OpenText Functional Testing Lab for Mobile and Web Reviews

OpenText Functional Testing Lab for Mobile and Web can be used for a range of applications, not just web and mobile. It works very well for SAP, which is an enterprise platform. It can be used for Salesforce and other enterprise platforms where we have implemented these solutions.

Similar to how Tricentis has various tools within their portfolio, OpenText also has LoadRunner and ALM comparable to Qtest. They have their own suite of tools similar to Tricentis. In fact, Tricentis has the same set of tools that OpenText also has because OpenText has been in the market longer.

For mobile and desktop applications, we integrate with third parties such as BrowserStack or Sauce Labs. This is typically requested from the customer standpoint, and OpenText Functional Testing Lab for Mobile and Web allows direct integration with these third-party solutions.

Regarding CI/CD pipeline, there have not been any challenges. It is capable of delivering continuous testing and releases. As part of release cycles, when there is a push in a continuous integration model, we can trigger smoke testing and sanity testing. Once the test results indicate the release is fit for purpose, we implement impact-based testing from an automation standpoint and run regression tests. We have also enabled businesses in automation of UAT test cases. They perform witness tests of the automation scripting, occasionally requesting more data variety. From an automation standpoint, we enable it and it runs on a CI/CD pipeline.

OpenText Functional Testing Lab for Mobile and Web offers flexibility of deployment, from on-premises to UFT One which is on the cloud. They provide capability for immediate deployment, and assets can be migrated easily. They include enablers specifically for quick migration of test assets. While I have not personally been involved in these migrations, I have observed some clients using it directly while others make a complete shift from OpenText to Tricentis platforms. There have not been many clients moving from OpenText platforms from on-premises to cloud because most shifts have been toward different product categories such as Tricentis altogether.

OpenText Functional Testing Lab for Mobile and Web could benefit from implementing a low-code, no-code solution that aids in quick automation code preparation. Additionally, from a strategic standpoint, establishing a partnership with SAP could be beneficial. This is where most challenges exist, as Tricentis gains entry due to their strategic partnership with SAP.

The solution has been in use for close to 7 to 10 years.

The solution is definitely stable, rating 8 out of 10 for stability. There have not been significant challenges.

ROI is definitely present with OpenText Functional Testing Lab for Mobile and Web. These are very capable tools, and there is no reason ROI should be a challenge. Many organizations started moving to this solution because automation was new at that time, and people wanted quicker returns. Being an enterprise product and market leader at that time, it provided better returns.

The product usage has shifted significantly in the last two to three years, particularly due to SAP's partnership with Tricentis. The solution rates 7 out of 10 overall. Many users have started moving to scriptless tools such as Tosca or low-code tools such as Katalon. This fundamental shift is occurring because productivity is improved, maintenance is easier, and more people in the market are educated on these tools.

Regarding analytics, the earlier usage involved extracting reports and creating spreadsheet dashboards. Now, there are integrations available to pull data to Confluence pages or display dashboards within the tool itself.

From a product standpoint, any bugs or challenges faced have been resolved through upgrades and patches. The pricing is comparatively lower than Tricentis products. The solution receives an 8 out of 10 for stability and a 7 out of 10 for overall rating.

I deal with OpenText Analysis Database and Core Performance Engineering, which are categories of software rather than individual pieces. We focus on the ADM area, which includes ALM, UFT One, UFT Developer, and the performance testing space in LoadRunner. These are the primary areas that we utilize.

OpenText Functional Testing Lab for Mobile and Web, specifically Digital Lab Lite, is what we use for testing on mobile devices. When one of our customers is developing an application or configuring an application, we use it to create controls just as we do with a desktop, API, or mobile device. It functions as a connector that allows you to control that device and essentially turn it into a desktop so that automation can be captured from it and run against it.

The ease of use and zero cost are what I appreciate most about this product. The key for us is their Digital Lab service. With Digital Lab service, you have no control over those devices; you are simply getting an iOS device and using it as it is. Many of our customers are using InTune and other deployment services that have security settings on them. OpenText Functional Testing Lab for Mobile and Web allows us to test with our customers' setup of their device and ensure that the scripts will run against it versus a cloud service that does not have any of their security sizing and cannot truly mimic a real-life scenario.

The overall framework of UFT in general helps reduce manual testing efforts for us. The ease of use and being able to enroll more people into developing test scripts using their AI function, which they call AI but is OCR recognition, is significant. By being able to develop scripts that way, you prevent having to know VB script. I have testers who create manual scripts and are already running the test manually; now they can perform that same effort in UFT One, and it creates the scripts so they do not have to recreate them every time.

We do use the product's API integrations at some customers, though I am not as familiar with it as some of my colleagues are. My understanding is that for free, you can set up virtual APIs that do not exist yet, allowing you to mimic that behavior even before your APIs have been built. That is a huge selling feature and a significant zero-cost feature in being able to run your API tests even before the API is finished.

Digital Lab is a pretty solid product with areas that could be continuously improved on.

I have been dealing with these products for about four years now.

