1. SpiraTeam® - Product Information
Synchronizing Your Application Lifecycle

2. After viewing this presentation you will:
Objectives
After viewing this presentation you will:
Understand the challenges involved in managing the development and testing lifecycle of a project
Understand the challenges involved in planning and managing projects and why traditional waterfall methodologies have failed to deliver projects on-time and on-budget.
Have a strong grasp on the quality assurance and project management features provided by SpiraTeam
Have learned about the benefits of using SpiraTeam to plan, execute, test and manage your project

3. Agenda Quality Assurance & Project Management Challenges
SpiraTeam Overview
Feature Walkthrough
Requirements Management
Test Case Management
Release & Iteration Planning
Task Tracking
Incident / Defect Tracking
Source Code Integration
Integration / Migration Options
Use of automated testing tools
Integration with other systems
Synchronization with external bug-trackers

4. QA Testing Landscape
Traditionally, QA organizations use the following tools and systems to manage their testing:
Requirements stored in MS-Word documents or MS-Excel spreadsheets
Test scripts for user acceptance testing stored in MS-Word, MS-Excel with results recorded on paper and transcribed manually back into the spreadsheet
MS-Access, MS-Excel or standalone web-based bug-tracking system for tracking issues and defects
Automated testing is done with a variety of tools depending on the platform and language being tested (Java vs. .NET, web vs. client-server)

5. QA Testing Challenges This leads to the following challenges:
Processes are ad-hoc and not repeatable across projects
There is no visibility between test cases, requirements and defects. How do you know when you are truly ‘done’?
Measuring progress and productivity during testing is time consuming and difficult
It’s hard to share information across the project and get real-time metrics regarding the quality of the system being tested
There is no central repository of test results from all sources – both automated and manual
SpiraTeam is explicitly designed to address these issues and provide an integrated solution

6. Why Agile Methodologies?
Traditionally projects are delivered in a series of phases that are based on increasing levels of certainty around the system being built:
However this approach has some drawbacks:
It is not flexible to changes in customer requirements
Time is wasted building features that nobody needs
The end user cannot give feedback till it’s completed coded
You don’t know how stable the system is until the end
Traditional Waterfall Methodology
Requirements
Gathering
Business Design
Technical Design
Systems Development
Unit
Testing
Integration
Testing
Acceptance
Testing (UAT)
Release Complete

7. Traditional Waterfall Methodology
The Agile Approach
Instead of phases, projects are broken down into releases and iterations. At the end of each iteration you have a fully functioning system that could be released:
Traditional Waterfall Methodology
Requirements
Gathering
Business Design
Technical Design
Systems Development
Unit
Testing
Integration
Testing
Acceptance
Testing (UAT)
Release Complete
Agile Methodology
Limited Upfront Planning
Release #1
Release #2
Release #3
Release #4
It 1
It 2
It 3
It 4
It 5
It 6
It 7
It 8
It 9
It 10
It 11
It 12
Release Complete
Iteration N
Iteration Planning
Development, Continuous Integration, Unit Testing, Functional & Acceptance Testing

8. The Agile Approach (3)
The requirements for the project do not have to be codified upfront, instead they are prioritized and scheduled for each iteration:
The requirements are composed of ‘stories’ that can be scheduled into a particular release and iteration
Release Plan
Iteration
Tested,
Integrated
Working
System
Iteration
Scope
Iteration
Plan

9. The Agile Approach (3) There are several different agile methods:
Scrum
Extreme Programming (XP)
Agile Unified Process (AUP)
Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
They have specific features that make them better suited to different situations, but in general, they follow the same basic agile principles*:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
*Source: Agile Manifesto -

10. The Existing Project Management Toolkit
Traditionally, Software Development organizations use the following tools to manage their lifecycles:
Requirements stored in MS-Word documents, MS-Excel spreadsheets or expensive tools such a RequisitePro, Doors
High-level project plan (GANTT chart) developed in tools such as Microsoft Project, Primavera and printed out for reference
Project estimates prepared using a combination of the high-level project plan and specialized standalone MS-Excel spreadsheets
Detailed schedules maintained by individual team members using MS-Excel, Whiteboards or Groupware solutions
MS-Access, MS-Excel or standalone web-based bug-tracking system for tracking issues and defects

11. Project Management Toolkit Challenges
As the static project plan with its discrete phases has become replaced by the more flexible agile approach, the old set of tools no longer works:
The project requirements and scope are not locked-down so the schedule of releases and iterations needs to be connected to the requirements backlog in real-time
The project schedule is constantly evolving, with stories being reallocated to different iterations and team members re-estimating the number of stories they can complete (velocity)
Defects and stories need to be managed in the same environment, with the project estimates and schedules taking account of both at all times
SpiraTeam is explicitly designed to address these issues and provide an integrated solution

