Opkey has announced its Quality Lifecycle Management (QLM) platform. This is the latest evolution of a leading provider of software testing solutions for enterprise applications such as Oracle, Salesforce SAP, and Workday. This latest release provides a holistic platform that will enable DevOps and QA teams to better manage the software lifecycle of software releases. It includes a rich suite of tools to assist teams in managing their testing processes.
The platform combines project management, issue tracking and testing. The new release is part of the Opkey One platform. The Opkey platform will combine everything from test management to test execution under a single offering. Opkey believes this will enable DevOps, QA and application/functional teams to access everything they need in a single unified platform.
Pankaj Goel, CEO of Opkey, believes, “Opkey’s new QLM platform is a game-changer for organizations seeking to optimize cumbersome software test management. By automating repetitive tasks, eliminating manual errors, and enhancing collaboration, we empower teams to deliver high-quality products efficiently, boosting customer satisfaction and accelerating time-to-market.”
The QLM platform will enable DevOps teams to manage the software lifecycle and take advantage of the automated testing features that Opkey provides. Opkey does not presume to assume that Opkey will exist tools already used by development teams.
Still, with integrations to platforms such as Jira, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, and GitHub, it can leverage no-code integration connectors to seamlessly integrate with third-party tools.
Quality Lifecycle Management Platform
At the heart of the new platform is a dashboard that enables project managers to oversee every component of a software release. They can view and manage aspects such as:
- Releases
- Tests
- Test Suites
- Tickets
- Test Runs
PMs can add milestones, track the status, and plan dates for each planned release. PMs can switch to a Kanban view, quickly dragging and dropping tasks between statuses. As tests are run for a release, the system will help raise tickets. These will be allocated against the relevant milestone. This allows project managers to identify which bugs are hampering the release quickly. Project Managers can also create and edit the User story for each release, delivering an understanding to all stakeholders of what the project aims to deliver.
Project Managers or QA team can then create manual and automated test cases and execute them individually or in bulk. The test case management tool enables users to build reusable and customisable test templates based on the organisation’s and application’s specific requirements. It enables project managers to plan and automate what can be a time-consuming process. It will also help replace the myriad of spreadsheets historically used.
As testing proceeds, the platform also enables the creation of tickets to track issues. Opkey integrates with external tools such as Jira, TFS, qTest and VSTS. It is unclear what the scope of the integration for the QLM platform is, though.
Overall the QLM platform enables organisations to better manage release cycles with project milestones embedded in the platform to control the project cadence. For larger organisations, teams can share test templates and understand where their tasks fit within a larger project. QA teams and project managers have greater visibility of the application lifecycle.
This visibility is further enhanced with dashboard and reporting functionality. These features enable project managers and other stakeholders to view data using filters such as defects, test status, and coverage, providing valuable insights into the testing progress of projects across the organisation in real-time. Users can use standard reports, or create customised ones that enable the sharing of information outside the immediate user base as required.
Availability
The alpha version of QLM is available to existing users now. Opkey plans to make more documentation about the platform available on the website. Currently, most information is in a secure customer support area.
Enterprise Times also asked Opkey about pricing. The response was, “There will be two pricing options. One is freemium, where you can manage a certain number of tests, but to take advantage of full functionality, you will then have to pay, which will be priced into our existing enterprise structure, which factors in the number of licenses, test execution agents, etc.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Opkey is best known for its intelligent automated testing for applications such as Oracle, Workday, Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Kronos, and Coupa. The Opkey platform, of which QLM is one part, takes the expertise it has gained in building these solutions to a wider set of applications, including those developed in-house. It will enable organisations to better manage and track the progress of their software projects. It should give them deeper insights into the performance of their development teams, especially around quality.
