0, 0
Here are the details -

SetFieldApp Is the Function call made with 5 parameters

Field Name

BG_ACTUAL_FIX_Time - The field name. We are going to change the

settings for this field name

Visible Flag Corresponds to Visible Flag. If true, it will be visible.

Required
Flag

Checks if the field is mandatory. If true, the field is mandatory.

PageNo Flag

Starts with 0. If there are more number of fields then user can configure them
to be displayed page wise.

ViewOrder

User can also arrange the order of the field using this flag. Starts with 0 and
increments by 1. Based on this the order of fields are set

Step 5) Let us make changes to the first field 'BG_ACTUAL_FIX_TIME' Field.

The script for the field 'BG_ACTUAL_FIX_TIME' in script editor is shown below.
SetFieldApp "BG_ACTUAL_FIX_TIME", True, False, 0, 0
As per the above script the Defect Details dialog is displayed to the user as shown below.

Edit that line of code as shown below.

SetFieldApp "BG_ACTUAL_FIX_TIME", False, False, 0, 16
The script output has reflected in defect details dialog as shown below.

Step 6) Let us make changes to all the fields that are available.
1. Change the parameters of the function calls as explained in previous step for each one
of those fields as shown below.
2. Click 'Save'.

Step 7) Now login as one of the users of type 'TDAdmin' and access one of the defects so that
'View defect details' dialog opens up. The defect details dialog now displays as shown below.

Top 35 Quality Center Interview Questions

1. What is Quality Center used for? Or What are the benefits and features of Quality
Center ?
Quality Center is a comprehensive test management tool. It is a web-based tool and supports
high level of communication and association among various stakeholders (Business Analyst,
Developers , Testers etc. ) , driving a more effective and efficient global application-testing
process. Automation Tools like QTP , WinRunner & LoadRunner can be integrated with
Quality Center. One can also create reports and graphs for Analysis and Tracking for Test
processes.
2. What is the difference between TestDirector and Quality Center?
Quality Center is upgraded version of Test Director built by the same vendor Mercury (Now
acquired by HP).Test Director Version 8.2 onwards is know as Quality
Center. Quality Center is has enhanced Security/Test management /Defect management
features when compared to Test Director.
3. What is the difference between Quality Center and Bugzilla?
Quality Center is a test management tool which can also manage Defects apart from other
features.

BugZilla is Defect Management tool only.

4. What is the Purpose of Creating Child Requirement in TD /QC?
By Creating Child requirements to the main requirement you can evaluate the sub
requirements related to the main requirements.
You can link test sets and defects to the sub-requirements. This helps in 100% test coverage
and its analysis.
Learn More About Requirements in the Tutorial here
5. What is Test Lab?
In order to execute a Test Case (Developed in the Test Plan Module) either manual or
automated it needs to imported into Test Lab Module. In sum, Test Cases are created in Test
Plan Module while they are executed in Test Lab Module.
6. What is meant by Instance?
A Test Case imported from Test Plan module to Test Lab module is called an Instance of that
test case. It is possible to have multiple instances of the same Test Case in the Test Lab
Module.
7. Is it possible to maintain test data in Quality Center?
Yes. One can attach the test data to the corresponding test cases or create a separate folder in
test plan to store them.
8. How to ensure that there is no duplication of bugs in Quality Center?
In the defect tracking window of QC, there is a find similar defect icon. When this icon is
clicked after writing the defect, if anybody else has entered the same defect then it points it
out.
9. What will be the status in Quality Center if you give "Suggestion" to the Developer?
This is a trick question.
You can give "Suggestion" to the developer using the Comments sections provided in QC.
This is will not change the current status of Defect in QC. In sum, the status of the defect
remains the same, as that before giving suggestion to the developer.
10. How will you generate the defect ID in Quality Center?
The Defect ID is automatically generated after clicking Submit button.
Learn More about Defect Creation in Quality Center in here
11. Is 'Not covered' and 'Not run' status the same?
Not Covered status means all those requirements for which the test cases are not written
whereas Not Run status means all those requirements for which test cases are written but are

not run.
12.How to import test cases from Excel / Word to Quality Center?
1.Install and Configure the Microsoft Excel / Word Add-In for Quality Center.
2. Map the Columns in Word / Excel spreadsheet with Columns available in Quality Center
3.Export the data from Word/Excel to Quality Center Using Tools >Export to Quality Center
Option in Word/Excel.
4. Rectify errors if Any.
13. Can we export the file from Quality Centre to Excel / Word. If yes then how?
Yes.
Requirement tab Right click on main Req/click on export/save as word, excel or other
template. This would save all the child requirements
Test plan tab: Only individual test can be exported. No parent child export is possible. Select
a test script, click on the design steps tab, right click anywhere on the open window. Click on
export and save as.
Test lab tab: Select a child group. Click on execution grid if it is not selected. Right click
anywhere. Default save option is excel. But can be saved in documents and other formats
Defects Tab: Right click anywhere on the window, export all or selected defects and save
excel sheet or document.
14. What is Business Component ?
Quality Center provides Business Component for Business Process Testing (BPT).
Many Enterprise Applications are a) complex and b) require extensive test scripts/case.
A Test /Automation Engineer can not handle both complexity of Application Under Test as
well as extensive test script/test case creation.
Using Business Component, Subject Matter Experts ( who are experts on the Application
Under Test ) can create tests in a script free environment without involving in the Nitty-gritty
of test case/script designing. It helps increase test coverage and creates re-usable business
components used for testing essential Business Processes.
Development of Test Script / Cases is done by Automation / Test Engineer.
15.How can we save the tests Executed in test lab?

