Defect Management in Quality Center/ALM

In this presentation,I will explore the Defect Management

Module in Quality Center/ALM (QC/ALM), a crucial tool
for ensuring software quality. We'll cover its functionalities,
benefits, and best practices for effective defect tracking and
resolution.
What is a Defect?

•A software flaw that deviates from its expected behavior or

functionality.
•It can manifest as crashes, incorrect outputs, or missing features.
•Identifying and addressing defects are essential for delivering high-
quality software.
•The defect occurs when any mistake is made by a developer during the
designing or building of an application and when this flaw is found by a
tester.
WHAT IS THE DEFECT/ BUG LIFE CYCLE:

• It’s a cycle of defects that it goes through covering the

different states in its entire life.
• This starts as soon as any new defect is found by a tester
and comes to an end when a tester closes that defect
assuring that it won’t get reproduced again.
DEFECT LIFE
CYCLE / BUG LIFE
CYELE
DEFECT STATES
1. New: This is the first state of a defect in the Defect Life
Cycle. When any new defect is found, it falls in a ‘New’
state, and validations & testing are performed on this defect
in the later stages of the Defect Life Cycle.

2. Assigned: In this stage, a newly created defect is assigned to

the development team to work on the defect. This is assigned
by the project lead or the manager of the testing team to a
developer.
3. Open: Here, the developer starts the process of
analyzing the defect and works on fixing it, if required.

If the developer feels that the defect is not appropriate

then it may get transferred to any of the below four
states namely Duplicate, Deferred, Rejected, or Not a
Based upon a specific reason. We will discuss these
four states in a while.
4) Fixed: When the developer finishes the task of fixing a
defect by making the required changes then he can mark the
status of the defect as “Fixed”.

5) Pending Retest: After fixing the defect, the developer

assigns the defect to the tester to retest the defect at their
end, and until the tester works on retesting the defect, the
state of the defect remains in “Pending Retest”.
6) Retest: At this point, the tester starts the task of
retesting the defect to verify if the defect is fixed
accurately by the developer as per the requirements or
not.

7) Reopen: If any issue persists in the defect, then it will

be assigned to the developer again for testing and the
status of the defect gets changed to ‘Reopen’.
8) Verified: If the tester does not find any issue in the defect
after being assigned to the developer for retesting and he feels
that if the defect has been fixed accurately then the status of the
defect gets assigned to ‘Verified’.

9) Closed: When the defect does not exist any longer, then the
tester changes the status of the defect to “Closed”.
POSSIBLE
RESOLUTIONS
•Rejected: If the defect is not considered a genuine defect by the
developer then it is marked as “Rejected” by the developer.

•Duplicate: If the developer finds the defect as same as any other

defect or if the concept of the defect matches any other defect then the
status of the defect is changed to ‘Duplicate’ by the developer.

•Deferred: If the developer feels that the defect is not of very

important priority and it can get fixed in the next releases or so in such
a case, he can change the status of the defect as ‘Deferred’.

•Not a Bug: If the defect does not have an impact on the functionality
of the application, then the status of the defect gets changed to “Not a
Bug”.
ADDING A NEW DEFECT

Navigate to the defects Tab in the Quality Center and Click on

the “New Defect” button.
1. Enter Detected By Field
2. Enter the Detected on Date – By Default, the current date would be
picked up
3. Set the severity level of the defect.
4. Tester can also enter other information and a brief description of the
defect
The tester can also attach screenshots/other relevant files associated with
the defect using the ‘attachments’ tab.
1.Click ‘Attachments’ Tab
2.Click ‘Attachments’ Button
3.Select a File from the File explorer dialog.
4.Click ‘Open’
 Upon clicking ‘Open’ we will be able to see that the file is attached under the
attachment section.
1.The Selected file has been uploaded
2.Click ‘Submit’ to post a defect after which it generates a defect ID.
The defect is posted, the same can be accessed in the Defects Tab as shown
above. You can also notice that the defect ID is generated upon posting the defect.
Users can link a defect with other defects or link a defect with requirements. By Linking
defects and requirements we can generate a coverage analysis graph and traceability matrix.
After creating the defect, testers can map the linked requirements against it. To do the same,
1.Click on ‘Defect ID’
2.The defect details dialog opens as shown below.
1.Navigate to ‘Linked Entities’
2.Click ‘Others’ for linking requirements against this defect.
3.Click the ‘Link’ button and choose ‘by ID'(we can also select based on a requirement name)
4.Enter the Requirement ID against which this defect has to be mapped.
5.Click ‘Link’ Button
After clicking the link button the defect details window displayed back to the
user with the added link as shown below.
Once the requirement is linked against a defect, the requirement displays with the link symbol
against it as shown above.
Once the requirement is linked against a defect, the requirement Traceability Matrix can be
generated. To generate the Traceability Matrix navigate to the view menu of ‘Requirements’
and select ‘Traceability matrix’. The generated Traceability Matrix will be generated as
shown below.
How to Upload Defect using Excel

