Amen brother: Mercury Quality Center "software turd"
I will try not to add too much profane additional commentary, hopefully it will suffice to say that I am at my second gig now where "Quality Center" is in use - and it is just about the worst of all worlds.
Even if you can get past the IE only ActiveX nonsense (really, at that point, just make it a desktop app, what the hell - and they probably do have a desktop version right? - not that I checked, or care - but betcha if that does exist it costs even more), and the prohibitive cost, the end result product is still a horrible interface. Not a single one of the use cases is well thought out, the UI is abysmal, and I can't even set my preferences for email and the like (no, it just spams me with every defect for every project, without even the courtesy to put the PROJECT NAME in the SUBJECT, result, all email direct to trash).
I could go on, but promised to avoid profanity. Anyway, I could not agree more: Mercury, the god of profit.
Do yourself a favor and use BugZilla, or Mantis, or JIRA, or hell a goddamn spreadsheet (whoops, couldn't help it).
Comments
Or...
...you could integrate the two applications (JIRA/Mercury) with a tidy plugin:
http://www.go2group.com/Go2Group-JaM-Plugin.html
:)
Thanks!
+1 to JIRA/Mercury integration
I begged for that when "QC" came down the proverbial pike. Our QA dept said they would implement something with the JIRA APIs on their own. Then, when that quite expectedly never happened, we suggested they just use the JIRA email interface, to at least get the issues automatically IN JIRA (even if not synced, etc) - and that was blown off too.
Our problems are obviously bigger than the tools. And yet, even with the mild spam posting, I am going to check out JaM-Plugin.
I say that with a HUGE disclaimer though - if you are even considering Mercury, don't. A plugin for JIRA that shows Mercury issues is only advisable when you get rammed with Mercury in the first place, far better off to just stick to JIRA if you can.
Another option..
Jira, is an obvious one, what may not be obvious, is that you can also get plugins for jira that provide test case, requirements and defect tracking.
While most are commercial packages, they appear to cover 90% of QC's features, the only thing they naturally dont provide, is Winrunner/Quicktest Pro integration.
If you can live without that though.... you're peaches.
Mercury Test Director is the
Mercury Test Director is the worst thing I have ever seen working in IT in 20 years.
I have no idea how much it costs in dollars, but in terms of frustration, morale, and man hours wasted on this piece of crap it is way too much.
I would rather write test plans in MicroSoft Word and maintain a spreadsheet of successes or failures. In the past 6 months that we've been forced to use it, everyone on our development team has been frustrated by it.
Sure, nobody likes testing software - we like to code, but the interface is so horrible that it wastes time. My favorite "feature" is when I type something in and want to edit it. I naturally hit - and instead of moving to the left of the previous word, I am taken to the previous test step.
And then of course, those of us who like to use vi are apt to hit . Nice - I just hit and wiped out everything I just worked on.
And can I highlight text and hit to make it bold? NOOOOOOO - I must constantly move my hand from my keyboard to my mouse to make this happen.
Why do we use Mercury where I work? Well, the concept was great - let's test new code before we push it out to production, but NOBODY who has to actually use it had an opportunity to test-drive it and all our complaints about it go unsupported.
Quality Center is a Pile o' Junk
And that's about the nicest thing I can say about it.
I can't believe that after moving to a new major version (from TD to QC) it still shuts you off after it times out with the message "Your session is expired. You need to log out." Uh, no, YOU NEED TO LOG ME OUT, don't TELL me to log out.
That, and its constant crashes. It just crashed on me now, and I can't access the issue I was editing. Why? Because it's locked, BY ME. I have to wait N hours now for it to be unlocked so I can continue with my work.
And what the hell is the point of an ActiveX app that runs in the browser? Worst of all worlds. The people who wrote this software need to be strung up by their testicles. Alongside the authors of Perforce, another stinking pile of pooware.