12. SpiraTeam® Overview

13. The Inflectra® Product Suite
KronoDesk®
IT Support & Help Desk Ticketing
SpiraPlan®
Agile Program & Portfolio Management
SpiraTeam®
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
SpiraTest®
Requirements, Test Management
& Bug Tracking
TaraVault® - Source Code Management
Rapise®
Test Automation (Web, GUI, Services)

14. SpiraTeam – The Integrated ALM Solution
SpiraTeam is the complete solution to manage your projects:
KronoDesk®
IT Support & Help Desk Ticketing
SpiraTeam®
SpiraTest®
Requirements, Test & Defect Management
Agile Project Management +
TaraVault® - Source Code Management
Rapise®
Test Automation Platform (Web, GUI, Services)
Requirements, test management, agile planning in one solution.

15. What Makes SpiraTeam Different?
There are many Agile Planning Tools available
There are many Testing & QA Tools for
Only SpiraTeam has the Agile Planning & Testing Lifecycle covered in one solution
Development
Testing

16. Feature Snapshot
Listed below are some of the many great features that makes SpiraTeam the leading choice of ALM solution for companies and organizations worldwide:
Develop high-level requirements with initial estimates
Create, edit and execute test-cases
Track bugs, enhancements, risks and issues
Map tests to requirements to track coverage
Prioritize and schedule requirements for each release
Determine resourcing levels to deliver required features
Link bugs to test steps during test execution
Drill down from requirements to tests and incidents
Load-balance project resources to maximize project velocity
Track issues and defects against project schedule
Personalized dashboards and customizable reporting
Integrated web-based document management.

17. Competitive Landscape
We believe that SpiraTeam offers an unbeatable combination of capability and affordability:
Source: Inflectra Corporation, 2017
Niche Players
Challengers
SpiraTeam
Atlassian JIRA
TargetProcess
Rommana
AcuNote
Microsoft TFS
Affordability
CollabNet
Version One
CA Rally
IBM RTC
HP ALM
Polarion
Uncompetitive
Incumbents
Breadth of Features / Capability

18. Representative Customers
The following are some of the organizations who are using SpiraTeam to manage their application development lifecycles:
Energy & Industrial
Financial & Business Services
Government
Information Technology
Healthcare & Bio-Technology
Telecommunications
Retail & Consumer Goods
Transportation & Hospitality

19. Testimonials
“We have been using SpiraTeam within our organization for quite a few years. SpiraTeam is very easy to use, and is a great way to help track, maintain and troubleshoot an entire project, from the planning stages, to implementation, to enhancement requests and software bug and defect resolution. I would recommend SpiraTeam to any organization looking for a straightforward, easy to use tool.” - Erin Egleston, Senior QA Analyst, ASI Business Solutions, Inc.
“…Inflectra’s SpiraTeam is disrupting this market. And deservedly so. If you’re in the market for an ADLM tool, I recommend you put SpiraTeam at the top of your shortlist…” - Jim Reardan, Business and IT Process Management Consultant
“For me I look for a tool that allows me to get my job done faster and still provide me the data I need. This tool does that and with the enhancements that are planed it will actually be very valuable for other portions of our company. The other thing I look for is a responsive customer & tech support team. Inflectra has hands down the best support teams I have ever worked with. Makes all the difference when you can tell them what you need to product to do and the actually address your needs...” - Daniel Hauser of RegEd

20. Solution Partner Network
We have an extensive worldwide partner network that is used to provide global consulting and training services:
North America
South America & Mexico
Asia
Europe
Australia
Middle East & Africa

21. How Are We Different?
We help you manage the entire project lifecycle—not just planning, development, or testing—all of it!
Our products are actually understandable, easy to use and affordable
We provide exceptional support with every purchase—our support is so good, customers call us to help fix products with their other tools (!)
This is validated by our ~ 80% customer retention rate.

22. Feature Walkthrough

23. Personalized ‘My Page’
Upon login to SpiraTeam, you are presented with a personalized ‘dashboard’ of all your key information.
This provides a consolidated view of all the artifacts that are of interest to you with information to let you know what action needs to be taken.
RSS Feeds of your information are available.

24. Project Home Page
Each project has a dashboard home-page that summarizes all of the information regarding the project into a comprehensive, easily digestible form.
It provides a “one-stop-shop” for people interested in understanding the overall status and health of the project at a glance.

