CS490AM

Fall 2009

Introduction to Bug Tracking

Overview

Bug Tracking is an essential part of good testing procedures, since it collects the relevant information about existing bugs and tracks them from the time they were found until they are resolved.   Bug Tracking software provides tools for testers, developers and managers, for sharing information, assigning responsibilities and priorities, while providing high visibility.

In this Lab, your team will use a web-based Bug Tracking software to simulate most of the common operations used in bug tracking.   The goal of this Lab is that you get familiar with Bug Tracking software and learn the main features that they offer, both for developers and testers.

Exercise

Since the software is web-based, you can do this exercise from any computer.

1) The software we will be using is called FogBugz.  Read the following to see the basic features and functionality of the software.

a) A tour of the software:  http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/50tour/01.html

b) The main features of  FogBugz: http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/docs/50/Articles/FogBugzinTwoMinutes.html

2) As a first step, design and Administator and go to their website at:

http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/

and suscribe to a free account (press the Try FogBugz free) button.  The member of your group that opens the account will have administrative privileges. Do this as soon as possible. You will get the account in matter of minutes, but if there is high traffic it can take longer.

3) After opening the account, you will get a private URL for your bug tracking database.  Distribute this private URL among the members of your group.  The demo is full featured, which means that you get the same functionality as the paid version.

4) Log on to your Bug Tracking database.

5) Under the Administration options, do the following:

a) Add to Users all the remaining members of your group.  If desired, give them administrative privileges.

b) Create three new Departments

c) Create three new Clients

d) Create six Projects and assign them to different Departments/Clients.  You can be as creative as you wish.

6) Read the following documentation to get familiarized with the steps necessary to file and track a bug:

a) The basics of Bug Tracking: http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/docs/50/Articles/TheBasicsofBugTracking.html

b) Top Ten Tips for Bug Tracking: http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/docs/50/Articles/TopTenTipsforBugTracking.html

Although it is not required reading you can always browse the online documentation at:

http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/docs/50/index.html

7) Once the previous steps are completed, each member of your group should log-on to the database and file bug reports (assign three bugs to each member of your group), belonging to different projects.  Assign different priorities, category, etc. to the bugs.  Get to know the different options available when reporting a bug.     

8) Follow up the bugs that were assigned to you and offer some resolution or explanation. Try following the tips and recommendations given in the documents of step 6).   For some bugs, don’t just fix them right away, but try putting some discussion, like saying that the bug is badly reported or that you need more information, open discussions, etc.

9) Follow up the cases for one week, doing daily updates to the bugs/inquiries that require your intervention.

10)  Try to use the most features you can and have bugs at different steps of the process.  The idea is that your bug database is as varied and complete as possible, within the limitations of this Lab.   On the other hand, this will familiarize yourself with the various features of the software, as well as the steps for Bug Tracking.