The MasterControl Quality Excellence suite bundles a number of products supporting work quality and compliance including training and exams, incidents and corrective actions (CA), documents and change, and other modules.
$25,000
per year
Polarion ALM
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Polarion ALM is an application requirement management software platform now owned and supported by Siemens since the 2015 acquisition. It is available on the cloud (Polarion X) and on-premise. Polarion connect teams and projects to improve application development processes with
a single, unified solution for requirements, coding, testing and release.
MasterControl is suited with lesson plans for particular subjects. Refresher classes/lessons make it easier to keep current on any information that may change. Less appropriate ways in which MasterControl is suited would not allow for more user-friendly/beginner ways of operating the site.
The question is actually not trivial to answer in 200 words. To summarize, I can say that we have had consistently positive experiences with all customers where we have used Polarion ALM. The sector in which the customer operates only played a subordinate role. We use Polarion ALM in almost all sectors: Medical technology, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, agriculture, automotive and many others. It is also interesting to note that in the beginning we were mostly active in the development of products, systems or software. Over time, this has changed more and more for some customers and risk management or projects for lessons learned have taken up more space. This enabled us to banish a seemingly endless number of Excel lists. Who doesn't know this problem: at first there is only one Excel list on the drive. Day by day there are more. Some with a date in the file name. Others with an employee abbreviation. In the end, nobody can tell which is the current and complete list. The really good thing about Polarion ALM is that it is extremely flexible to use and the configuration determines what the project is used for in Polarion ALM. It is customizable to my situation and not rigid.
Polarion ALM provides a centralized repository for capturing and managing requirements. Teams can define, organize, and link requirements to other artifacts like test cases and development tasks.
Test Management:
Polarion ALM facilitates end-to-end test management. Teams can create detailed test cases, manage test execution, and track test results.
Traceability and Impact Analysis:
Polarion ALM ensures traceability across all phases of the development lifecycle. Users can establish links between requirements, test cases, development tasks, and other artifacts. This traceability helps in impact analysis, allowing teams to understand how changes in one area may affect other parts of the project.
Customization and Adaptability:
Polarion ALM is highly customizable to fit the unique needs of different organizations and industries. Users can create custom workflows, define custom fields, and adapt the tool to their specific development processes.
There is no trigger if there is a duplicate document in the system. Since each InfoCard has its document number, unless used simultaneously with someone else, there is no trigger for duplicate documents.
When searching and looking at all the documents on the system, it would be nice to have a time column showing when it was released. All I am currently going off of is taking the document number and the highest, but that also takes time.
You can't get rid of a subtype if you have data associated with it. So if you enter documents a certain way and your team decides to change how, things will be more efficient, etc. You can't delete that subtype until you remove all data from the system, even if you don't need some. It's a big task if you have been using it for a long time.
More robust engine as far as the actual took is concerned. There are navigation components in trace to reporting which we feel can be improved especially when dealing with cross global accessing of the tool. It slows us down a bit so it's backend driven optimization as well as some front end "clunkiness" that can be improved.
Improve some filtering capabilities especially in creating custom reports and generally all around the ALM components of the tool.
As of the version we have, the ability to enhance replationship types in traceability is limited.
During the past five years, we expanded our business and its quality control, and we hadn't had any issues even when we grew the company's size around five times. The software has proved itself during these years, and now we rely on it heavily and don't think we need to switch to any other similar product in the near future.
There is too much at stake to go into a new system. But with everything else being promised as far as newer more innovative products, the justification to not renew is a huge risk so that is not a concern
MasterControl Quality Excellence is easy to use when you dedicate the time. However many companies do not have that bandwidth to learn the system and will not use the system until they have to. Unfortunately creating errors, mistakes that are hard to fix.
Polarion ALM can be used individually and what I do with Polarion ALM is decided by my configuration. Lesson-learned, operational risk management, product, system or software development or customer management .... doesn't matter at all. I decide with my configuration what I will do with Polarion ALM. Of course, you can also use Polarion ALM out-of-the-box for your development because it comes with a large set of project templates.For this reason, I would also recommend not to just get started. A suitable consultant will show you the right templates and customize them according to your needs. Having Polarion ALM is like having a car. You know exactly how to operate the car. You've done it a thousand times before. The details are in the configuration: did I have a navigation system installed or not? Do I have a lane departure warning system or not? Do I have cruise control or not? Unlike when buying a vehicle, almost all functions are already available and can be used, usually at no extra cost. However, if something is missing, it can be obtained via the manufacturer's extension portal. Individual extensions are subject to a charge. Polarion ALM - easy to deploy and easy to use.
The Technical Support team has grown exponentially over the last couple years. Some front line support staff are new to the system and so know less than the clients do. Back line staff are more seasoned and provide immediate assistance to the front line staff. They have an extensive knowledge bank to assist them as well as client access to most KB articles. Annual user group conference gives us chance to meet the support staff an also to resolve any outstanding issues. Any critical vendor notices are emailed immediately when found and a patch offered at the same time. These are rare, but quickly resolved.
so far Veeva seems to be more user friendly, more robust functionality, and good quality but 3 or 4 times the cost. MasterControl Quality Excellence is good quality, decent amount of functionality and much better bang for your buck.
Polarion ALM has the best usability, extensibility and reactiv product management. The support is also very good compared to other companies. Or in other words it is closer to the customer. Codebeamer is for sure also a good ALM tool with a great feature set, but existing customers are often neglected. We will see, what PTC as the new owner of codebeamer will change at this point.
The system has prevented audit findings related to lack of training for operators since Mx contains a training check against key work instructions prior to allowing data entry.
Having a single source of truth for quality system data has meant that metrics can be set across multiple locations, and we are able to compare apples to apples which has allowed us to identify sites that are struggling and improve understanding at these locations.
MasterControl Quality Excellence actively engages customers for input into features and improvements. I have seen implementation of several features and fixes that we requested which have made using the system easier.
