IBM Rational ClearQuest vs. OpenText ALM Octane

If you are familiar with IBM Rational Suite products, RequisitePro will add up due to the synergy between other components. Beyond that, if your business is not structured to an adequate development methodology or lacks the degree of maturity or necessary resources, probably RequisitePro does not add much value. If you work with developers in the requirements analysis, they probably prefer to use an SVN repository.

Incentivized

If someone is already using ALM Octane, then it is worth the pain to go through the upgrade process to get the current versions. If you need it to tie into Jira, it can do that. Just be prepared for a rough road. If you have some other product that you use for DevOps, PM, and QA, you will probably be better off sticking with what you have. DaVita also uses TFS, but not in a full implementation (i.e. not with a build server for code deployment), so for them, ALM makes a lot of sense. If you are using TFS with a build server, there are other methodologies that won't end up making you want to pull your hair out trying to make it integrate with what you are using.

Incentivized

• Capability to query bugs on multiple criteria and export it to csv for triages.
• Simple and intuitive user experience and clearly planned defect life cycle
• There are other features like assigning the defect to pull request, clearly explaining defect by attaching screenshots, detailed description etc
• If you are using other IBM tools for requirements documentation, this tool integrates very well

Incentivized

• Bug-logging and keeping track of the bug status.
• Integration with DevOps to do continuous testing.
• Keeping coordination between development and testing teams.

Incentivized

• Performance can be an issue. Make certain the server is sized properly
• There is a large difference in capability of the Thick Client Version compared with the web based version. Make certain each job function has proper access to be able to do what is required of them.
• Learning curve is not too steep, but would suggest having someone with experience setup the repository. Highly suggest getting a contractor to assist to get the repository up and running.

Incentivized

• The integration to Synchronizer is very difficult to implement.
• The integration to Jira was very hard to get working.

Incentivized

Most likely as it's one of the powerful tools in the organization. We needed this tool to track all the process related documentation and also to capture signatures.

Incentivized

Please keep in mind that this all has to do with you you customize the user interface. It becomes very easy to house all of your requirements, but it may and can make life difficult for you if you do not think ahead of how you want the app to work and house your data

Incentivized

IBM has good support and knowledge base. With the wealth of information on their site and the support desk, we were able to quickly resolve issues. It is smart to build up a COE and a group that manages the software otherwise it is quick to be able to lose the knowledge as team members are assigned different duties

Incentivized

Customer support is very good takes minimal time to resolve the issue and always takes feedback seriously to improve the application.

Incentivized

It was pretty simple.

Incentivized

IBM clearquest would the BEST option if you are looking for managing change requests, managing project workflows, generating reports on status of requests. The reason being: cost, cost and cost. It almost handles everything that you would need for your project including bug tracking unless you want something really fancy (like HP QC) with a higher cost that supports a wide variety of needs which you might need to evaluate based on your project needs. For example, if you would be really making use of all those additional features provided by HP Quality Center. To be honest it depends on your project size, the skills of team members and of course budget!

Incentivized

Micro Focus ALM Octane use at DaVita goes back beyond my starting with them three years ago. They have used it as part of DevOps as well as for performance measurement of software releases in combo with HP Performance Center (a great combination). Jira is well suited to managing bug reports and development processes with Agile and Scrum, but ALM Octane goes above and beyond that.

Incentivized

• IBM Rational ClearQuest has provided a workflow that works without unique software methodology. As a result we deliver complete software products to our clients in a 6 to 8 week development time frame.
• As a result of our highly customized implementation, we have 8 resources supporting IBM Rational ClearQuest. Three of the resources are full time configuration management staff that administer and support the tool set and the other 5 are from the testing group that handle ClearQuest user support issues in addition to their testing duties.

Incentivized

• It's had a very positive impact.
• Very good customer support as well when required.

Incentivized