I’m pleased to announce the availability of service pack 1 for ALM/Quality Center 17.0. This service pack enhances and completes the features released in recent years.

User Experience

The Web Runner client continues to deliver more functions and enhance user experience:

• You can create and view test coverage of a requirement in Web Runner. You can also see the requirement coverage information of a test case.
• The redesigned manual test runner is more user-friendly and productive. It also provides a similar experience as the manual runner in ALM Desktop Client, making it easy for users to adopt.
• The former entity settings for defects and test runs are obsolete because workflow customization is now able to cover the purpose of these settings.

Figure 1. Manual Runner

Reporting and Analytics

We enhanced two types of graphs based on customer feedback: the Planned vs. Actual Graph and the Progress Graph.

The Planned vs Actual Graph now allows more control of the planned or actual line. The “plan” line now supports a new option that calculates data based on the planned execution date. You can also specify what statuses are considered ‘complete’ in the “actual” data—for example, whether all executed tests or only passed tests.

Figure 2. In the Planned vs Actual Graph, you can specify the “actual” line to include only passed tests.

The Progress Graph can now show a “total” line beside the individual lines of each category. You can toggle it on or off as needed.

Figure 3. An example Progress Graph with ‘total’ line turned on.

SaaS

Admin of an ALM SaaS customer can now view the license usage and allocation in its organization, including sub-organizations, getting more convenience in managing their subscription.

Compliance

Supporting regulatory compliance needs continues to be a priority. With this service pack, you can now track changes to site parameters in the audit log.

Other Enhancements

• Improved Swagger documentation for Site Admin REST API better guides users and clearly describes the needed permissions.
• In Core REST API, the “is-authenticated” API call has a new version that supports JSON and XML response formats.
• Microsoft Teams integration allows you to send messages without opening the Teams chat window.
• New supported environments include:
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2022
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x (64-bit)
  • Oracle Linux 8.x (64-bit)
  • Java 11
  • Oracle Database 21c

Figure 4. Site Admin REST API Swagger with a new structure.

Plan your upgrade now!

You may want to continue using older versions of ALM/Quality Center, but then you’ll miss out on the powerful new features introduced recently. Plus, it’s critical that you stay current on the infrastructure software that ALM/Quality Center relies on, especially now that the Internet Explorer app is permanently disabled. Moreover, version 15.0.x will end committed support on Aug. 31, 2023.

It’s time to explore your ALM options to decide the future of your test management tool.

Check out the following resources to learn more:

• ALM 17 Service Pack 1 release notes
• ALM 17 resources collection
• ALM/Quality Center version comparison chart
• How Businesses Can Reduce the Cost and Perceived Risk of Software Upgrade Projects
• Micro Focus (now OpenText) recognized as a leader in GigaOm Radar for Regulated Software Lifecycle Management