A clear, effective, and all-inclusive bug-tracking process is essential to the timely release of a software solution. Bugs are expensive to fix at first and get even more expensive when not fixed in their early stages. IBM reveals that it costs 15 times more to fix bugs in the post-production stages than to fix them in the early development stages.
A Consortium for Information & Software Quality™ (CISQ™) report further adds that poor quality software cost US companies approximately $2.08 trillion in 2020. From these numbers, it is easy to see why high-quality, bug-free software matters to the success of the organization. Not only does error-free code prevent data losses and costly breaches, but it also enhances greater levels of customer satisfaction.
In this post, we’ll share everything you need to know about bug tracking, how it works, tools, and all the important steps in the bug tracking process.
What is Bug Tracking?
IBM defines bug tracking as the process of monitoring system errors during the software testing phase and throughout the development cycle at large. It is estimated that out of every 1000 lines of code, developers make between 100 to 150 errors. That is to say that larger systems with more than 10,000 lines of code contain 1,000 or more bugs that must be addressed before the software is rolled out to the user.
Bugs occur primarily due to errors by the developers and system architects. A solid bug tracking process example process documents a wide range of essential information, including:
- The identity of the person (software tester or product owner) who identifies and reports the bug.
- The bug’s severity level (often categorized based on its impact on the system’s performance).
- The program’s expected behavior.
- The program’s deviating behavior
- The steps to replicate the bug.
Ideally, bug tracking is done in two main approaches: internal and external bug reporting. Internal bug tracking deals with finding errors during product creation and before deployment. External bug tracking provides a way for end-users to report any bugs they find when using the software.
Steps of the Bug Tracking Process
Every company has a unique bug tracking process based on the tasks to be accomplished in its workflow. But generally, the idea is to fix the bug early in development.
Here’s a brief breakdown of the crucial steps of the bug-tracking process:
- Set Up Your Bug Tracking Tool
Weaving a bug tracking tool into the development process helps keep things running smoothly and facilitates seamless communication between the testing tools. On several occasions, large organization software bugs take months to track.
Bug tracking tools like aqua enable developers, QA testers, and team managers to implement stringent quality assurance standards when it comes to detecting and fixing bugs in software. Here, you can organize the information about the bug and use a ticket system to assign tasks to developers.
aqua’s high level of communication features is key to the timely release of software upgrades in full collaboration with the development team. Go ahead and give it a try today!
- Prioritize and Categorize the Defects (Based on Priority and Severity)
Different bugs will have varying effects on the system’s performance. Some bugs are top-priority in that they must be fixed before the software can be rolled out to the users. Others are minor flaws that bear no significant weight to the efficiency of the software. Software can be rolled out with minor bugs since they present no significant risk.
Generally, there are a couple of ways to categorize bugs (Note that these categories may vary by the company’s workflows).
Based on category
- Low
- Medium
- High
Based on severity
- Critical/Catastrophic
- Major
- Moderate
- Minor
Critical/catastrophic bugs may cause total system failure, serious data breaches, or irreparable data loss. As such, their priority should be set to High.
- Assign to Developers
Now that you have captured as much information about the bug as possible and set the priority level, it’s time to assign the work to testers and developers. Once again, log in to your bug tracking tool and ensure that the following information about the bug has been provided:
- The bug’s unique ticket ID (Very important! Reporting bugs with unique ticket IDs is a fast and efficient way to track each issue as it moves along your workflow).
- The date and time of discovery.
- The identity of the person who discovered the bug.
- App/web browser versions.
- Severity and priority.
- Any events or actions that triggered the bug.
- The identity of the developer who fixed the bug.
- Date closed.
With this information, developers can now commence the work on deploying fixes and upgrades to the application.
- Implement the Fixes
Once the bug has been resolved, release the fixes and mark the bug tracking flow status as closed.
At this stage, a report should be created by the quality assurance team to describe the various aspects of the bug, its effects on the application, and the fixes implemented.
Conclusion
The bug tracking process has many nuances that we did not cover in this article. However, the good news is that you can monitor every step from start to finish with bug tracking software. These programs offer easy solutions to track, prioritize, and fix software bugs — helping to keep the development process running smoothly and efficiently.