I would rate their customer service a seven on a scale of one to ten. I think reducing the levels of support would help. They tend to have an entry-level person who may not be as familiar with the product that fields the calls, which creates another day of delay in possibly getting to the level that is needed. But that is how many companies operate when you call and get the entry-level person who then works their way up to help screen calls so that they become more focused.

Positive

I do have experience with OpenText products and OpenText ALM. I have been using ALM Quality Center, which has had a few names for it over time, but it is the old Quality Center that was then renamed to ALM. I think it is still referred to in different versions, such as ALM Enterprise and ALM Professional.

The virtualization feature is a good one. With UFT itself, the advanced reporting features are exceptional in the fact that it gives you line-by-line indicators of what your results of your tests are. However, there is not anything specific to Digital Lab that provides reporting features.

I would rate this review a nine out of ten overall.

We use it in financial services companies to automate mobile solutions and applications.

It allows multiple devices to be used and gives flexibility in adding devices when a project is needed. Most of the time, I have several devices where it is predefined. We can use it, but sometimes, we must scale it in a particular situation. It's very flexible.

It is very important because we can use a different approach to software testing, for example, to find a way to execute UFT software testing with only one execution. This reproduces all the platforms that we need.

Sometimes, it's challenging to have relations with OpenText support.

I have been using OpenText UFT Digital Lab for over ten years.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

30 people and 200-300 devices are using this solution. OpenText has a local operation.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

The initial setup is mediumly complex and takes one to two months to complete. Two to three people, including software tester and other UFT administrators, are enough for it.

I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

I recommend OpenText UFT Digital Lab because it allows you to increase your test coverage across multiple devices and platforms using the same framework. It's a great solution for boosting productivity and fostering innovation.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

There are various use cases, each tailored to the specific needs of our customers. When we consider Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), the use case significantly differs from Unified Functional Testing (UFT). Our primary objective is to assist customers in optimizing their software development life cycles. This involves facilitating decisions based on platform usage and the data entities they input into the system. We help them link these components, conduct automated functional and performance testing, and ultimately provide a definitive decision-making process. The goal is to ensure that when a customer is ready to launch a product or software, they can make a well-informed decision, either to proceed confidently or address any issues that may arise based on the data and testing results available within their systems.

There are numerous valuable features such as automation, the ones that facilitate importing and synchronization capabilities between our platform, Jira, and Azure DevOps. Also, traceability between various entities is of paramount importance. When introducing a new requirement or user story, it's crucial to establish links to associated defects, track test runs, and monitor test statuses. This traceability allows us to comprehensively map and document every aspect of the application delivery life cycle.

I believe there's always room for improvement in various aspects. For the most part, the key challenge is ensuring that customers fully utilize the product as intended and adopt the appropriate frameworks to implement the solutions effectively.

On a personal level, I have twenty-five years of experience with this solution, with the most recent six years being spent at my current company.

It provides excellent stability capabilities. I would rate it nine out of ten.

The scalability of the solution is quite remarkable. Our typical clients fall within the enterprise and medium-sized business categories. I would rate it nine out of ten.

While it's common to encounter a few bugs, even in the generally available versions or editions, they are typically quite minimal. The positive aspect is that if you do come across a bug, the support team is available to assist in resolving the issue.

Neutral

The initial setup is relatively straightforward. I would rate it seven out of ten.

When it comes to deployment it is challenging to provide a specific timeline because it varies depending on the customer and the product in question. Implementation can range from weeks to days to months, and it is unique for each customer and is influenced by the level of attention and focus dedicated to the particular product and practice that is pursued.

Determining the value of the solution based solely on its price can be challenging. While the pricing may seem relatively high, when compared to competitors, it often falls in line or can even be more cost-effective. Aside from licensing fees, there are a few additional considerations. If you opt for a perpetual license, there will be ongoing maintenance fees, typically a small percentage, paid annually. If you choose not to handle the implementation yourself and instead rely on an OEM or partner's professional services, there will be associated implementation costs over time, as well. On a scale of ten, I would rate the pricing at about seven.

I highly recommend OpenText's end-to-end solution for application lifecycle management. I can say it ranks among the top three options in this regard. My recommendation is not solely based on its affordability, but rather its effectiveness. When the right processes, people, methods, and frameworks are employed, OpenText's solution can yield substantial benefits and a rapid return on investment. It is crucial to implement and utilize the product correctly without altering it into something it wasn't designed to be. I would rate it nine out of ten.

I use the solution in my company to test desktop applications.

The decision-making capabilities of the product help the product grow.

The desktop applications have performance issues since they don't work properly or don't detect objects properly, making it in an area where improvements are required. The product's object detection method needs to be improved since it can help testers do perfect testing.

I have been using OpenText UFT Digital Lab for three to four years. I use the solution's latest version.

I have experience with SmartBear TestComplete and Tricentis Tosca. My organization chose OpenText UFT Digital Lab over SmartBear TestComplete and Tricentis Tosca.

