HP Quality Center (QC) is a widely used tool for managing Testing and Quality Assurance (QA) activities. It also helps you manage requirements, compile test plans, monitor testing activities, and track defects — a seemingly one-stop solution for all key SDLC steps.
However, HP QC is primarily meant to be used by Software Testers, and Developers are often more accustomed to other tools like JIRA and TFS. Encouraging the Developers to start using HP QC may not be a viable option.
Therefore, the best option is to integrate HP QC with other tools being used for managing application lifecycle, and Kovair helps you achieve this using ‘Kovair Omnibus QC Integration Adapter’.
Features & Benefits
- Bidirectional synchronization of exposed PLM components like PR, ECR, EN between Innovator and other ALM tools.
- Easy monitoring of exposed PLM components from other tool IDEs through Omnibus integrated platform.
Kovair Support for Quality Center Integration
Kovair Omnibus QC Integration Adapter lets you integrate HP QC with other tools in the integrated ALM system so that HP QC’s test management and requirement management capabilities are available to all the tools. When ALM tools like ClearQuest, Eclipse, JIRA, and TFS are integrated with HP QC, requirements, test cases, and defects from HP QC can flow bi-directionally between the integrated tools and can be managed from any of these tools. Kovair provides a vendor-neutral ALM platform called Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform to which you can connect your HP QC instance using Kovair Omnibus QC Integration Adapter. Kovair also provides adapters for connecting other ALM tools like CQ, JIRA, and TFS to Omnibus, as shown in the following figure:
HP QC Integration Adapter offers the followings:
Integrated Test Management
The increasing complexity of testing scenarios has raised the demand for an integrated, open, and flexible approach to support the management of overall test process. Kovair QC integration adapter enables you to manage the entire test life cycle through a centralized system in a heterogeneous environment. It provides bidirectional information and control over various tools from multiple vendors that make up the testing infrastructure. When HP QC is integrated with a third-party Requirement Management tool like DOORS through Kovair Omnibus Integration platform, requirements from DOORS can flow into HP QC. Since the requirements in both the tools are synchronized, changes in those requirements in DOORS are automatically updated in HP QC. Thus, the requirements based on which Testers write the test cases, are always accurate
Increased Productivity
Kovair QC Integration Adapter allows Developers and Testers to access the requisite artifacts from their preferred tool environment. Therefore, they do not have to learn new tools or log into different tools to access the requisite artifacts. This saves a lot of time and effort and improves productivity
Enhanced Collaboration
Kovair QC Integration Adapter enhances collaboration by providing a closed-loop process for Development and Testing teams. In the integrated environment, when a defect is added in HP QC corresponding to a process, that defect is automatically logged as an issue in JIRA and the issue is assigned to a Developer. Subsequently, the Developer receives an e-mail regarding the issue. When the developer marks the issue as ‘fixed’, the corresponding defect in HP QC is updated and the Tester gets informed. If the Tester verifies the fix and closes the defect, the corresponding issue in JIRA is also closed. Thus, appropriate team members are immediately informed when their action is required, and there is no communication gap. The team members also receive information about any change that impacts their activities. Since all the team members are well informed about the changes and their impacts, corrective actions are taken immediately.
Streamlined Development
In the integrated environment established by Kovair Omnibus, all the project artifacts including HP QC test cases and defects are replicated across tools. If Developers are using JIRA for managing defects and monitoring problem-fixes, they can view the defects recorded by Testers in HP QC from JIRA only. If Developers make any change in the status of a defect, the change is updated in the corresponding defect in HP QC.
Absolutely Traceability
Customers will accept your software only after they successfully complete User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and are fully convinced that the final product is in accordance with the requirements they specified and meets their business needs. The best way to ensure that UAT is successful is to provide absolute traceability between requirements, test cases, change requests, and issues recorded throughout the project. Absolute traceability can be achieved only when all project artifacts are linked to each other by direct or nested relations. When HP QC is integrated through the Kovair Omnibus, Developers can link change requests and defects to code files while Testers can link defects to test cases and requirements, thereby creating a complete chain of traceable artifacts.
Improved Software Quality
By integrating disparate ALM tools with HP QC and enhancing team collaboration, Kovair QC adapter helps eliminate software errors that occur due to manual processes and hand-offs, miscommunication, and inconsistent information.
Version Control and Baselines
HP QC has got capabilities of version control and baselining, which you can use to manage the requirements imported into HP QC from a heterogeneous tool by means of Kovair QC Integration Adapter.
On Demand Scenario
HP QC-JIRA Integration : As shown in the above example, you can integrate HP QC and JIRA so that test cases in HP QC are replicated in JIRA. Synchronization takes pace both ways in real-time for test cases and bug items. Therefore, while creating a bug in JIRA, you can link it with the appropriate test case. The bug, along with the linked test case is replicated in HP QC.
HP QC-JIRA-TFS-SharePoint IntegrationAs shown in the above example, you can integrate HP QC with SharePoint, TFS, and JIRA so that requirements in SharePoint are replicated and linked with: source code files in TFS, test cases in HP QC, and defects in JIRA. Also, test cases from HP QC and defects from JIRA can be replicated in SharePoint.