I completely agree. I never
I completely agree. I never understand why people make giant ActiveX only "web applications." Just get over it and make it a desktop app, it's not a web app. If you have a web app and add one small component using ActiveX, that's different (still stupid, but different), when the entire thing is a giant collection of ActiveX atrocities, just make a desktop app already and admit you are Windows centric (also dumb to make apps like these, when you want to reach a broad customer base, that can't be run on different platforms).
To make it even worse, in terms of QC there is no real reason it couldn't be a genuine cross platform web app, it's not doing anything particularly special (in the browser based versions I have used - actual DHTML-Ajax would be much better, or even Flex or Java). Heck, if they did make it a real web app, they might even accidentally fix some of the stupidity in the way the UI works.
I guess you are one of those
I guess you are one of those still stuck in their old ways of using spreadsheets.
I like QC because it saves me alot of time,as opposed to spreadsheets
Imagine a scenario of 250 bugs all on a congested spreadsheet. How to do prioritize and coordinate with the Dev. Team. Also how the hell do external project auditors cope with all that paper work.
My advice is get with the times its 2008
Cheers !!!
Spreadsheets
The "use a spreadsheet" part was tongue in cheek, of course, there are much better options. JIRA is one of them. Nevertheless, I would NEVER condone/recommend Quality Center. If the choice was the QC (with it's interface, cost, and limited install base), versus a spreadsheet with 250 items - I would still choose spreadsheet. That's an indication of how bad QC is, not how good/bad a spreadsheet may or may not be.
It's not that bad
If a company buys Quality Center/TestDirector to use as a defect tracking system I have to congratulate the saleman. It does so much more.
To use an automobile analogy, why by a car with a 6 speed gearbox and only drive it in first.
I have been using it since 1998 when it was a desktop app. Defect tracking was never it's main purpose in all the places I have worked. We currently use TD for test planning, manual script development and control of both manual and automated (QTP) tests.
Text input is not vi so don't make out it is. To use another automobile analogy, if you normally drive a manual left hand drive car (US) don't complain that you can't change gear with your right hand when driving a car with the wheel on the correct side (right hand drive - UK)
Oh yes it is that bad
Yep, proponents of QC and TD are generally the ones who grew up learning it and now can't function without it. Back when Mercury actually made changes to the product, it may have been good. Hell - it may have even been ahead of its time in 1998. Let's flash forward to the present, though, mmk.
Why keep paying out the ass to fix a car built on 10year old technology when you can get a new one for so much less that does what *you want instead of what *it wants you to do? You could get a fleet of cars for the cost of the Mercury suite.
The Mercury suite is a black box - a majestically deep, centripetally sucking black box. It is so obvious that it's not worth the pain of purchasing, suffering, installing, integrating and whatever the hell else is needed to actually use it; the cost alone would drive most organizations away. The winning support cast would handle the rest now that HP is fail with this product suite.
We use a lot of different automation tools for testing (and instead of HP failscript or ancient vbScript to script or sequence them, we use GreenHat over Ant) and we use Jira. For the cost of Jira (about 5% the annual maint of QC) and it's actual flexibility, there is seriously no comparison. AND, hear this, it runs in Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari and *gasp* even IE.
i know your frustrations, but
i know your frustrations, but DONT ask for an application rather than a web interface, if its anything like loadrunner or qtp then it will be a complete heap of s@~t. this company seriously sucks and since its takeover by HP, they are charging 10k's of $'s for a support service that doesnt exist. i would urge EVERYONE to dump these sad excuses for products and look more towards open-source. HP/mercury.....i wouldn't s*%t on them if they paid me
Mercury "Quality" Center?
This is absoutely the worst POS I have ever used. Somehow this crap software package fooled the evaluation process here at my job and I have regreted it ever since. The UI is horrible, it's slow, crashes frequently, logs you out AND when it does, you have to kill the IE process because the same logout message appears over and over. Everything about this software is clunky, unintuitive, and unstable.
