Bug Tracking Tips

Experts say that bug report has three (3) rules. Every good bug report needs accurately three things and that is to (1) steps to reproduce; (2) what the user expected to see; and (3) what the user saw instead.

Experts say that bug report has three (3) rules. Every good bug report needs accurately three things and that is to (1) steps to reproduce; (2) what the user expected to see; and (3) what the user saw instead. You may think it would be easy, but there are a number of complexities that instead make the use of bug trackers or defect tracking tools difficult.

If you are just starting it out in the software world, these tips might help you make it thorough and make your bug tracking easy.

•          A high-quality tester always attempts to decrease the reproductionsteps to the minimum level to replicate. This is particularlyuseful for the programmer who has to track and locate the bug.

•          When you open the bug, you should close it.Anybody can resolve it, but only the person who tracked the bug can actually be certain that it is fixed.
•          “Not reproducible” means the bug cannot be reproduced by the programmer.Programmers regularly use this to return a bug to the tester when there critical steps are missing in a report.

•          Keep cautious track of versions. Every build of the software should have a build ID number. It could be entered into the Version field in you designed workflow. When a programmer fixes the bug, indication of what version the fix will appear in should be present, to allow the poor tester to stop the retestingof the bug on a version of the software not suited to fix it.

•          If you are a tester and you are having trouble getting programmers to use your workflow, just do not tell them about bugs—put them in and inform them.

•          Start the habit of writing all the bug reports with three (3) sections: (1) steps to reproduce; (2) the bug itself; (3) and what was expected, as stated earlier to see and track the changes in your workflow.

•          Avoid the temptation to add new fields to your workflow. If you come up with an idea for a new field, do not add fields. If you do, the new bug entry screen will end up with a hundred fields that needed to be filled out. It would result to a high service bug tracker that nobody wants to use since there are countless required fields.

•          If a bug is assigned to a programmer/tester/manager, it is not a personal criticism; it is only a way to improve the software. Aftergetting and finishing the first three thousand bugs, the assignee would then stop feeling dejected and start feeling that a bug is like a “fun puzzle” to solve. A number of people pay money for these “fun puzzles”- printed up in books- which they solve anywhere they feel comfortable. The main benefit of this is that you get paid for doing something while doing another thing.

These are just few of the bug tracking tips we could give you. It is always better to secure an efficient bug tracking system or bug tracking software to ensure that every work is done properly.

In this bug tracking system page you might find more details about the software