Even if you spent hours coding and testing your software, it's inevitable that you might find some bugs, its just the way of life. Users need an application that works without any defect (surprise surprise), and with market competition you want you to provide error-free solutions. You can't leave the bugs unchecked. Errors on the application will impact your revenue, reputation, and development team; you need to spend hours fixing the defects and incorporating new features. The robust solution for this problem is adapting the Bug tracking system.
Defects can be in code, design, and requirements; anything stops the software from functioning. Before the product launch, ensure all the bug are fixed using bug tracking tools. Issue tracking tool helps the web analyst, testers, and developers to track, report, and resolve the errors.
As an ordinary individual, we look at the terms bugs and defects seem to be more or less the same. When the exact word you discuss with the agile team, they will say both are different. Defects are the issues that are happening in the software development code. In contrast, the bugs are on the production Codes (code that others like end users / other coders are utilizing). When choosing the tools, identify the application that meets the goal of tracking bugs and defects.
Bug tracking tools are different from code review tools. The code reviews are also known as peer code reviews. Follow programmers to check the code errors with each other. It was a great way to discover bugs. But bug tracking tools are the software applications used to track, report, manage, and assign the bugs to the team for bug fixing. Some of the popular code review tools are Review Board, Crucible, Phabricator, Peer Review for Trac, Veracode, Collaborator, CodeScene, Rhodecode, Reviewable, and more.
Bug tracking solution helps the agile team track the bugs and ensure that all detected defect fixes before the product launch to the real environment. Bug tracking software will increase customer satisfaction. While running a Nemours project, having a trusted bug taking tool is essential to make a corrective measure promptly. Right test management tools help you to identify and perform in-depth analyses of the bug quickly.
Defect tracking apps have inbuilt features like task collaboration, chat, send alerts and notification, and an email option. Bug tracking tool makes the team view the bug page simultaneously and better communication among the group. It proves transparency and accountability among the resources. Product managers can allocate the resource for bug fix and track the bug status on actual time. They can easily collaborate with the team using the software in real-time and make updates and reviews on bugs. It eliminates the lack of communication.
Tools assist in bug prioritization based on the importance and seriousness. The software will lead the development team to work on the high priority bugs instead of focusing on the low priority bugs. With the software's help, the programmer can easily refer to past errors, reducing development efforts. Usage of tools eliminates unwanted delays in product development and improves productivity. It is a win-win strategy for both the developer and the end-users.
The software helps to analyze the bug trends. You can quickly identify the average bug reporting, resolved and closer over a time frame (7days or 30 days). You can also track the efficiency of the software team. The source bug tracker can easily refer to the recurring issue on the application. Bug reports provide more insights into the error age, bug status, open and closure, etc. These bug trend reports help in budgeting and resource planning.
The bug reporting tools workflow undergoes the following process steps.
Capturing – Catches the bugs and issues.
Recording – Records the issue to judge the bugs by the team.
Accountability – Discovers who is liable for the issue. Reporting tools will help in forwarding defect issues management.
Prioritization – Priorities help the team identify the bugs' seriousness and start working on high priority issues first.
Resolving – The development team fixes the detected bugs.
Reviewing –Cross-check is performed to ensure the errors fixing accuracy.
Bug tracking tools essential for any web and software development. These are the vital features that any error tracking software should have: documenting facility, assigning workflow, Bug history, Error Reporting, storage, and retrieval. We shall look at five crucial Bug tracking tools that you can implement on your projects today.
1. BugReporting
Bug Reporting is a popular tool that shortens the communication gap between QA teams and developers. This is done by streamlining the entire feedback process and integrating into needed project management tools. A large part of project delivery and success comes in maintaining tight loops which is hard with pace. This is where bug reporting really shines
Important Features:
- 1 click install, no code required
- Integrates with popular project management tools like Trello, Asana and Jira
- Collects user meta data to help with recreating bugs
- Auto-notifies customers/QA when a bug is resolved
- Assign tickets to team members
- Video + audio recording
- Snippet and annotation feedback
- Multiple project setup
- Integrate with Slack
System requirements:
- None
2. Bugzilla
Bugzilla is an open-source, popular bug reporting tool developed by the Mozilla foundation. Today many organizations use open-source software for bug tracking. This tool helps the tester and engineers to identify all the significant defects in the products.
Users can connect Bugzilla with other testing software like Quality Center, Jira, Testlink, etc. It is written in Perl programming and works on the MYSQL server.
Users can install Bugzilla on any platform like Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. The basic requirements to install Bugzilla include the following.
Redmine is a free and open-source bug tracking software like Bugzilla. This tool can be integrated with the Source code management system and supports various platforms. Redmine is a web-based defect tracking system, and you can even use plugins to simplify the installation process. Redmine is a project management software developed with Ruby on Rail framework.
The minimum hardware requirements to install Redmine.
Trac is a web application that provides the project manager with an enhanced bug tracking feature and Wiki. It is an open-source application developed by Edgewall Software. Trac is simple and easy to utilize. This app comes with multiple platforms like Windows, Linux, Mac Os, and Unix. Bug tracking or error tracking in Trac is called ticketing.
Bug Genies is an excellent tool for issue tracking and project management. Bug Genies is not a free tool, but it provides a free trial for the software. Bug Genies runs on a PHP framework. It works on multiple platforms and databases. With issue filters and custom issue fields, users can quickly locate the errors on the software.
For installing Bug Genies, you require the followings
Mantis Bug Tracker (BT) is also an open-source bug reporting software utilized for tracking bugs for various projects. The tool is a web-based bug tracking system with a mobile device view. MantisBt implemented with PHP. The easy installation process with simple steps.
Start your bugs reporting with the most popular tools!
We have gone through what are the best bug tracking tools and their benefits. According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of results come from only 20% percent of the action. If you identify and resolve 20 percent of bugs on your products, render 80% stronger production. Before choosing the right tool, it is essential to understand the team size and requirements. I hope the error reporting tools' overviews help you find the best tool for your agile project team.