Today I am trying to print a report of selected PCRs and the piece of crap just locks IE. Doesn't work after three tries. This absolutely the worst piece of junk I have ever used.
You said it!
Relative to spreadsheets or word, I actually like QC. With that said the price, service and interface pretty much suck. Mercury isn't the only one missing the mark here. Visual Studio 2005 came out with a test case managment tool too. It's a repository of word documents (sucks). Anyone ever tried Testopia? Same thing there.
I'd been considering developing my own system for years and finally did when I saw was VS2005 offered. One thing led to another and before you know it I have my own company (SQA Design)! I'm not saying that I've solved all the problems or that the tool we offer (Qualify) is even "better", although most agree that it is.
Check it out at http://SQADesign.com. I'll even give you a free license if you tell us whay you like or dislike about the tool. Write us up online and I'll give you 5!
Uh Oh
Hey guys,
Just accepted a job for a software testing company that uses and sells QC. As I come from a sales marketing background, I read the previous posts and my heart sunk.
Just to confirm we are working with HP, who bought Mercury last year I believe..
Could anyone please tell me any reasons at all why large companies would purchase QC over ClearQuest or just use Bugzilla??
Again, sorry for my ignorence.. But in my 3rd day i'm struggling to understand all the differences..
Any responce would be much appreciated
Iain
I am an SQA Engineer and
I am an SQA Engineer and current user/administrator of Quality Center and Quick TestPro. In previous positions I have used and administered Test Director (previous version of Quality Center), and other systems used for bug tracking.
In my experience, the strength of Quality Center is in testing activities and Requirements tracking. I prefer the use of the Test Plan and Test Set modules to creating and tracking test results in spreadsheets (which are 100 times more tedious and error prone). Reporting my results, and archiving them is much simpler using QC. Its also a simple matter to copy test cases into a new project when I need to modify/re-use test cases.
Its an advantage that I can give view only permissions to managers, or other group leads, and they can check in on work that is being done and get many of their questions answered by just accessing the system. Since everything is stored in one place, there is more reliability that the right version of the test is going to be reviewed, executed, reported on, etc.
As an administrator of our system, I have not found any problems, nor have my users, in performance, as some people have posted above. The user that reported getting kicked out of the system too often should talk to their administrator. The length of time before getting kicked out is configurable. The user that said they had to wait hours to access a record locked by their login id should contact their administrator. This has rarely happened in my organization, but when it does, the administrator just needs to kill the previous session that was hung, the work of less than 1 minute.
Where QC could be better is in the defects module. As someone mentioned before, the product was developed as primarily a test tool and this is where its strength lies. While the defects module is configurable to a large extent which allows for workarounds to many of the problems I have encountered in using it for tracking and reporting metrics, there are better bug tracking systems out there (I prefer Remedy). However, it is important to note that there are much worse bug tracking systems out there which I have had the misfortune to use/administer. As a whole the QC defects module is not perfect and on a scale of 1 to 10, I would probably give it a 5 to 6 rating, but it works well enough for our organization.
To address one user’s comment about the email that comes from QC defects module where this user was getting ‘spammed’ with everything logged or changed for every defect [Send Mail on “All Defects†is probably checked, instead of a specific condition for this user], here again I will point out that this is configurable by the administrator. Most likely, the administrator for this user’s system didn’t take the time to configure the mail so that it, for example, only sent email to this user when the issue was assigned to their login ID. Also, when I get email from different defects associated with different projects, the project name is displayed first in the subject line, for example “Project 1 – Defect #10 Summaryâ€. I can’t remember off-hand if this is a setup issue (I’m using version 8.2).
Many of the complaints I see listed here could be resolved by having a better educated system administrator for QC, or by checking the hardware configuration of the implementation to eliminate performance issues. I also have to agree with the user that pointed out the absurdity of complaining about how this system doesn’t accept the same commands that vi does, for example.