25. Cross-Project Reporting
Projects in SpiraTeam can be organized into Project Groups that belong to a common organization, customer or division. This allows you to view a summary project group dashboard that lets you view the aggregate status of the group as whole as well as compare the relative health of the different projects in the group:

26. Requirements Management
SpiraTeam lets you easily manage your requirements and user stories in an integrated requirements matrix. SpiraTeam allows you to drill down from each of your captured requirements to determine how many test cases have validated the functionality, and status of each of the defects logged.

27. Requirements Test Coverage
Each requirement is mapped to one or more test cases that can be used to validate that the functionality works as expected.

28. Requirements Elaboration (Tasks)
SpiraTeam lets you decompose each requirement into lower-level work Task work items. These tasks can be assigned to different team members and individually estimated. SpiraTeam lets you compare the top-down story point estimate with the detailed task estimates.

29. Test Case Management
SpiraTeam lets you quickly and easily create and manage your test cases in folders, with powerful sorting and filtering capabilities. You can display different columns in your own customized view, including both standard fields and any custom properties defined for the project.

30. Manual Test Cases - Editing
Each test case consists of a set of test steps that represent the individual actions a user must take to complete the test.
You can include other template test cases as steps within your test case. This allows you to build a library of reusable test components.

31. Manual Test Cases - Execution
SpiraTeam provides the ability to execute groups of test cases - along with their test steps – so that the testers can follow the instructions and determine if the system being tested behaves as expected. Any deviations from expected behavior can then be recorded, and a new defect raised – linked to the test step failure.

32. Automated Testing – Test Scripts
You can attached test automation scripts to test cases in SpiraTeam.
SpiraTeam supports a wide variety of test automation engines (both commercial and open-source) including Rapise, UFT, Ranorex, Squish, NeoLoad, LoadRunner, TestComplete and Selenium.

33. Automated Testing – Test Hosts
The automated test scripts managed in SpiraTeam can be either executed on the local machine or scheduled for execution on a series of remote hosts.
Using either Rapise or RemoteLaunch, you can manage an entire global test lab from a central SpiraTeam server, with test sets being executed using a variety of different automation technologies 24/7.

34. Exploratory Testing
SpiraTeam lets you create exploratory tests and then during execution, you are free to edit, delete and add test steps at the same time as execution. Drag-and drop editing lets you reorder the test case actions “on the fly” while entering the actual result and other notes and observations that you found during testing

35. Test Set Organization
To make it easier to assign and track the execution of test cases, SpiraTeam allows you to optionally group the test cases into test sets that can be assigned as a ‘package’ to individual testers or automation hosts.
Each test set can be associated with a particular release for testing, and you can quickly see the execution status of each test set in one consolidated view.

36. Test Run Tracking
Every time you execute a test case, SpiraTeam records every pass / failure as well as the associated incidents generated as a ‘Test Run’. These archived Test Runs can be viewed to determine if changes to the system have introduced failures to previously working functionality.

37. Release Planning
You have the ability to create a master release schedule containing all the major milestone releases together with the individual iterations – smaller releases of the system delivered every 4-6 weeks.

38. Product Backlog Planning
The list of user stories, requirements, defects and features is called the Product Backlog. SpiraTeam lets you organize the backlog by component, package or priority. You can order and categorize them by simple drag and drop editing. This is called backlog grooming.

39. Sprint / Iteration Planning
The requirements, user stories, tasks, test cases and outstanding incidents (bugs, issues) can be scheduled against the different iterations / sprints in the release. The system will calculate the available effort as items are added.

40. Scrum Task Boards
SpiraTeam includes Scrum Task Boards that let you see the individual tasks assigned to each of the Sprints and Iterations as well as by-persons

41. Kanban Boards
SpiraTeam provides a Kanban view of the project, where you can see all of the requirements planned for each release organized according to their position in the lifecycle. This view lets you see the flow of the requirements and identify then rectify any bottlenecks.

42. Task Progress Tracking
SpiraTeam provides the ability to track the progress of the tasks in the system and determine if tasks are suffering from schedule overrun or mis-estimation. In addition you can compare actuals for continuous process improvement.

43. Build Management
SpiraTeam provides the ability to integrate with continuous integration build servers such as Jenkins and TeamCity so that the status of builds can be recorded in SpiraTeam and linked to source code revisions, incidents and test runs. This provides traceability for each build, so that you can see what was changed in each build, what was tested and what was fixed.

44. Resource Tracking
Once the requirements, tasks and incidents have been scheduled against the iteration plan, you can use the Resource Tracking screens to view the total assigned workload for the members of the project and determine the resource assignments and perform load balancing if necessary.

