Defect Tracking Overview
The primary aspect of software testing that assures the reliability and quality of software products is defect tracking. It entails locating, documenting, and handling errors (bugs) discovered throughout the testing stage. Teams may prioritize changes, keep track of each defect's status, and make sure all problems are fixed before the program is launched using effective defect tracking. We'll explore the value of defect tracking, the procedure, the tools used, and best practices to improve defect management in this blog.
Table of Content
- Importance of fault Tracking
- The Method for Detecting Fault
- Tools for Defect Tracking
- The Best Methods for Monitoring Defects
- Bug Life Cycle Overview
- Steps of the Life Cycle of a Bug
- Roles Performed in the Life Cycle of Bugs
- The Most Effective Ways to Handle the Life Cycle of Bugs
- Priority and Severity Overview
- Severity: What Is It?
- Stages of Severity
- Priority: What Is It?
- Levels of Priority
- Severity vs Priority
- Importance to the Management of Defects
- Conclusion
Importance of fault Tracking
- Enhances Software Quality: Early fault detection and correction raises the overall caliber of the program, leading to a more reliable and strongerproduct.
- Improves Communication: A unified platform offered by defect tracking systems facilitates efficient interaction and work between developers, testers, and stakeholders.
- Increases Accountability: Assigning faults to team members guarantees accountability and openness in the process of fixing flaws.
- Prioritizes Problems: Not every flaw is equally important. Issues can be ranked according to their severity and system impact with the aid of defect tracking.
- Allows Progress Tracking: By allowing teams to monitor the advancement of defect resolution, they can make sure that resources are used correctly and deadlines are met.
The Method for Detecting Fault
- Identification: Testers find flaws during the testing process. Any departure from the software's expected behavior can be considered a flaw.
- Logging: A defect is recorded in a defect tracking system as soon as it is found. This log includes many details about the fault, how to reproduce it, expected and actual results, screenshots, and other pertinent information.
- Triage and Prioritization: Based on their severity and impact, defects are examined and rated in priority order. Major flaws are fixed right away, but smaller ones might have to wait for later versions.
- Assignment: Correct development teams or developers are allocated defects to be fixed.
- Resolution: Defects are fixed by developers. As they go along, they update the defect status in the tracking system.
- Verification: next to a remedy, a problem is returned to the testing group for additional investigation. Testers make that the flaw has been fixed and that no new problems have emerged.
- Closure: The defect is recorded in the tracking system as closed following a successful verification.
Tools for Defect Tracking
There are numerous tools available for efficient defect tracking. Here are a few well-known ones:
- JIRA: A commonly used tool with strong project management and defect tracking features.
- Bugzilla: A popular, packed and portable open-source defect tracking system.
- Redmine: One of the Key benefits of this web-based project management application is defect tracking.
- MantisBT: A flexible and user-friendly open-source defect tracking tool.
- HP ALM/Quality Center: An all-inclusive test-management tool that effortlessly combines defect tracking with additional testing tasks.
The Best Methods for Tracking Defects
- Extensive Defect Reports: Make sure that defect reports are comprehensive and contain all the information required to reproduce and comprehend the problem.
- Consistent Workflow: Create a standard defect tracking procedure that all team members adhere to.
- Regular evaluations: Reassign and re-prioritize faults as needed by conducting routine evaluations of the defect backlog.
- Effective Communication: Ensure that testers, developers, and stakeholders are in constant communication about the status and resolution of defects.
- Automate Whenever Possible: To make fault tracking, reporting, and logging operations run better, employ automation solutions.
- Training and Awareness: Regularly teach the team on the methods and resources utilized in defect tracking.
Bug Life Cycle Overview
Maintaining the product's quality and stability is crucial in software development. A crucial part of this procedure is efficiently tracking and managing issues. A defect's life cycle, sometimes referred to as the bug life cycle, describes the steps that a bug takes from discovery to fix. Teams may increase communication, expedite their testing processes, and make sure all problems are fixed before the program is published by having a thorough understanding of this cycle. We'll look at the many phases of the bug life cycle, the roles that play a part in it, and effective bug handling methods in this blog.
Steps of the Life Cycle of a Bug
- New: A bug is marked as "New" in the bug tracking system after it is found by a tester. At this point, it's essential to record all pertinent problem information, such as screenshots, reproducing rules, severity, and priority.
- Assigned: Once a bug is identified, the project manager or test lead reviews it and designates a developer to fix it. The issue has been marked as "Assigned."
- Open: The bug is closed as the developer gets to work fixing it, marking it as 'Open.' After analyzing the bug to find the main cause, the developer starts working on a fix.
- Fixed: The developer marks a bug as "Fixed" after fixing the problem. The bug is then reassigned to the testing team for verification after the patch has been documented.
- Test: By retesting the pertinent functionality, the testing team confirms that the bug has been repaired. The bug's status is updated to "Verified" if the repair is effective and the problem is fixed.
- Closed: The bug is designated as "Closed" if verification is successful. This means that the problem has been fixed and that no more action is needed.
- Reopened: The testing team reopens the bug and modifies its status to "Reopened" if it continues to exist or if the repair creates new problems. Next, the cycle starts over at the 'Assigned' stage.
- Deferred: A bug may occasionally be assigned a low priority or be determined not to be essential to the current release. When this happens, the bug status is altered to "Deferred," meaning that a future release will address it.
- Rejected: A bug is designated as "Rejected" if it is deemed invalid or unreproducible. This may occur if there is insufficient information in the bug report or if the claimed behavior is truly planned.
