A comprehensive guide on how to report bugs and bug tracking tools

What is the first thing that hits your brain when you hear the word 'bugs'? Creepy, scary, disgusting? But, we are not talking about the weird tiny insects crawling here and there. There's another equally disturbing bug that web developers hate universally.

Digitally, bugs can be any fault in the design, specification, code, or requirement that creates issues and prevents tasks from running correctly. There are various synonyms for 'bugs' in the web development world,  such as 'defects' or 'faults,' 'issues' or 'glitches.' However, in the end, it doesn't matter what you call them; what matters is how you tackle them. 

Fortunately, one can deal with website bugs with the help of bug tracking tools or bug reporting tools. Using these tools, you can easily report, manage, track or resolve bugs.

Read on to know more about bugs, bug life cycle, how to report bugs, and what are some of the most popular bug tracking tools.

What is a bug?

A software bug is an error or issue that results in incorrect or unexpected results in a product, software, website, or application. It occurs when the developer makes any mistake during the development of an application.

The tester's responsibility is to conduct thorough testing of a product or an application to find as many bugs as possible so that a quality product is ultimately delivered to the customer.

It is crucial to understand the bug life cycle before getting into the nits and grits of how to track and report a bug. So, let's first get started with the Bug Life Cycle.

Bug life cycle

A Bug life cycle covers the different states of the entire life of a bug, right from finding it to ultimately closing it. This cycle starts as soon as any new error or bug is found by a tester and ends when a tester closes it, assuring that it won't occur again.

• New: This is when a new defect is logged for the first time. 
• Assigned: Once the tester has posted the bug, the lead tester confirms the bug and assigns it to the development team.
• Open: The developer starts analyzing and working on the bug.
• Fixed: When a developer makes the required change and verifies it, he can update the bug status as "Fixed."
• Pending retest: As soon as the defect is fixed, the developer provides the code to the tester for retesting. And, since the testing remains pending from the tester's end, the assigned status is "pending retest."
• Retest: The tester performs the retesting to check whether the defect has been fixed or not and changes the status to "Retest."
• Verified: If the tester detects no bug during the retesting, the status assigned is "verified."
• Reopen: If the bug still persists even after the developer has fixed it, the tester updates the status to "reopened," and it again goes through the entire cycle.
• Closed: If the bug no longer exists, then the tester updates the status to "Closed." 
• Duplicate: If the bug is repeated twice or corresponds to the same concept of the bug, the status is updated to "duplicate."
• Rejected: If the developer feels the defect is not genuine, he may change the status to "rejected."
• Deferred: If the reported bug is not a top priority and can get fixed in the next release, then the status "Deferred" is assigned.
• Not a bug: If the bug does not affect the application functionality, then the status "Not a bug" is assigned.

How to report bugs? 

Bug reports depend on which tool you are using for bug reporting. If you want to write a manual bug report, below is the sample of all points mentioned in a bug report. You can find many templates of bug reports as doc, pdf, or excel files in google search.

Sample Bug Report

Bug Name: Email functionality not working

Bug ID:  If you are using a bug tracking tool, an id is created automatically; otherwise, you can create an id like 1001,1002.1001, A01, A02, etc.

Area Path: USERS menu > New Users (Where you found the bug)

Build Number: Version Number 1.01 (application version)

Severity: HIGH (High/Medium/Low) or 1 (severity of application how much impact in this bug in application )

Priority: HIGH (High/Medium/Low) or 1 

Assigned to: Developer (Assignee developer who will work on that product)

Reported By: Your Name (tester name)

Reported On: Date (date of bug report)

Reason: Bug 

Status: New/Open/Active (Depends on the Tool you are using)

Environment: Windows 10 Google chrome (Your system where you test application)

Description: Email submit functionality not working when filling email and clicking to submit.

Steps To Reproduce

• Login into the Application
• Scroll down the page and see the email field. 
• Enter your email address in the input field.
• Click on the ‘Save’ button.
• Found an error that the submit button is not working.
• You can add a screenshot or video of the bug.