In my 10+ years in Software Quality I have yet to see a system that does it all and makes everyone happy. QC is not junk, it is useful, and it does have its quirks – just like any other system I’ve ever tested or used. No designer, developer, tester or user is perfect – so it follows that no system is either. Overall, the QC tool is a good one with some great features, and when used for what it is designed for, it makes my life as a tester much easier.
"SQA Engineer," enough said.
"SQA Engineer," enough said.
QC or Spira Test
Take a look at this site: https://www.inflectra.com/SpiraTest/Default.aspx
Check out the Spira Test tool, very nice.
We use QC at our shop but, have not been happy with the latest direction of the tool.
Spira even has a site to review the tool in http://www.inflectra.com/SpiraDemo/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fSpiraDemo%2fP...
create an account and take the tool for a test drive.
Spria cost way less then QC, no idea how long they have been around.
They also do not have anything that I could see for automated testing, i.e. QTP type stuff.
Interested in your thoughts
Sorry mate, but after using
Sorry mate, but after using QC for some months all these positive comments (and yours is the biggest) sound like a commercial ad.
And... don't turn this into the N-th "Windows vs rest of the world" discussion, please.
Requirments JIRA and QualityCenter
We are using JIRA and QualityCenter.
I must say, we love JIRA, we can live without most of QC but we like QTP.
We are using a tool called synapsert.com
It lets us make and manage our requiremetns INSIDE of JIRA. It also lets us make testcases and test suites inside of JIRA too. Now we can link them end-to-end inside of JIRA.
Our Test Team only works in QC so we bought an integration between QC and JIRA.
Our end goal is to migrate everything out of QC and only keep QTP. Everything else will be done in JIRA.
QC
Your comments about QC are right on. Every complaint I see in this thread is either something that can be overcome by QC's configuration options or simply taking a little time to learn how QC works. I have used it off and on for 10 years. The times I've been forced to use some open source tool, I've gagged and begged and pleaded for the company to get QC. It is leaps and bounds beyond ANY open source tool WHEN IT IS USED AND ADMINISTERED correctly. While most features really are intuitive if you just look at it for a few minutes, if you don't take some time to learn it, of course you are going to get frustrated with it, just like any other tool. Another thing to remember is that it is not designed primarily for developers and development needs. It is designed for testers and business users that may or may not have any programming experience.
All these angry comments are ridiculous and clearly from people that are too lazy to learn it.
QTP trashes Windows applications tests
Trying to convert manual tests into QTP automated tests for a Windows based application is a mind numbing horror! Only the most simple steps can be captured. If you have complex objects, changing data, or need validation for pop-up Dialog boxes, you'll be banging your head against the wall for a long time. Project cost skyrockets while otherwise capable developers struggle to pioneer a way through this massive pile of garbage. I have not seen one example of a team who has reached the holy grail of end-to-end application testing with this "tool" yet. If you're excited about the cutting edge of discovery, be my guest. However, we need to produce an automated testing solution and this Quick (Trash) Professional with Quality Center just isn't cutting the mustard!
As with all tools
TestDirector/QC is a tool built for the masses and as such the out-of the box leaves most people wanting something more or different. I have worked with Jira, Bugzilla, the horrible Rational Suite of products... now pay attention... QC when you have a properly skilled Admin is the BEST product out there for overall Quality administration... QTP is the single best General functional Automation tool out there... the big problem is that the sales people are just that... non of it is truly .. Install and go... QC when configured to meet your needs will not spam, will not be burdensome and is one of the most customizable Quality management softwares out there.. you just need to know what you are doing when you get it set up and implement your customizations. QTP as with all functional automation tools is useless if all you do is record and play back. All functional automation should be treated as a 3rd party integration project. When done by a skilled Automator it will do more and better and be easier to maintain then nearly any other tool out there... the key is this.. if you are going to invest in the quality invest in quality people.. a 3 year QA analyst with no previous experience will never be able to pick up all the skills they need on thier own in a reasonable amount of time... if you by the tools also hire in an expert in the tools.. and invest the time to screen the candidates so that you actually get an expert not someone that happens have tinkered on and off with the tools for the last couple of years. When interviewing QC only 1 out of 10 people that rank themselves as experts have any idea about how administer QC beyond the add a field/ add a user level. With QTP candidates... about half of them ar rubbish when it comes down to building a proper suite. Most barely understand how to leverage the object repository, data validation, and especially reusable actions. QTP is 90% coding and 5 percent recording and 5% configuration. This is why a QA generalist should not be the person you tap on your team to be your in-house QTP expert to be.