I haven't tried browser testing with the tool, but I have tried using it on two to four different desktop applications.

The improvements in testing capabilities from the use of the solution are reflected in the area of object detection methods.

For automation testing, the tool provides the record and playback option, which helps with object detection easily. The tool provides data-driven testing, which helps continuously use test cases.

I don't think the real device testing in OpenText UFT Digital Lab impacted testing accuracy.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

The product is easy to use.

OpenText UFT Digital Lab’s price could be better. They should introduce a pay-per-use subscription model.

We have been using OpenText UFT Digital Lab for a few weeks.

It is a stable platform. I rate its stability a nine out of ten.

We have five OpenText UFT Digital Lab users. I rate its scalability a nine out of ten.

The technical support team is helpful.

Positive

We have deployed the product on the cloud.

The product could be more affordable. I rate its pricing a three or four out of ten.

I recommend OpenText UFT Digital Lab to others and rate it an eight out of ten.

The solution is easy to use. There are features to orchestrate mobile testing, including mobile testing automation. You can test different devices at the same time. 

We need to scale devices easily. Some customers would like to loop in AWS or other cloud providers to check if their devices have the cloud factor. OpenText UFT Digital Lab needs to improve it. 

I have been working with the product for more than two years. 

I rate the product's stability a six out of ten since we have internet issues. 

I rate OpenText UFT Digital Lab's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has 25-30 users for it. 

The solution's customer support is excellent. 

Positive

OpenText UFT Digital Lab's setup is just plug-and-play. I rate it a seven out of ten. The tool's installation takes a month to complete. You need three to five resources to handle the deployment. 

OpenText UFT Digital Lab's pricing is average, and I rate it a five out of ten. 

I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

We are a system integrator and this is one of the solutions that we provide for our customers.

The deployment model varies depending on the customer because some use this solution on-premises, and others use the cloud version.

The most valuable feature of this solution is virtualization.

The integration with Oracle projects is very simple and easy to use.

I would like to see more integration with automation tools.

The integration and configuration should be made easier with tools on the same platform.

We have five people who are using this solution.

We are at an early stage in terms of using this solution. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The fact that it allows users to test on real mobile devices instead of emulators is something that projects have told us is beyond compare. Your app or your website won't behave on an emulator like it will on a real mobile device, no matter how great the emulator is - even if it's the one that comes from the OS developer that ships with the development studio. There's just no substitute for a real mobile device with its hardware constraints and the way it will behave in the hands of a user.

We like to host the tools centrally. We would need them to be multi-tenants, so different projects could log on and have their own set of devices and their own set of apps, and they wouldn't see data from other projects that are using it. Right now, the way that we're managing it is we're requiring no clients are able to access it, so if we do happen to see something that belongs to another project, it's not a big deal. But true segregation of devices and apps, packaged apps, that have been uploaded to the tool, is something that is important to us. It's not there right now.

It has been stable. The only caveat I would say is sometimes with the managed devices, and this is true even when we host our own devices, they will be quirky. You might have to restart a device for it to reconnect and be recognized by the Mobile Center environment. But for the most part it's a pretty stable, mature tool. And we have noticed even since we've started evaluating it, they've gone from version 2.2, 2.5, 2.51. We feel all of those have significant improvements over the previous version.

I think one of the unique things about Mobile Center is it has the ability to use what they call a connector component and, theoretically, unlimited connectors can connect to the Mobile Center server. You can add as many devices as you want, not only directly connected to the server with some USB hubs, but also through an army of connectors hosted wherever you want, with additional devices connected to it.

For us, it's been good, but we have an enterprise license agreement. We buy a ton of products, so they're always very nice and responsive to us. We've even been able to work directly with R & D and affect some of the design and the road map going forward. Maybe that's the case for everyone, but for us, it's been very good. We have few complaints there.

The vanilla out-of-the-box setup is a simple install that you just install on a server or even a laptop if you want. Where you get some more complexity, is where you try to integrate it with other tools. Both hosted tools, like ALM, or local install tools like UFT or LeanFT, they all seem to integrate with Mobile Center slightly differently. You provide the URL and the credentials, but some of them require certificates to be installed on the machine, some of them require ports to be opened. We've managed to integrate it with everything it's supposed to integrate with, but it did take some fine tuning to make it all work.

We evaluated other mobile testing solutions and found this to be superior to all of them. I think a lot of the reason is because we use a bunch of other HPE tools, so it natively integrates with them, making it easy. But it has a lot of functionality, and they are quick with releasing patches to support new OSs as they come out and new devices. It's not like it becomes obsolete or stale at all.

I don't know because I haven't been able to implement at the two customers where I have tried to.

I try to find the backs and try to pull the future and quality of the development. For me, it's a great idea, but the tool is not finished now.

When you try to automate different scripts for iOS, Mobile Center doesn't accept all the objects that you have into the application.

We are the first step of technical support for our customers. We escalate tickets to HPE, and we don't have problems.

It's complex, and you need more skills than in most implementations.

Try to put it first of all in your own lab and then try to put it in the customer's.