ALM tools are the ‘source of truth’ through the software development lifecycle to update all stakeholders in real-time. These tools manage requirements, acceptance criteria, documentation, test cases, problem incident reports (PIRs) – bringing processes, and people together.

We started with SCOUT, a homegrown requirements management and PIR tracking tool. But, with the need for more traceability, we moved to TFS. We found things lacking still. Between the cost of TFS and the need for better documentation, acceptance processes, and greater traceability and impact analysis, we moved to NeoTrack — for full lifecycle traceability from design through testing.

NeoTrack is an application that we built on our low-code Platform. It offers:

• Requirements management
• Design specification documentation
• Test script documentation
• Problem incident reporting and tracking
• Requirement traceability matrix

Why do we have our own ALM tool?

• Many tools in the market are expensive. We provide our customers with an option to use NeoTrack along with our Line of Business (LOB) solution.
• Many other tools do way more than just ALM making them cumbersome to use. We don’t have that problem.
• We are one of the very few partners in the benefits administration industry that uses our own ALM tool (other vendors may use a tool, but it’s purchased – we have customized to these types of projects).

Here are the different functionalities available with NeoTrack

• Interactive Dashboard: See role-specific views, filters, and charts to monitor the progress of requirements, design specifications, and testing phases. This is a full view of the whole application lifecycle (depending on job role).
• Requirement Management and Traceability: Trace requirements to design components, code to test cases and PIRs.
• Team Collaboration: Work together with clients, functional analysts and developers by raising queries specific to design and seek clarification and follow-ups.
• Design Specification Workflow and Versioning: Keep track of all the changes/revisions to design specifications over time. See the impact on the application if something in the design changes.
• Test Case Management: Document unit and system testcases and keep track of the execution of test script
• Design Completion: Capture related design specifications, business rules, job services, BPM maps, communications, reports, and interfaces in one spot.
• Create Tickets via Email: Generate a PIR report via email (which creates a record in NeoTrack). The PIR reporter can continue to communicate about the PIR via email and the conversation gets tracked in NeoTrack for more information.
• Tracking Time Spent on Each PIR: Track how much time you are spending on working on each PIR.

NeoTrack has accentuated our continuous improvement mantra for documentation and processes. It has helped many of our customers with future enhancements or changes. They have a historical view of the entire application lifecycle, better coordination among all teams, and a structured SDLC process to ensure they don’t miss any steps or stakeholders. Many continue to use NeoTrack for their internal projects without investing in other ALM tools from the market. If there is another tool in use, we have a migration utility to move to NeoTrack.

Do you want to know more about NeoTrack? Do leave your questions in the comments and we will answer them.