I understand the rants in this thread as it is the fault of mostly the marketing and sales people who try to make it sound stupid easy and out-of-the box 100% ready to roll. As far as the active-X complaints... I agree.. there should be a better solution... up until TestDirector 7.0 it was a client server app that was in many ways better.
So to all of you out there that are made miserable by the tools.... don't create a bigger mess by trying to mix it with Jira or anything else. Instead, Fight to get someone in that knows their stuff when it comes to these tools and I think that you may end up very pleasantly surprised.
Right, the way to get QC to
Right, the way to get QC to work is to get an admin that knows it, so you can pay someone else an exorbitant amount of money ON TOP of the money you paid for the tool, I see. Any tool that doesn't offer a good deal of value out of the box, or that at least can't just be configured by ANYONE using it, rather than a specialized admin, is bad news. Don't get me wrong, I think you are making some sense there, I am sure it could be configured better - but it shouldn't be that hard, that was part of my original point - the tool sucks if it takes that much configuration to make it useful (and then there is still the activeX nonsense, etc).
I have worked in the software industry for nearly 20 years now, and I have worked FOR many of the biggest companies, and a few startups, and on my own - I have seen a lot too, and I still think QC is total crap.
QC Admin is simple, you just can't be a Rock and should read the
I have worked in the software industry for 27 years and for some of the biggest names in the industry. My experience includes Mainframe, Unix, and Windows systems development using various software languages. I have used most of the tools listed above and have written some custom tools in the "Old" days.
QC is NOT for everyone! It is for the testing organization that wants to track, process, and tie together different testing artifacts. My current company owns Remedy, JIRA, and Quality Center. Each has it's own job and place in the workflow.
As stated above, you need an administrator. It's not Rocket science, but it helps to have defined processes and to actually read the manual. The larger the enterprise, the more you need QC. Mom and Pop development houses need not apply or those organizations that just track bugs use word or excel.
I think the most valid criticism is that HP support is now where near as good as Mercury support was. The answer is to purchase support from a 3rd party HP partner that specializes in testing and the Mercury suites.
BTW, whoever trashed LoadRunner is clueless. You do need to be worthwhile and have some skills to get full value out of LR, but it's hands down the best overall Performanace tool available.
Costly, but we planned a 4 year payback and within 6 months had adverted an issue that would have most likely put us out of business with "Millions in losses". If you have SLA's LR is the tool. Where is beats most other products is in Analysis and reporting.
QTP, I'm not that impressed with but its good with win32 applications. It works well with experienced testers, but can be a challenge for newer and less technical users. Don't get me wrong, it will do a good job and in special cases it's the best tool availavble. But, I think it needs some redesign and development TLC. The designers have gotten to interested in Business Process Testing and have not put as much effort into good UI test automation.
Good Luck, and don't let the negative comments drive you away. Rational products can't hold water to HP Mercury (I've used both)
Can QTP interface with Linux?
I'm just wondering if anyone has had luck getting QTP to do anything through a linux bash shell? Does it have that capability? Perhaps with Vbscript? Or an add-on? Basically I would want it to be able to ssh into a system and execute commands in a bash shell. This is in addition to being able to automate gui testing, since we have a mixed environment. If not, are there any good alternatives? Thanks.
Sean