Expected Result: When the user fills in their email id and clicks on the submit button, the user email should be submitted in the database.

Save: After everything is fixed, you can save the testing result record in your document.

Bug Tracking Tools

A bug reporting or tracking tool is a software testing application that helps us record, report, and monitor bugs in software development projects. Bug tracking tools help you ensure that all the bugs get detected and then fixed. These tools can track problems and help team leads analyze the required actions to be taken to remove that bug.

Time to take a glimpse of some of the most popular bug tracking tools.

Bugzilla 

• Bugzilla is an open-source defect tracking tool that allows developers to track significant issues with their products. 
• Although a defect tracking tool, it can also be used for test management. 
• Besides, it can be easily linked with test case management tools like Quality Center, Testlink, etc.
• It empowers users to stay connected with their clients or employees, to communicate their problems efficiently throughout the entire data-management chain.

Jira 

• Jira is a commercial product used for bug tracking and project management. 
• It is not an open-source project and offers a free trial and free access for up to 10 users. 
• Often used by agile teams, it helps to find, organize and prioritize the issue while updating each with the project.
• Jira offers many add-ons that make this tool more powerful than others.

Monday

• Monday offers time tracking ability, notifications, and automation that you can easily customize. 
• It has a very intuitive interface that efficiently manages backlogs, sprint planning, and dependencies. 
• Monday takes collaboration to a whole new level by keeping everyone in sync, irrespective of where they are at any time. 
• It also offers fully customizable labels with exciting designs and multiple views, allowing each team member to have a sharp insight into the team’s capability, progress, effort, and productivity at any given time. 
• It can be integrated with multiple apps, including Slack, Google Drive, Jira, Zapier, Google Calendar, and a lot more. 

ReQtest

• ReQtest is a cloud-based test management and requirements management tool that supports testing teams to overcome testing challenges, manage testing priorities, and fulfill testing objectives.
• It supports easy management of plans, test cases, and runs, while significantly improving the testing productivity and providing real-time insights on the testing process.  
• It has a suite of modules, including requirement management, agile board, test management, and bug tracking and reporting. 
• It offers an end-to-end test management solution for software development with absolute traceability.

Mantis

• MantisBT is an open-source bug tracking tool that provides a fine balance between ease of use and capabilities. 
• Some of the key highlights include instant email notifications to keep your team notified, control which users can see which projects, and customizable workflows. 
• It is highly compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. Besides, it can also be used to manage more extensive software development projects.

Fogbugz

• FogBugz is a web-based bug tracking tool that refers to bugs as ‘cases.’
• It prioritizes and organizes development tasks in one central location.
• It comes with a search engine that lets you search the complete content of cases, wiki articles, and customer communication instantly.
• This easy-to-use, licensed tool comes with a free 7-day trial.

Zoho Bug Tracker

• The Zoho bug tracker is a powerful tracker that lets you view bugs filtered by priority and severity. 
• It enhances productivity by knowing exactly which bugs are reproducible. 
• This online tool enables you to create projects, bugs, milestones, reports, documents, etc., all on a single platform.
• This incredible tool makes automated reminders and team notifications possible.

RedMine

• It is an open-source bug tracking tool.
• It supports multiple platforms and databases, while Gantt charts and calendars are used for reporting purposes. 
• It makes it pretty easy to share ideas with your team and manage your team’s expertise. 
• It also lets you create an internal blog or forum to record details about the issues you’re tracking.

Wrapping Up

There you go, folks! That was all about bugs, bug life cycle, bug tracking, and some of the best bug tracking tools for you to explore.

Remember, to implement bug tracking accurately within your organization, it’s pretty vital to consider your software requirements. First, weigh your requirements against the different bug tracking tools available and then pick the best bug tracking tool for your web application development. And don't forget to follow best web development practices to get the best results possible.

For any questions, feel free to ask. And do get in touch with us now for all your website requirements!

Editor: Richa Sharma