The tests executed, are automatically saved when the user clicks on "END RUN" in the Test
Lab
Learn More About Running a Test Case in QC in the Tutorial here
16. How to export test cases from QTP into QC?
To export test cases from QTP to QC, you first need to establish QTP-QC connection
1) In QTP , Go to File > Quality Center Connection.
2) Enter QC URL project name/domain/username/password and click on Login. QTP is now
connected to QC.
Next you can select the save the QTP Script in QC.
3) In QTP, Select File Menu > Save As > Save in QC
4 ) Select the Folder in QC where you wan to save the QTP Script
6) Click OK to Save.
17. How to use QTP as an automation tool in Quality Center ?
You need to install QTP add-in in Quality Center (Usually done by Quality Center
Administrator) . You then create and store QTP scripts in QC.
Learn more about using QTP in Quality Center in Tutorial here
18. How to switch between two projects in Quality Center ?
In QC 9.0 and above you can switch between two projects by select Tools>Change
Projects>Select Project.
In other version , you will need to log-off and log-in again.
19. What is the main purpose to storing requirement in Quality Center?
You store requirements in Quality Center for following reasons
a) To ensure 100% coverage : You can create and track test plan / sets for the requirements
stored in Quality Center to ensure all the requirements are tested.
b) Easy Change Management : If any requirement changes during course of test case creation
, the underlying test case is automatically highlighted and Test Engineer can change the test
case to suite the new requirement.
e) Ease of Tracking : Using Advanced Reporting & Graphs provided by QC , Managers can
determine various metrics useful in project tracking and monitoring.

20. What is Coverage status, what does it do?

Coverage status is percentage of testing covered at a given time.
For Example, If you have 100 test cases in a project and you have executed 35 test cases than
your coverage status of the project is 35%
Coverage status is helps keep track of project deadline.
21. Explain the architecture of Hp-ALM the new version of Quality Center?

HP ALM client

ALM server/Application server

Database servers- Site administration schema, Lab project and Project schema

22. Mention what are the different edition for HP ALM?

The different edition of HP ALM includes

HP ALM essentials: It is for the corporates that need the basic features for supporting
their entire software life cycle

HP QC enterprise edition: This version is used by corporates more commonly who

use ALM more testing purposes. It also provides integration with UFT

HP ALM performance center edition: This license is best suitable for organizations
who would like to use HP ALM to drive HP-Load runner scripts. It helps the users to
manage, maintain, execute, schedule and monitor performance tests.

23. Mention what is ALM workflow?

ALM workflow includes

Release Specification

Requirement Specification

Test Planning

Test Execution

Defect Tracking

24. Explain why do we need management of release and cycles in ALM?

There are many releases for a specific product

Each release is segregated into a number of cycles

Each release has also have a pre-defined scope and milestone associated with it

There is a specific number of test cases and requirements associated with it

Upon executing tests, the defects are mapped and logged to the corresponding tests
after which we can trace requirements and defects

Hence we need release and cycle Management

25. Explain how you can customize the defect management cycle in Quality Center?
One should gather all the features or attributes that have to be part of the defect management
like defect origin, version, defect details, etc. Later in QC using the modify options, one can
change the defect modules accordingly.

26. Mention what is the advantage of Quality Center?

Quality Center is referred as a complete test management tool

It is a web-based tool and backs up high level of communication among various stakeholders (Developers, Business Analyst, Testers and so on) driving a more efficient and
effective global application-testing process

With Quality Center automation tools like QTP, WinRunner and LoadRunner it can be
integrated. For analysis and tracking for test processes, it can also create reports and
graphs

27. Mention what is Test Lab module in Quality Center?

Test Lab module helps the tester to execute the created tests. Using this module one can
schedule, run and analyze and post defects.

28. Mention how many types of tabs are there in Quality Center and explain them?
Requirement: To track the customer requirements
Test Plan: To store the test scripts and design the test cases

Test Lab: To track the results and execute the test cases
Defect: Totrack down the logged defects and log a defect
29. Mention what does Dashboard Analysis consist of?
The dashboard analysis consists of two views

Analysis View: It consists of the analysis tree using which project managers/QA can
arrange all of their analysis items like-graphs, excel reports and project reports

Dashboard View: It consists of the dashboard tree in which managers or testers

arrange dashboard pages that can arrange multiple graphs that was formed in the
analysis tree and manifest them in a single view

30. Mention what is Sprinter in HP-Alm?

Sprinter offers advanced functionality and tools to make manual testing more effective and
efficiently. It allows you to accomplish these tasks without disrupting your test flow. With
the help of sprinter, you can execute many of the repetitive and tedious tasks of manual
testing automatically. It includes many tools that can help you to detect and submit defects.
31. Mention what is sprinter-data injection?

Using sprinter you can enter test data into the application by matching column names
with the field names with the application

We can insert multi-set of data directly into the application with respective matching
fields at one go

Choose the row that you want to insert and tap on the inject icon which directly inject
the data into the corresponding fields

32. Mention how sprinter tools are helpful?

Sprinter tools are helpful in many ways like

Smart Defect:

New Defect:

Add Defect Reminder:

33. Explain how one can map a single defect to more than one test script?

Using the associate defect option in TestDirector one can assign the same defect to a
number of test cases.

34. Explain how you can add requirements to test cases in Quality Centre?
There are two types of requirements available in Quality Center

Parent Requirements

Child Requirements

35. What are the predefined groups and permissions in HP ALM?

1. Developer
2. Project Manager
3. QA Tester
4. TD Admin
5. Viewe