Before getting started with Quality Center, let us realize why we need Quality Center or likes.

Test Management: Let us start with an example. There is a website, where you need to use user ID and a password on the Homepage to login to the site. How do you test this page? A number of scenarios will flash by your mind. I will try to list a few of them: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Enter correct User ID and correct password the hit Login button Enter incorrect User ID and correct password hit Login Enter correct User ID and incorrect password hit Login Validate for the input constraints of User ID field Validate for the input constraints of Password field so forth.

So on and Now we add few more attributes on the page:

1. A link to add a new user, which will take you to a Page wherein user fills in multiple fields 2. An option is given to user to retrieve a lost/forgotten password Once you login to the website, you will find more features. Result all will increase the number of scenarios and hence the tests to test them all. These are nothing but sub-requirements. They add up to requirements and all requirements add up to a release a product which is meant for general use by the targeted customers. In real world, software is nothing but a congregation of multiple such features/functionalities and to test them all, what you need to numerous test cases which may run into thousands! So it is very important to begin a software testing effort in a planned and well-managed way which will help us to keep a track of 1. 2. 3. 4. what needs to be tested what has been tested what remains to be tested what defects have been found and where these defects have been fixed

All these sum up Test Management and are the basic pillars of a Test Management process. And here you need a tool to do all these for you. HP Quality Center is one of those test management tools available in market that is widely used by numerous units in the software industry. An Introduction to HP Quality Center:

HP Quality Center helps you organize and manage all the phases of a software life cycle which includes: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Defining a Release Specifying Requirements Planning and designing tests Executing tests Logging and tracking defects

It also helps in tracking the testing progress and mapping test to a requirement. Because test plans evolve with new or modified application requirements, we need a central data repository for organizing and managing the testing process. HP Quality Center offers to help with these by the modules it provide:

1. Releases: This module enables the user to define Releases and cycle for managing the testing process. Releases are defined as soon as a Software Requirement Specification (SRS) is available. Under Release, we define Cycle in which a certain number of requirements are added. We can associate each cycle to a particular module or functionality of the software release.

2. Requirements: As from the module name, this is used to specify the testing requirements, which includes the area/functionality under test, defining the requirement topic and analyzing the requirement. It can be updated whenever a requirement is defined, added or modified. This is very useful, given the fact that in a real time situation requirements DO get added/deleted/modified based on changing market demand of the product which may be in its nascent stage or in production. Technology is fast changing and ever-changing this changes the demands of the market. Based on these the vendor may decide anytime to add some more feature and delete some old ones permanently or replacing them with some new ones to attract new customers and keep the existing ones. This makes this module even more important as its life continues till the product is in use. Any number of requirements can be added to a cycle in this section.

3. Test Plan: This modules enables us to develop a test plan based on the requirements, to create tests, automating them where needed and analyzing the plan. Each test can be assigned to a requirement or to multiple requirements in the Requirements module. Similarly multiple tests can be assigned to a particular requirement. This helps in deciding how many tests are needed to

test a particular requirement, and to verify if the given tests are enough to test the requirement in question.

4. Test Lab: True to its name, this is the place where you test the application/software. Each tests or test case as we prefer to say, are brought in from the test plan area and organized in a Test Set. A test set is nothing but collection of several test cases which will together test a particular area of the software/application and help make a decision how good/stable is the functionality under test. Multiple test sets can be organized under test folder which may be used to define the type of testing System Testing, Performance Testing, Regression Testing, etc. Test case results are recorded as Passed, Failed, Not Completed and Blocked. Any test case that has not been executed will be in No Run state. If even a single step in a test case fails during test run or execution, a failed state is recorded for the test case. In case all the test cases passes in a given test set, this will imply that the area under test is working as designed so kudos to the Developers!! Since a test case is defined in the Test Plan and this is in turn linked to a Requirement, the Passed/Failed/Not Completed state will also be recorded in the Requirements module. This will indicate the testing result of the requirement.

5. Defects: This module is used for logging and tracking defects that are found during test execution. If a test case fails at a particular step, a tester can log a defect for that failed step; specify the defect priority and severity, release, cycle, etc. When a defect is opened, it is in New state and a defect ID is assigned to it. This ID can be used to track the defect. If the defect is not considered as valid by responsible person, it is moved to Rejected state else to Open. It is then assigned to a developer for repair and once fixed it moves to Fixed state. After testing if it is found that the defect is indeed repaired, the status moves to closed state. NOTE: If a separate license for Business Components is purchased, then a separate module for Business Components is also available. This components is used in Business Process Testing or BPT which now really picking up in the current market. Now lets login to HP Quality Center. Below is shown the login page of Quality Center. It can accessed by entering the following URL in Internet Explorer http://<Quality Center server name>[:<port number>]/qcbin/start_a.html