Roles Performed in the Life Cycle of Bugs
- Testers: In the role of finding, recording, and retesting errors. Testers are essential to make sure that every problem is precisely recorded and fixed.
- Developers: Tasked with finding and resolving bugs. They identify the underlying source of the problem, put a solution in place, and record the adjustments made.
- Test Leads/Project Managers: Manage the bug tracking procedure, rank bugs according to their impact and severity, and allocate bugs to the right team members.
- Stakeholders: These include team members who may evaluate bug reports and offer suggestions on how to prioritize and resolve them, such as product owners and business analysts.
The Most Effective Ways to Handle the Life Cycle of Bugs
- Detailed Bug Reports: Make sure that bug reports are thorough and contain all the details required to replicate and comprehend the problem. This aids developers in properly finding and fixing bugs.
- Open and Clear Communication: Ensure that testers, developers, and stakeholders are all in constant communication with one another. It's critical to provide frequent updates on the status of bugs and their resolution.
- Prioritization: Organize defects in order of severity and system impact. While minor defects can wait until later releases, critical bugs should be fixed right away.
- Consistent Workflow: Assign each team member to a consistent workflow for problem handling. This guarantees a methodical approach to fixing bugs.
- Regular Reviews: Review the bug backlog regularly to reassign bugs, reevaluate priorities, and make sure no important issues are missed.
- Automate Whenever Possible: Regression testing, problem tracking, and reporting can all be done with automation tools. In addition to saving time, this can increase the bug management process' accuracy.
Priority and Severity Overview
Effective defect management is necessary for creating high-quality software testing products. Severity and priority are two key ideas that support this strategy. Though these phrases are commonly utilized to monitor and categorize problems, they have different connotations and impacts. We will discuss the meanings of severity and priority in this blog, as well as their distinctions and roles in the defect management process.
Severity: What Is It?
The impact a flaw has on the software's functionality is referred to as its severity. It is a gauge for a defect's level of technical importance. The term "severity" refers to how serious a problem is in relation to the system's functionality and is often assigned by testers.
Stages of Severity
Critical: Issues that result in major functional failures, data loss, or system crashes. Due to the possibility of the system coming to a complete stop, these flaws require quick correction.
Example: A bug that results in an application crash upon launch.
Major: Flaws that impair functionality substantially but don't lead to total system failure. Before the software is made available, these bugs must be fixed.
One such flaw would be the inability for users to save their work.
Moderate: Flaws that prevent the user from using the system substantially or that result in a small amount of capability loss but have a remedy.
Example: A problem that, when a page is refreshed, fixes the amount that is incorrectly calculated in a shopping cart.
Minor: Errors or discrepancies that don't significantly impact the general functionality of the system. These are usually minor bugs or cosmetic problems.
A typographical error within the user interface.
Trivial: Flaws that are extremely small and have no effect whatsoever on functionality. Frequently, they are low-priority visual problems.
Example: A button's text that is not aligned properly.
Priority: What Is It?
The order in which issues should be corrected is known as priority. It is a measure for the quickness with which a defect needs to be fixed, and the project manager or product owner normally decides what this means. The issue's urgency and business effect define its priority.
Levels of Priority
High: Flaws that impede other crucial testing operations or have a major influence on the business must be resolved right away.
An example of a bug that could impact a significant feature in a future release.
Medium: Not urgent, but significant flaws. In the regular course of development and testing, these oughts to be rectified.
An example would be a bug affecting a less important feature.
Low: Flaws with little to no effect on the business in question. These can be repaired during planned maintenance or later.
For example: Minor cosmetic issues which don't interfere with functionality.
Priority vs. Severity
Priority and severity are not the same things, despite how they relate. Priority refers to how quickly the flaw needs to be fixed, whereas severity refers to the effect on the system. Here are a few situations to highlight the variations:
High Priority, High Severity: A crucial system failure on an online store's home page.
Example: Users are unable to log into their accounts.
High Severity, Low Priority: A serious issue with a rarely used feature that isn't being tested right now.
Example: The app crashes when users attempt to upload a profile picture using an old file format (e.g., BMP).
Low Severity, High Priority: An error on a website that is announcing a significant marketing campaign.
Example: eCommerce Website Homepage Typo.
Low Priority, Low Severity: Small differences in appearance inside a settings menu.
Example: The help icon in the settings menu is using an older design compared to the rest of the icons.
Importance to the Management of Defects
- Efficient Resource Allocation: Teams can better deploy resources by prioritizing essential issues and recognizing the severity and importance of errors.
- Better Communication: Team members, stakeholders, and clients can communicate more effectively when severity and priority levels are clearly defined.
- Effective Release Planning: Setting a defect priority makes it easier to schedule releases and guarantees that the most important problems are fixed before they are deployed.
- Improved Product Quality: A better user experience results from the software's overall quality being improved by the timely resolution of high-severity and high-priority faults.
Conclusion
Productive defect tracking is essential to protecting the dependability and quality of software. Teams can effectively monitor and resolve defects, guaranteeing that issues are addressed promptly, by having a complete understanding of the bug life cycle. Prioritizing the most serious flaws, making the best use of available resources, and raising overall product quality are all made possible by understanding the value of severity and priority. Using an organized method for tracking defects improves the software development process and delivers a more reliable and user-friendly product.
About Author
As a Test Analyst at PixelQA, Renuka Thakor commenced her journey in the IT industry in 2021. Progressing from a manual tester, she refined her testing techniques and embraced tools for enhanced productivity.
Her commitment to staying abreast of the evolving testing landscape through continuous learning aligns with her future goal of transitioning into an automation testing position.