45. Bug / Issue Tracking
SpiraTeam offers a complete bug tracking solution. Bug tracking features include support for customizable workflows and fields, flexible reporting, configurable notifications, and fully editable statuses, priorities, severities and bug types.

46. Bug / Issue Kanban Boards
With SpiraTeam, you can also display the project’s bugs, issues and defects in a Kanban-style agile board, as an alternative to the classic incident list view.

47. Defect Traceability
With SpiraTeam, you can trace the bugs/defects back to the test case and the underlying requirement that generated them, giving the project manager unprecedented power in analyzing the “in-process” quality of a system during its lifecycle.

48. Document Management
SpiraTeam includes an integrated web-based document management system that allows project members to upload documents in a secure, centralized location, with support for folder organization, documentation taxonomies and meta-tagging as well as built-in version control.
Unlike a standalone tool, these documents can then be connected to SpiraTeam artifacts (requirements, tasks, incidents) to provide the complete picture to users.

49. Document Version Tracking
Once uploaded to the central knowledge repository, revisions to the documents can be uploaded so that there is complete audit trail of all changes made to artifacts and associated documentation in the project.

50. Instant Messaging & Collaboration
SpiraTeam includes an integrated instant-messenger that lets users collaborate and communicate in real-time regardless of geographic location. The discussions can be tagged against specific artifacts in the system, so that they become part of the artifact discussion thread.

51. Software Configuration Management (SCM)
For those customers using the cloud hosted version of SpiraTeam, we offer a free source code hosting solution – TaraVault based on the industry standard Git and Subversion platforms. For on-premise customers you can link you existing source code repositories using our gallery of plugins.

52. Source Code Integration
In addition to being able to view the source code repository, using SpiraTeam you can link artifacts to specific source code revisions. This allows you to associate requirements, tasks or defects/incidents with the corresponding code changes. This provides end-to-end traceability from requirements to working software code.

53. Attachments & Screenshot Capture
You can attachment documents to all artifacts in the system, with full versioning provided out of the box. In addition, there is a built-in screen capture utility for quickly adding screenshots during test execution, logging a defect or editing items.

54. Customizable Reporting Dashboard
SpiraTeam includes an extensive reports library that can display information such as test coverage, requirements burndown, and defect aging. It also provides a fully customizable report writer that gives you flexibility to report the way you need it.

55. Custom Graphing Engine
We know that you can never have enough graphs and charts. SpiraTeam includes a custom graphing engine that lets you write your own graphs using the full power of SQL. You can then publish these graphs for your team to use.
The graphing engine lets you visualize your data in donut, pie, and line chart formats, as well as display the underlying data, and export to Microsoft Excel for further analysis.

56. Change History Tracking
All of the changes made to a particular artifact in the system are tracked by SpiraTeam, so that at any time you can view the complete audit trail of all the changes made to an artifact, including the date of the change, who made the change, and what information was changed.
SpiraTeam features full version-control capabilities that allow you to rollback specific changes and revert the artifact back to a prior revision.

57. Timecard Submission
SpiraTeam includes a built-in timecard entry system that lets developers quickly and easily enter the time spent each day on their assigned tasks and defects as well as report the time remaining for completion.

58. Custom Properties
In addition to the built-in fields that are associated with each type of artifact, you can also define custom properties for each type of artifact in the system.
The system supports a variety of different field types including: text, rich-text, dropdown lists, user selectors, and date-fields

59. Customizable Incident Fields
You can customize each of the fields used in the bug tracking module to suit your own business needs - including types, status, priority and severity. You can even associate your own color schemes with the different values.

60. Customizable Workflows & Notifications
Different types of defect, requirement, test case, release, and task can follow their own customized workflows. This allows you to tailor SpiraTeam to the business processes used by your organization. Each workflow consists of a set of steps and transitions. In addition each transition can be used to send notifications to the detector, owner or users in a certain project group.

61. Artifact Associations
Each artifact can be linked to an unlimited number of other requirements, defects and source code revisions, providing traceability between related artifacts. For example a change request incident that turns into a new requirement can be associated to preserve the pedigree of the requirement.

62. Fully Mobile Responsive
SpiraTeam has been designed to optimize its features on any device, whether that be a large desktop monitor, a tablet or mobile phone.
During test execution, you can attach screenshots to failed tests using the device’s built-in camera, providing additional context.

