What is Bug Tracking?

• Bug tracking is a systematic way to report, monitor, and fix software defects using specialized tools. It involves logging bugs, tracking their progress through a lifecycle (for example, New, Assigned, Fixed, and so on), and ensuring developers address them.
• It benefits the software by improving QA processes by catching issues early, providing better customer satisfaction with a polished product, saving time and money by preventing rework, and enhancing team collaboration.
• Bug tracking typically involves the following steps: reporting, bug life cycle, monitoring, and closure.
• Bug tracking is a specific type of issue tracking focused on software defects. While issue trackers manage a broader range of project tasks, bug trackers handle the entire bug lifecycle from reporting to resolution.

Minor or major, software bugs are disruptive. Even the smallest software glitch can dent your thriving business and lead to user exodus. The moment users encounter a buggy product, they’ll just — vanish. No questions asked. That’s your typical modern-day user. And why’s that? Well, they can always choose from myriad other options that may be much better (or at least less buggy).

Any solutions to it? Yes. A bug-free product. Hmm.. Is it really possible? Quite frankly, No. Okay! Is there anything — like an approach or something — that can at least ease up the bug management process? Indeed.

Bug tracking is a systematic process of reporting bugs and monitoring them using specialized software. It’s a subset of issue tracking and typically inclined towards the bug management process.

The bug tracking process includes logging a bug, tracking it using the bug-life cycle, and ensuring it gets fixed by developers. Bug tracking tools like Jira, ClickUp, and GitHub help monitor the process until closure.

Also Read: How to Log a Bug?

Issue trackers handle a broader range of tasks related to project management, including requirements, design, workflow, code, and post-production issues.

Bug trackers, on the other hand, are specifically designed for managing reported defects. Bug-tracking systems cover the entire bug lifecycle, from reporting to debugging and eventual closure. Additionally, it also helps prioritize bugs based on severity and impact.

Also Read: Top 10 Bug Tracking Tools

Here’s a quick overview of a typical bug tracking workflow:

• Reporting bugs — the user (generally a tester or a quality assurance analyst) identifies a bug in the software and reports it to the bug tracking system. These bug reports typically include details like visual proofs (screenshots or video recordings), bug descriptions, repro-steps, issue logs, and any relevant attachments.
• Bug life cycle — the logged bug then goes through various stages, often referred to as the bug life cycle. These stages may include “New,” “Assigned,” “In Progress,” “Fixed,” “Verified,” and “Closed.” Developers then work on finding the root cause, fixing the bug, and testers verify the fix.
• Monitoring and closure — throughout the process, the concerned team members (QA engineers, testers, developers, and project managers) keep an eye on the bug’s status. Once the bug is fixed and verified, it’s closed.

Also Read: How to Write Effective Bug Reports

A 2022 report from CISQ (Consortium for Information & Software Quality) estimates the cost of poor software quality in the United States reaching at least $2.41 trillion. For accumulated software Technical Debt (TD), it has touched the figures of approx. $1.52 trillion.

These are some scary figures that directly press the nerves to push for more quality in software. Also, it stresses the weight of better bug management and bug tracking processes.

Here are the top five reasons that make efficient bug tracking extremely crucial for any product:

• Better QA processes — catching and fixing issues early helps prevent snowballing problems and costly re-works later in development.
• Improved customer satisfaction — streamlined bug tracking procedures help maintain polished products. This means fewer escalations, less customer churn, and happy end users.
• Helps save time and money — timely bug fixes using bug tracking systems with smart workflows help save time and dollars. It prevents minor issues from turning into major expenses.
• Improved productivity — working in a planned manner with a bug tracking system can significantly reduce to-and-fro communications (that isn’t useful) and help cut down endless email chains.
• Enhanced team collaboration — bug tracking systems often include features for peer or team discussions, file sharing, and assigning tasks. These help communicate and collaborate better while managing bugs.

BetterBugs is a visual bug reporting tool that lets you create perfect bug reports for developers, directly from your browser. It's a free Chrome extension for software professionals who want a snappy, feature-rich, and lightweight tool to report software issues without wasting too much time.

BetterBugs fits right into the bug tracking workflow right from the start. It significantly speeds up your bug reporting and bug tracking process. It cuts through the noise and sluggish ways of traditional bug-reporting workflows.

You can instantly post detailed bug reports to your project management tools (such as Jira, ClickUp, Asana, GitHub, and many more) with just a link. No copy-pasting is required.

BetterBugs lets you whip up crazy fast bug reports with all the info that your engineers need to debug. Devs can further benefit by using the cutting-edge AI debugger to get auto-repro steps for bugs, impact analysis, and bug diagnosis in seconds.

Here’s how to create a bug report, super-fast:

1. Download the extension.
2. Pin the extension to your browser (for easy access).
3. Sign up with your email (you can also use Gmail or GitHub).
4. Open up the extension, take a screenshot, or record the screen.
5. Scribble on it, annotate and add any details you want to.
6. Hit the Upload bug button.

Your report gets instantly saved to your BetterBugs account. It’s done. The complete bug report link auto-copies to your clipboard. Share it with your developers and let them debug. You’ll never have to explain another bug to your devs. It's all there, in the bug report.

With every bug report you create, you get:

Visual proofs of bugs

You can add screenshots and screen records as visual proofs of bugs.  Or you can also get the last two-minute activity of all your browser activities with Rewind. This comes in super handy to capture a bug that just happened and you weren’t expecting it.

“Rewind” gets you the recorded video which you can share with others using the report link. You don’t have to pre-guess an error to capture it!

Annotated screenshots (and videos too!)

You can add custom markups to the captured screenshots with an intuitive screenshot toolbar. Or you can annotate while recording issues in action!

Developer logs

You get auto-attached console logs, network requests, device info, and much more from your browser devtools with every bug report you create. These are perfect for your devs for debugging.

Bug description area

Add all the info you want, to describe the bug. You can also include up to 5 attachments to your bug reports to make sure nothing gets left behind while reporting!

Collaboration features

Add real-time comments on bug reports for quick feedback loops and shorter turnaround times.

Integration features

Integrate BetterBugs with your favorite project management tools like Jira, GitHub, Asana, Linear, and many others — within minutes. You can post bug report links to your project workspaces right from your browser, with just a few clicks.

AI Debugging features

Developers can debug an issue using AI assistant that takes the debugging process to the next level. Get auto-repro steps, impact analysis, and bug diagnosis, automatically!