Aldon's ALM portfolio has this week been refreshed with the launch of Aldon Community Manager 9.5.4, the latest release of its web-based IT service management (ITSM) solution is now equipped with formalized templates for Agile development project management. As well as expanded facilities for test case management, the new release also reportedly boasts tighter integration with Aldon Report Manager.
Justifying its product refresh, Aldon says that the rapid iterations and flexibility of the Agile process itself require teams to have a more efficient way to manage the backlog of work and all the components that are undergoing modification. With the agile templates now shipping with Aldon Community Manager 9.5.4, the company claims that organizations will gain a centralized workspace where they can view the backlog and prioritize the work to be done.
In the pursuit of Agile best practices, industry reports suggest that ALM solutions with templates are a productive development route to follow regardless of whether the team is working in an all-Agile environment or taking a hybrid approach.
"Many organizations starting out in Agile use a whiteboard or an Excel spreadsheet to manage all of the stories," said Matt Scholl, CEO and president, Aldon. "That works if you've got 10 or so stories to manage. But what if you have to juggle 1,000 stories or even just 200? Cutting and copying, sorting and re-sorting, moving from one worksheet to another can be a daunting and time-consuming task. Aldon Community Manager helps streamline the whole tracking process."
Aldon also says that more and more IT organizations are using the test-driven design (TDD) approach for their development efforts as a way to think through requirements and design before writing functional code. Developers create a test with the end results in mind — and then code to it. They then run the tests to ensure they created what they originally set out to do. Aldon Community Manager 9.5.4 helps drive that process.
Automated test scripts can be attached to the collection of files that are being modified. For manual testing, all the steps in the testing process can be recorded as related tasks, along with any supporting screen layouts and expected results. Those tasks can then serve as the script for the testers. As they complete tests, they can record any errors, or if the test is successful, they can close the task.
