Time to Go Beyond Jira?
Atlassian's Jira is one of the most commonly used defect tracking tools, especially among small teams and start ups. As companies grow and the products being developed become more complex, however, defect tracking alone begins to fall short. You may need integrated requirements management and test case management, for example. Maybe you need stronger traceability for regulatory compliance or to solve quality issues.
The best thing about Perforce ALM (formerly Helix ALM) and Jira is that it's no longer an either/or proposition; you can use them together with Perforce ALM's out-of-the-box Jira integration — included with every license!
Perforce ALM Can Help Your Organization:
Reduce Product Development Risk
Boost Overall Productivity
Increase Visibility into Project Health
Streamline Development and QA Processes
Enable Collaboration Across Teams
Automate Traceability Across All Product or Project Artifacts
Support for Complex Software Development
Perforce ALM has a wealth of features to manage requirements, all types of testing, and issues. With strong linking and reporting capabilities, end-to-end traceability is easy. And Perforce ALM's flexibility makes it simple to configure for your team's unique process.
Linking and Traceability
Jira has the concept of links, but its linking capabilities are not strong and it has no traceability capabilities.
Manage Test Cases and Requirements
Jira focuses on tasks, issues, and defects, but has no built-in test case management and requirements management features.
Support for Hybrid Agile Teams
Jira is challenging to configure for teams who are not purely Agile.
Integrated Bug Tracking, Requirements Management, and Test Management
Perforce ALM's integrated platform allows you to track every development artifact, not just bugs. In turn, this helps you streamline development, uncover the true cause of project delays, reduce problems with communication and hand-offs, eliminate duplicated effort, and establish a repeatable process for better compliance.
Jira Software
Jira was designed and built for tracking defects. It focuses on tasks, issues, and defects, but there are no built-in test case management and requirements management features. You can buy add-ons from the Jira marketplace, but they're not supported by Atlassian.
Perforce ALM
With Perforce ALM, the entire development lifecycle is covered by one tightly integrated solution. Bug tracking, test case management, and requirements management are built into Perforce ALM. As we develop new features, we consider each of these critical areas, ensuring everything works seamlessly without a drop in performance. Perforce ALM even has a strong Jira integration, allowing you to run tests in Perforce ALM and log any failed tests directly in Jira. You can also view the status of a Jira item in Perforce ALM.
Linking and Traceability
Perforce ALM's dynamic linking capabilities allow you to establish traceability across the full development lifecycle — from requirements and source code through test cases, results, and resolution. Traceability is vital for ensuring product quality in any industry, but it's critical in regulated industries.
Jira Software
Jira does have the concept of links, but its linking capabilities are not strong. Jira also has no built-in traceability features; you must purchase a third-party add-on to achieve traceability.
Perforce ALM
With Perforce ALM, the linking happens automatically as one item is created from another. Create a feature from a requirement, and the two are automatically linked. Create a test case from that feature, and now the test case is linked not only to the feature, but also back to the requirement.
Traceability Matrix
Traceability matrices can show you information about all of the items you're tracking in Perforce ALM. If you are linking items — for example, epics to features, higher-level requirements to lower-level requirements, or requirements with associated test cases and test results — you can now see all of that data in one report. You can even use trace matrices as failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) reports, viewing features and their associated risks and mitigation.
Jira Software
A key traceability feature Jira lacks is the ability to create a traceability matrix. There are add-ons you can purchase that will allow you to generate trace matrices, but it is not a built-in feature that comes with Jira.
Perforce ALM
With Perforce ALM, you can generate a trace matrix with just a few clicks, eliminating hours of manual effort. Perforce ALM's traceability matrix lets you focus on test coverage analysis, root cause analysis, and other relationship-based analyses.
Impact Analysis
You can use forward impact analysis to determine the child requirements and other dependent items that may be affected by requirement changes. For example, a change to a high-level business requirement may affect all child functional requirements or a change to a requirement may affect all test cases linked to it.
Backward impact analysis can be used to determine the parent requirements and other dependent items that may be affected by requirement changes. For example, a suggested change to a child requirement may conflict with its parent requirement or a feature request may affect the requirement created to address it.
Jira Software
Jira has no backward or forward impact analysis capability. You must purchase an add-on.
Perforce ALM
Because of its strong traceability features, Perforce ALM is able to easily perform both forward and backward impact analysis.
Share and Version Visual Data
Enhance your requirements with the diagramming feature, which lets you easily share visual data. Diagrams, charts, and other images make communication clearer and faster, helping teams work better together. This feature in Perforce ALM will also let you version the visual data.
Jira Software
Jira also has no built-in diagramming features; you must purchase a third-party add-on to include such visual data.
Perforce ALM
Integrate visuals like UML, architecture, and flowcharts right within Perforce ALM. This functionality lets you clarify changes, simplify complicated procedures, model system behavior, and more — without having to leave the application.
Folders and Private Folders
Folders let you group items together for any reason, whether it's to create time buckets for a release or sprint, or for organizing collections of items like test suites and feature requests. Public folders can be accessed by other users and are helpful for organizing items for your team. Access to public folders can be limited to specific security groups. Private folders cannot be seen or accessed by other users and are helpful for organizing items related to your own work. You can also use private folders to "bookmark" items in public folders that you want to find quickly.
Jira Software
Jira has no folder or private folder concept, which can make it difficult to organize development artifacts.
Perforce ALM
With Perforce ALM's folders, you can easily organize all of your development artifacts. A folder can contain any combination of issues, requirements, requirements documents, test cases, and test runs. An item can also be added to multiple folders, which adds flexibility when it comes time for reporting and what-if scenario planning. Folders can also be private or public.
Support for Hybrid Agile Teams
Perforce ALM's flexibility means you can use it to manage every project, from the smallest to the most complex. Because of Perforce ALM's strong linking and traceability features, you can even use Agile methods in a regulated environment and still maintain compliance.
Jira Software
If your team is not purely Agile, it can be challenging to configure Jira for your needs.
Perforce ALM
Perforce ALM can be easily customized to suit your unique development methodology—from pure waterfall to pure Agile and anything in between.
Native Client
Perforce ALM's native clients handle large data better, requiring fewer hops, less network traffic, and no browser overhead.
Jira Software
Jira is completely web-based, requiring you to use a browser.
Perforce ALM
Perforce ALM has a web client, as well as native clients for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Be Agile. Be Waterfall. Be Quality.
The best process is yours.
Agile, waterfall, v-model, spiral. All classic methodologies, and Perforce ALM works great within them all. And if your methodology is a hybrid with a touch of Agile? That's where Perforce ALM shines — helping you capture, collaborate, and communicate using your process.
Jira Integration
Jira integration is a Perforce ALM feature that's available "out-the-box" for customers using Perforce ALM 2016.1.0. Jira integration allows a user to associate a Jira issue to a Perforce ALM item. The details of the Jira issue remain in Jira. This integration is not an add-on; it's included with your Perforce ALM license. It's easy to configure, too, so you can be up and running in no time.
With Perforce ALM's Jira integration, you can attach Jira issues to Perforce ALM items and open attached issues from Perforce ALM. You can also create new Jira items from Perforce ALM and automatically attach them to Perforce ALM items.
See How Easy it is to Migrate Jira with Perforce ALM in this Short Video
Try It Now
Try Perforce ALM free for 30 days. Download now for instant access to the fastest, most securable set of tools for global software development throughout the entire lifecycle of a project.