In this video you will see how the Jazz platform has unified the three key software delivery roles of Analyst, Developer and Quality Professional.   In the upcoming 3.0 release, all of these three roles will now be serviced from a single server.  Instead of the developer working from one tool, the analyst from another and the quality professional from a third, all three now share a common platform.  This common platform, the Jazz platform, enables far superior data and information sharing between these roles than we have ever seen before – from IBM or from any other vendor.

Here is a quick preview of what we are working on in the labs.

For best viewing, run in fullscreen and select HD/720p quality.

PS: How cool is it that the Jazz server is running on a Mac?!?!?  Way cool.  Way.

Setup and Configuration instructions for Rational Quality Manager 3.0 and the Collaborative Lifecycle Management 3.0 Server

One question I get quite often is “What Build or Milestone Should I Take?” … and typically the answer is the latest is the greatest.  However, not all milestones are equal, some are just a little more equal than others.  We’re coming up on one of those builds next week.

Milestone 7 of Rational Quality Manager 3.0 will undergo additional quality management efforts, and will be broadly distributed to many customers for feedback.  It’s still a very early release, but of the all the early releases, this is the one we’re recommending people use to provide us feedback.  It’s not perfect, it’s not complete, but it’s received special attention and should be pretty solid.

Right now, we’re looking at release date of late next week to get Rational Quality Manager 3.0 Milestone 7 out the door.  Head over to the Rational Quality Manager project area on jazz.net to get your copy!

PS: To answer what will ikely be your first question once you get the beta installed, the default URL to get going with Rational Quality Manager is https://localhost:9443/jazz/web/console/QM, and you can log in with ADMIN / ADMIN.

Option 1: Out of the Box Reports

This is the simplest reporting option.   These are the native reports that you get in the Rational Quality Manager reporting module when you install the tool.  These reports offer strong filtering capabilities, so that you can focus in on the information you’re looking for.  These reports however, are not customizable.  These reports are based on the live data within the RQM database.

Option 2: Rational Common Reporting

If the lack of customization of the Out of the Box reports causes you heartache, then Rational Common Reporting is your answer.  Rational Common Reporting is a web based reporting application that is bundled with Rational Quality Manager.  Built upon IBM Cognos reporting technology, it allows you to craft queries, modify and create reports.   It is comprised of two main components: Query Studio and Report Studio.  Query studio allows you to create queries to extract the data you want, and Report Studio allows you to create reports that present the data the way you want to see it.  These reports are based on data warehouse snapshots which are periodically taken of the RQM database.    Reports are constrained to a single RQM server.  Every one of the Out of the Box reports is available through Rational Common Reporting.

For a quick look at Rational Common Reporting, you can check out this video:

Option 3: Rational Insight

Rational Insight is at the top of the hierarchy, offering the customization of Rational Common Reporting but extending it so that reports can collect data from multiple servers and tools, such as Rational Team Concert.   This option offers all the full capabilities you would expect from an industrial strength data warehouse reporting tool: authoring and execution of transforms (ETLs), REST and XML data types and modeling of queries.   This is the most powerful and comprehensive of the reporting options.   For integrated product delivery teams using multiple IBM tools that want consolidated, centralized reporting, this is the solution for you.

The bottom line here is that Rational Quality Manager places significant importance on reporting, and offers 3 choices for teams to generate the reports they need.

QM-2058  – Rational Quality Manager State of the Union
Monday, June 7, 11.15-12.45
The RQM Product Manager, Brian Massey,  will be updating us on what’s coming for RQM

QM-1620 – In the trenches: Implementing Agile Testing practices using Rational Quality Manager
Tuesday, June 8, 3.00-4.00
Scrum Master Reedy Feggins examines RQM and Quality in an Agile context.

QM-2036 – How to Implement and Deploy Rational Quality Manager
Wednesday, June 9, 11.15-12.45
Tips and Tricks on deployment from one of our top field consultants,  Al Wagner.

…and that’s only the top 3.  There’s other great ones filled with tips and tricks and other valuable, actionable information to make your test teams more productive.  It’s great stuff!

Hope to see you there!

Register for the conference today with the code: QMT and you can save $100 off your conference fee.  This discount code is good right up to the last minute.

Register now with the Rational Tester Innovate 2010 Discount Code.

• Introduction of Master Test Plan

• Project Templates

• Audit enhancements

• Snapshots for execution result records

• Expanded PDF Print

• Copy of manual test steps

• Duplication of test artifacts

• Artifact section management

• Full text search

• Test artifact filtering

• Performance improvements

• Suite categories

• Support for OSLC QM 1.0 specification

We’ll be exploring some of these new enhancements over the next few posts here on Quality Manager.  For now, head on over to jazz.net to read more about these individual items and to download Rational Quality Manager 2.0.1.

Rarely when these big bugs surface do we ever get the true cause, but this one jumped out at me.  Why?  The first clue was in the Sony PlayStation 3 blog:

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

The second clue came from the calendar.  Yesterday was March 1st, or as known in software testing circles, February 29th – sometimes.   This is too much of a conincidence for me.   I’m sure there was some processing issue where 2010 was considered a leap year, and the PS3 mishandled the date – perhaps a date conflict between console and the Sony gameservers which prevented people from getting on the network.

At least, that’s my guess.  If the true cause of the problem surfaces, I’ll post more.   But until then, maybe now would be a good time to review the Leap Year calculation.  We all know that it’s basically every four years, but there are some exceptions.   Here’s a pseudo-code version of the calculation:

if year divided by 400 is 0
       then is_leap_year
else if year divided by 100 is 0
       then not_leap_year
else if year divided by 4 is 0
       then is_leap_year
else
       not_leap_year

Th new name for the conference reflects the new reality of software delivery, where we area all trying to design and build the smarter products and services we need to build a smarter planet.

The Rational Tester will be chairing the Quality Management track at the conference, and looking for any and all topics related to smarter quality management.  As always, if you submit a paper and get accepted, you’ll get a free pass to the conference, which will be held in Orlando from June 6 to 10.  We’re looking for any topics related to Quality Management, but with so many new adopters of Rational Quality Manager, I’d like to specifically invite you to submit content related to Rational Quality Manager.  Anything from:

• Tips and Tricks
• Quality Management Strategies
• Collaboration Strategies
• Reporting Strategies

Time’s running out!  Get’em in today!