•Every time users won’t be in a position to create each one of

those defects manually.
•This module helps users to upload the defects from Excel into
ALM. This helps when users want to migrate from one defect
management system to ALM.
•The process remains the same as that of uploading Tests and
requirements.
•One has to ensure that the Excel file is prepared in a format
such that ALM allows the importing of the data.
• Create the Excel file with the required columns that the user wishes to upload as
shown below.

• The Field ‘attachments’ takes the local path where the screenshot/any other attachment
is kept. Users have to just mention the path of the attachment so that it can be picked
up for uploading into ALM along with the other details of the defect
1.Navigate to ‘Add-ins’ Tab
2.Select ‘Export to HP ALM’
The ALM Export Wizard opens. Enter the HP ALM Server URL
and Click ‘Next’.
Enter the user name and password for authentication and
Click ‘Next’.
Select the Domain, and Project Name into which we would like to upload the tests
and Click ‘Next’.
Select the type of data that we would like to upload. In this case, it is
Defects.
Enter the New Map name. The first option, ‘Select a map’ is disabled because we
haven’t created a map so far for uploading defects. Hence we should create a new
map name and click ‘Next’. We haven’t selected ‘Create a Temporary map’ as we
would like to reuse it every time for uploading defects.
1.The left pane grid items that are listed correspond to the fields that are available for
upload in HP ALM. Please note that the fields marked in ‘RED’ should be mapped as they
are mandatory fields.
2.The right pane grid items refer to the fields that are mapped so that values in Excel will
flow into those corresponding fields of ALM.
Now let us understand how to map the fields in Excel against the fields in
ALM.
1.Select the Field that the user would like to map and click on the arrow
button as shown below.
Map all the required columns in Excel against the appropriate fields in HP ALM. After
mapping all the required fields, click ‘Export’.
Upon successful upload, ALM displays the message as shown below.
 How to search a Defect
• The Defect module contains all the defects that are logged right from the
very first defect it has been logged.
• Hence users would be in a position to search for defects based on certain
criteria.

• Navigate to
the ‘Edit’
• Menu choose
‘Find’.
• Enter the Field name based on which the search has to be performed ( In this
case we use Defect ID to search)
• Enter the Value
• Click ‘Find Next’
ALM displays the item in the background as shown below.
Email Notification of Defects
•Assigned users will automatically receive an email if there is a change in status/assigned to fields,
provided the email configurations are set appropriately by ALM admin

•The Email would be triggered based on the setting under the ‘Alerts’ tab of the project customization
module (refer to Project Customization for details).

Let us say the assigned user ‘Glenn’ has to receive an email when the defect status is moved to
‘Fixed’ status. The email will be sent as shown below. The screenshot is taken after receiving an email
(from MS Outlook).
1.The mail is sent to ‘Glenn’
2.The mail has the details about the defect
3.The mail is triggered because the status has moved from
‘Reopen’ to ‘Fixed’ as shown in before slide.
Conclusion
• HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a tool that provides end-to-end
support for the Defect Management Life Cycle, allowing teams to manage
defects efficiently and effectively.

• The Defect Management Life Cycle in HP ALM typically includes six

stages: Defect Identification, Defect Reporting, Defect Triage, Defect
Resolution, Defect Verification, and Defect Closure.

• By following the Defect Management Life Cycle in HP ALM, teams can ensure
that defects are tracked and resolved efficiently, leading to better quality software
applications, improved customer satisfaction, and reduced maintenance costs.
REFERENCES
• https://www.scaler.com/topics/software-testing/defect-management-life-cycle-in-hp-al
m/#:~:text=Overview,enables%20them%20to%20track%20them
.

• https://
www.guru99.com/hp-alm-defect-management.html?utm_source=relatedarticles&utm_
medium=referral&utm_campaign=click

• https://
genmab.tmls.saas.nnit.com/qcbin/Help/doc_library/online_help/Content/UG/ui_defects_
fields.html

• QC-Complete.ppt - Google Slides

• QualityCenterNew.ppt - Google Slides

THANK YOU