What is bug tracking?
Bug tracking is the process of documenting bug reports and their current status. Bug reporting tools help teams to track bugs, prioritize them and manage bug fixing processes by providing a centralized location where all stakeholders can easily access bug data throughout its lifecycle.
Typically bug reports go through four stages: Report — when new issues are submitted; Assign — when an issue is assigned to someone for further action; Investigate – when engineers start looking into what caused the reported problem (e.g., reproducing steps); Verify — once the investigation concludes with possible solutions or workarounds, engineer closes bug report if everything looks fine from testing perspective; Reopen — if newly found information requires reopening previously closed bug report.
Once a bug has been successfully fixed, it enters the Fixed stage.
Depending on bug tracking tool you use, bug statuses can be assigned automatically or manually (i.e., by bug reporter). In either case, it is important to keep bug lifecycle stages in sync with corresponding status changes and make sure that engineers working on a particular issue are notified about its progress through workflow notifications.
As soon as your team moves from one bug report investigation phase to another (from Investigate to Assign for example) they should receive an email notification so there’s no need to visit the tracker every time when something happens because this makes them lose focus, especially when having several tasks at once.
In bug tracking best practices, there are a number of best practices that can help to ensure bug reports are completed and resolved quickly. These bug reporting tips will help your project team stay organized and make the most out of bug fixes in order to release a high-quality product.
1) Keep track of bugs by assigning them a priority level
2) Be sure to keep all information relevant to the bug report in one place
3) Provide an estimate for when you expect the bug fix to be complete
Keep track of bugs by assigning them a priority level: bug priority levels should represent the severity or impact of bugs on users’ experiences.
Be sure to keep all bug-related information in one place: bug reports should be accessible by relevant project team members, which means keeping everything organized and up-to-date is key.
Provide an estimate for when you expect bug fixes to be complete: this will help your product development process remain transparent and open with regard to bug reporting; it also gives other teams ample time to plan accordingly.
This will ensure that projects are always moving at full speed toward their completion dates.
We hope this information on bug tracking best practices was helpful.