63. Integration / Migration Options

64. Software Configuration Management
Integration Overview
SpiraTeam has a very flexible architecture and has been integrated with a variety of external tools and systems:
SpiraTeam
Requirements
Test Cases
Releases
Sprints
Defects
Tasks
Various Tools
Requirements
Defect/Issue Tracking Tools Bugzilla, TFS,
FogBugz, JIRA,
Mantis, etc.
Software Configuration Management
TaraVault
Git / SVN
MS-Office
Legacy Data
Automated Testing Systems
xUnit
Unit Testing
Rapise
Functional Testing
Various Tools
Functional Testing
Various Tools
Performance & Load Testing

65. Integration Options
SpiraTeam comes with a wide variety of plugins and connectors:
Developer IDEs
Unit Test Frameworks
Build Servers
Bug-Tracking Tools
Modelling Tools
Functional Testing Tools
Source Code Management
Performance Testing Tools

66. Integration
SpiraTeam has a built-in notification engine that lets you define custom templates and notification events. This enables the system to send out notifications when specific events occur (e.g. user is assigned a test case, the priority of a requirement changes, etc.).
In addition, SpiraTeam can connect to your system and retrieve users’ comments and attach them to the appropriate artifact in the system. It can also create new incidents directly from s, saving users’ time.

67. Visual Studio & Eclipse IDE Integration
Developers can work on assigned requirements, tasks and incidents directly inside their Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
SpiraTeam has plug-ins available for both Eclipse and Visual Studio.
Research has shown that allowing developers to use the same tool to develop their code and manage their workload enhances efficiency and improves data accuracy.

68. Approach for Using SpiraTeam
Step By Step Guide for using SpiraTeam

69. Approach for Using SpiraTeam (1)
The first step is to define the high-level project requirements:
This is a hierarchical list of all the features that the system needs to fulfill (in some methodologies these are called user stories)
They can be entered by hand, imported from Excel, or loaded from other tools like Jama Contour or Enterprise Architect
The next step is to create the project’s high-level schedule:
Include the major releases, minor releases and optionally builds and iterations depending on desired granularity
You can now assign the different lower-level requirements to each of the iterations so that it is possible to start planning the features that will be developed in each iteration
Requirements & Release Plan

70. Approach for Using SpiraTeam (2)
Now you can create the test plan
This consists of a hierarchical list of test cases organized into folders. Each test case can have multiple test steps.
Each test case can be mapped to one or more requirements – this is used to specify the test coverage of the various requirements.
Any requirements that have no covering tests are a project risk and additional covering tests should now be written
The tests can be entered by hand or imported from Excel.
Finally you can also map the test cases to the releases to provide regression testing capability
Requirements & Release Plan
Test Plan
Creation

71. Approach for Using SpiraTeam (3)
Now you start the iteration planning:
Decompose the requirements into detailed project tasks that can be prioritized and individually estimated. These estimates can be then compared against the top-down requirement estimate
Potentially re-assign the requirements and tasks to different iterations, if there is not enough time/resources to support the planned functionality
Assign any defects that were raised in the previous release/iteration into the current iteration for resolution
In some methodologies (Scrum) this is called ‘sprint planning’
Requirements & Release Plan
Test Plan
Creation
Iteration Planning

72. Approach for Using SpiraTeam (4)
Now you can schedule the team members and load balance the task resourcing allocation:
Assign the discrete project tasks and defects to the members of the development team staffed to the iteration
Create and assign test sets to the various testers. Each test set contains a group of test cases that need to be executed.
Team members view their individual schedule and task assignments to determine if they can perform all the tasks
The detailed task schedule is updated by the team members, with the release/iteration schedule reflecting the updates so that the management can make changes to the master schedule
Requirements & Release Plan
Test Plan
Creation
Iteration Planning
Schedule & Resourcing

73. Approach for Using SpiraTeam (5)
Real-time status of the progress of the iteration and release is visible by the management during development and testing:
The team members update the status and actual effort values for their assigned test sets, tasks and incidents.
When tasks and tests are completed, or if exception conditions occur (late starting tasks, late finishing tasks, overruns, etc.), the status of the overall iteration and release is updated to give early indication of needed management intervention
During the test runs, test failures can be used to automatically generate new defects that are managed by the incident tracker
Requirements & Release Plan
Test Plan
Creation
Iteration Planning
Schedule & Resourcing
Tracking & Testing

74. Please contact sales@inflectra.com if you have additional questions.

75. Legal Notices
DISCLAIMER: All product comparison diagrams have been made on the basis of information available on respective product websites. The analysis and views expressed in the diagrams and the information made available are purely those of Inflectra Corporation.  It is possible that competing products have additional features not mentioned on the product websites.