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I am an experienced software developer and team leader. Lately, I joined a project in which I am supposed to manager the QA process. My team will be composed of Software Engineer in Test members since we would like to be able to run most of the testing tasks using a home grown test automation solution. We are developing the automation framework using C#.

I have started to look out for tools that will help me collect data and understand the overall status of the project and reflect that status to my manager. I saw that another project on our company works with HP Quality Center (QC) to do the same tasks. They also develop in C#. The other team developed their own automation suite and they have written a tool to update their QC test plan status with the result they got from the automation tests using an API called OTA. Their solution seems clumsy to me since they run an entire suite of tests an update QC at the end of this suite. This way they loose the real time updates QC provides.

All of this renders QC as an obstacle rather than a helper since we will have to maintain code that does not relate to our business. On the other hand, QC has other advantages. For example, Integration with JIRA, Managing Test Cycles, Record/Playback for tasks we will not be able to automate (UI testing).

My end goal is to be able to write my automation framework in C#, Be able to run my tests from as a first class citizen in the tool I am using, collect the test results my automation framework produces and gain the traceability QC suggests it provides.

My questions: 1. From your experience would you use QC if you were in my situation? 2. If you were in my position and can point me to resources that can help me perform my task I would appreciate it.

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I'm confused - if you have JIRA, why would you be using QC? Sounds like duplication. –  testerab Feb 16 '13 at 15:41
AFAIK, JIRA and QC are complementary products. They are not mutually exclusive. QC is basically for managing the entire ALM, whereas JIRA is basically an Issue and Bug Management system. –  Ikaso Feb 16 '13 at 20:43
From your description though, it doesn't sound like you want to do anything with QC that you couldn't do with JIRA (Greenhopper + Bonfire will manage test cycles). Okay, QC/QTP gives you recotd/playback but that's a very brittle high cost way to automate. I think perhaps the main problem is that it's not very clear what your needs are: could you try to add a bit more detail? –  testerab Feb 17 '13 at 12:23
We basically test the product using its api. Therefore, we will not do UI automation. Since QC can run its own tools it means one of the 2: I should integrate my testing code within QC or I run the tests outside of QC and then update the status of the test cases to reflect the real status of user stories and bugs. –  Ikaso Feb 17 '13 at 13:51
@Ikaso, I'm confused. You're searching for software for: (a) test execution automation, (b) automation of test result reporting, (c) managing testing iterations, (d) traceability between requirements and tests? or something else? Could you then update your question to make it more focused? –  dzieciou Feb 17 '13 at 17:58
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3 Answers

Ok, here is what I think you are asking: Will QC help you track the development/test status of your software delivery and provide an effective report mechanism to your management?

First the answer: No

Now for what I think is the implied question: What can I do to help report the development/test status of my software delivery?

Best answer I have seen: Low Tech Testing Dashboard from James Bach: http://www.satisfice.com/presentations/dashboard.pdf

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I don't know whether I will be able to give you the answer you are looking for. But I would share with you my experience with QC.

In my projects we run scripts from QC and get execution results in QC. But the automation tool we use is QTP. To integrate QC and QTP we use QC-QTP addin and execution happens from QTP and the results would be stored against the respective testcase/testscript in QC. The developed scripts are stored in QC.

Creating a traceablity matrix, defect management and drawing reports is possible in QC. Thus we can monitor the health of project, the count of defects, the resource utilization etc. So I think having proper addin will be a solution for your problem.

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You might want to checkout SmartBear Products like ALM and QA Complete . PS: I don't work for smart bear but was successful in implementing this kind of reporting from my Java/Selenium Automation Framework. They have an API that your framework may use and report. I think it is a lot cheaper than QC too.

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