HP ALM Interview Questions

HP ALM Interview Questions

HP ALM Interview Questions

If you are looking for HP ALM Interview Questions you have come to the right place.

We can all agree interviews are stressful and competition is intense.

However, with a small bit of preparation, you can ace the HP ALM/QC Interview.

Here we will discuss how to answer HP ALM Interview Questions and Answers.

HP ALM Interview Questions and Answers

Before we begin I divided the interview into 2 sections.  The first part is interview questions for testers.  The second portion is HP ALM Interview Questions for experienced testers or more advanced users.

HP ALM Interview Questions For Testers

What does ALM stand for?

  • Application Lifecycle Management. There is also HP QC which stands for Quality Center.

What does ALM do?

  • ALM Manages projects. You can store requirements, tests, and defects in it. You can also build reports to help understand the overall status of the project.

Describe all 5 modules in HP ALM?

  • The five modules are Dashboard, Management, Requirements, Testing, and Defects.
    • The dashboard is for reporting
    • Management is where you create releases, cycles, and libraries.
    • Requirements are where you create and store requirements.
    • Testing is where you create an execute your tests.
    • Defects are where you store your defects.

How would you import test cases in excel?

  • State you would find the appropriate plugin to export test cases. This is found on the Micro Focus website. This plugin is inserted into Microsoft Excel.  Once the plugin is installed you need to map the excel columns to the appropriate test plan field.
  • Note this process can be repeated for requirements and defects.

What is the difference between test plan and test lab?

  • The test plan is where you write and store your test cases. The test lab is where you execute them.

What are Test Runs?

  • A test run is an audit log of all tests ever run.

What is the purpose of parameters? 

  • Suppose your test required a username and a password.  You could store this as a parameter in your test.

Give an example of how you would use test configurations?

  • Suppose you want to test adding money to your account and you want to test all 3 major credit cards. Instead of creating 3 separate tests you could create 1 test with 3 configurations.
  • When you add your single test to the test lab it will create three separate tests (one for each configuration).

What is the difference between a release and a cycle?

  • A release represents a group of changes in one or more applications that will be available for distribution at the same time. Each release can contain a number of cycles.
  • A cycle is a set of development and quality assurance efforts performed to achieve a common goal based on the release timeline. Both releases and cycles have defined start and end dates.

HP ALM interview questions and answers for experienced Testers

What are Libraries?

Libraries are a way to track change. You can use libraries to track change with requirements, resources, or test cases.

For example, suppose I want to see how the requirements for a particular project has changed. First, I would create a library and define the scope which in this example would be all requirements in the current project. I would then assign a baseline to that scope (think of the baseline as a picture of all the requirements at a point in time).  Assume a month has passed and you defined the second baseline and assign it to all the requirements in the project.  With the library feature, you can then compare baselines and see how the requirements have changed, added, or updated over time.

What does pin a baseline to a test set mean?

  • Suppose you wanted to test version 1.5 that would be released 1 month from today.  A colleague wanted to write test cases for version 1.6 that would be released 2 months from today.  The problem is your colleague may overwrite your test cases by updating them.
  • To overcome this obstacle you can pin a test set to a baseline.

How do you create traceability between test cases and requirements?

  • When you create a requirement the direct cover status will be set to “not covered”. This states there is not a test case associated with this requirement.
  • To create coverage you need to link your test case to the requirement. This can be done in the requirements module or in the test plan module.

What is the purpose of the Test Resources module?

  • The test resources module stores the object repository (UFT or QTP code) and Sprinter Data.

What is Requirement to Requirement Traceability? Why would you use it?

  • Most people think of traceability between a requirement and a test case. However, you can create traceability from a requirement to a requirement. The reason we do this is to perform an impact assessment.
  • For example, suppose a change in Requirement A will impact Requirement B. If requirements to requirements traceability are set up correctly you can see we need to update Requirement B if we change Requirement A.

What is the traceability matrix?

  • In ALM you can create traceability between requirements and test cases. In ALM you can export this matrix into an excel sheet to show testing coverage.
  • You can also create requirements to requirements traceability to help perform impact assessment.

The Requirements module comes with a column called “Direct Cover Status” Explain this column?

  • Not Covered
  • No Run
  • Passed
  • Failed
  • N/A
  • Not Completed
  • Blocked

What is Sprinter?

  • Sprinter is a tool to help accelerate the manual testing process. It is a plugin is included with HP ALM.
  • Some of the features include a smart defect, macros, annotation tools, and mirroring.

What is the major difference between QC and ALM?

There are actually five editions of QC and ALM. It is difficult to pinpoint what exactly the major difference is between QC and ALM. You can see the differences here.

What are Business Components?

  • A single test is comprised of one or many test steps.  You can break these steps down into business components.  You can then group these components into a single test.   This becomes very useful when steps are repetitive such as “Login” or “Logout”.
  • Another advantage of Business Components is each component can be automated and grouped together by a non-technical user and create an automated test.

What are synchronizers? 

  • Synchronizers automatically copy data from one ALM source to another.  For example, suppose you house your defects in HP ALM but the vendor users Jira.  You can download and install a synchronizer to copy defects from HP ALM and insert them into Jira (this works both ways).

See Also