Application lifecycle management is the specification, design, development and testing of a software application. It covers the entire life cycle from the idea conception through the development, testing, support and ultimately retirement of system. Alm tools covers several different disciplines that were considered separate which includes project management, development, requirement management, testing and quality assurance as well as customer support and IT service delivery.
The standard test environment
Alm tools provide a standard test environment for communication and collaboration between software development teams and related departments like operations. They also established the process of software development and delivery.
Why are Alm tools important?
It is important for the organization to realize how much more efficient they can be if they have integrated teams that collaboratively define the requirements, plan the releases comet test the product during development and deploy the latest update in a simplest way. Previously the old separate processes did not make much sense. Alm is basically diffusing of the disciplines concerned with all aspects of the software delivery process. It is essential to have a single Alm process planning all the elements continuously to deliver new features.
Provide powerful functionality
Since Alm tools provide rich and powerful functionality that it is important to make sure that they provide good tools and features for consuming the information. A common feature in many good arum tools is the ability to display dashboards are graphs and charts that cover the key project metrics. Alm tools office support for automated testing.
What does a good Alm tool do?
A good Alm tool should let one create and manage the test cases and folders, with sorting and filtering capabilities. It should enable uses to display different columns in there on personalized view and allowed the manager to define custom properties and lists that can be used in the project. Good Alm tool helps to estimate and plan the project. The ad designs to manage traditionally projects along with development projects. Some tools also support the capture and management of system as a part of the requirements Management process.
Customer support capability or tools
The tool should suit either the customer support capability or should integrate with other help desk for customer support tools. Customer support is a feedback mechanism that guides the new user stories. It is essential for continuous delivery and support which is an integral part of the process. So while choosing an Alm tool, the requirements of the organization must be kept in mind.
