Bug Tracking Software

What is Bug Tracking?

Bug tracking is the process of capturing the issues and problems found when testing or using a computer system, triaging and prioritizing them, assigning them to be fixed and then verifying that the problem is corrected and no side effects were found.

Originally bugs were so-called because they referred to real insects that shorted out the connections inside a computer. Nowadays bugs (also known as defects or issues) are the problems that occur in a system where it is not working as designed. Bugs can be either found during development / testing or when a system is in production. It is important to use a tool to manage your bugs and defects efficiently so that you deliver and maintain a quality product.

Bug & Issue Capture

With SpiraTest the logging and capturing of bugs and issues is quick and easy. You can either log the bug directly from the My Page homepage:

Alternatively, you can log the bugs without having to leave the test execution wizard:

Defects can be categorized into different types, including bugs, enhancements, issues, change requests, and risks. Each type has its own workflow and business rules. Defects can be logged in the system either through the web interface or by sending an email to a specific email address.

Bug / Defect Management

Once the defects have been captured, SpiraTest provides the powerful tools for searching, assigning, tracking and managing the logged bugs and defects:

Bug Resolution Tracking

SpiraTest lets different users collaborate on the identification, verification and resolution of a particular defect, with their comments tracked as a threaded discussion so that the case history is always available. Comments can be added through the web interface or through email.

Defect Traceability

With SpiraTest, you can trace the bugs/defects back to the test case and the underlying requirement that generated them, giving the project manager unprecedented power in analyzing the “in-process” quality of a system during its lifecycle.

Customizable Workflows

SpiraTest lets you categorize your logged defects into different types, each of which can have its own customizable workflow. This allows you to define different rules, permissions and operations for each of the different defect types:

Change History Tracking

All of the changes made to a particular bug are tracked by SpiraTest, so that at any time you can view the history log of all the changes made to the defect, including the date of the change, who made the change, and what information was changed. This gives you’re a complete audit log of all the changes made.

Custom Fields & Tags

SpiraTest lets you define up to 99 different custom fields for bugs/issues including text, list, date, masked password, release, user and numeric types. These custom fields are defined at a template level and can be reused across multiple products and projects.

In addition, SpiraTest supports freeform tags (also known as labels) where you can tag a bug or issue with a specific label, and then filter on that tag later.