Nishil Patel
Mar 11, 2025
5 min read
In this article, we’ve covered why solely using QA trackers might not be the best way to manage your QA activities and how BetterBugs.io can help address the issues you might face while using QA trackers.
1.
Introduction
2.
Why Solely Relying on QA Trackers Doesn’t Always Work
3.
Why Traditional QA Trackers Fail and How BetterBugs.io Fixes It
4.
FAQs
Have you ever wondered why using QA trackers for software sometimes feels like making your way through a complex information maze with no clear exit? Sure, traditional trackers do promise organization by housing all your project updates, workflow timelines, and details. But you still find bugs slipping past your QA tracking processes, and you are stuck in the whirlwind of frivolous details, missing data, and limited context. Add to that the endless email chains and misaligned priorities, and you’re left wondering: Is this the best we can do?
To ensure product quality, using traditional QA trackers may seem like a well-rounded solution on paper. However, that’s not usually the case. In fact, they cover a third of all quality assurance (QA) processes at best. And the other two parts are typically handled by bug capturing and bug reporting tools and processes.
Before we cover the key reasons behind why traditional QA trackers fail when used as sole tools for the trade, let’s get a quick overview comparing the different areas covered by these three in a complete QA cycle.
Aspect | QA Tracking | Bug Capturing | Bug Reporting |
Primary Function | QA lifecycle management, test case design, bug tracking, bug lifecycle management, workflow automation | Capturing detailed bug information with rich media (screenshots, videos), metadata, and system information | Formal documentation and sharing of software defects identified for debugging |
Scope | End-to-end QA process, including requirements traceability with RTM, test planning, execution, and defect management | Immediate capturing of issue context and environment during discovery | Clear and actionable description of a single defect |
Data Collected | Test cases, test suites, bug reports, test results, requirements, user stories, QA metrics (e.g., average bugs per test, cost per bug fix, average time to test a bug fix, number of test runs) | Screenshots, screen recordings, console logs, network logs, browser/device details, user actions, session recordings, error messages, and system states | Bug title, detailed description, steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, severity, priority, assigned developer, attachments (logs, annotated screenshots), and environment details |
Execution Stage(s) | Used throughout the SDLC | Occurs in real-time during bug discovery, often triggered by user actions, code errors, or system events | Occurs immediately or shortly after a bug is identified, typically during testing or user feedback |
Emphasis | Process control, workflow management, traceability, reporting, and QA overall | Immediate and detailed data capture, context preservation, and developer-friendly information sharing | Clarity, conciseness, reproducibility, and actionable information for debugging sessions |
Purpose | Manage the QA process, track project quality, identify trends, and make decisions as per the progress | Provide developers with the necessary context and information to reproduce and fix bugs | Ensure that developers understand the issue, can reproduce it, and resolve it at the earliest or based on priority levels |
Traceability | Strong traceability between requirements, test cases, and defects | Limited traceability, focused on bug context | Traceability depends on integration with a QA tracker |
Using QA trackers isn’t inherently a bad choice for managing your QA activities. However, there are some key challenges that they largely fail to address, which BetterBugs.io can help fix:
With traditional QA trackers, you often have to spend too much time adding information manually. While this may be the most preferred way to share information with other team members when managing software, for bug tracking and reporting activities, the manual processes quickly snowball to become super cumbersome and tiring, often leading to inadvertent misses while sharing critical information during quality processes.
Also Read: Top 10 Bug Tracking Tools
The BetterBugs.io Chrome extension enables you to quickly document and share quality issues bundled with all the necessary details developers need for QA tracking, bug tracking, and debugging activities. It works just like an automation layer for documenting and reporting issues, which allows you to share information with just a few clicks. Manual copy-pasting is not required, making the process up to 10 times faster.
With every document report, you get:
Plus, you can seamlessly integrate it with your favorite QA and issue trackers (Jira, ClickUp, Asana, Linear, GitHub, and others) to share the reports directly to the respective project and dashboards using a link so others can access the complete report. This takes your QA tracking activities to the next level.
Different team members might use a particular tracker(s) differently. Plus, the usage patterns and skill levels might also vary as per their roles (developers, QA, project managers, support teams, stakeholders). As a result, you might see some team members quickly logging minimal details while others provide extensive context. This inconsistent use leads to non-standardized data and process flows, which can disrupt collaboration efforts, ultimately putting a strain on your QA efforts.
Also Read: How to Write Bug Reports for Developers
BetterBugs.io is a lightweight, intuitive, and easy-to-adopt tool with zero learning curve. Meaning? Both tech-savvy and non-technical members can effortlessly use it equally to share the same level of details. It’s just a matter of a few clicks, and you’re good to share a comprehensive report, every time. Here’s how:
Steps to get started
Everything else (technical and devtools details) is auto-captured and attached to the report.
It's common for companies to work with several tools for managing QA processes (QA trackers, bug reporting tools, bug capturing tools, project management tools, and issue trackers). Different tools provide different or platform-specific fields for entering information. This forces you to frequently juggle platforms and consolidate data manually for overall QA. And solely using QA trackers does not cut it
BetterBugs.io enables you to share information to multiple project management tools right from your browser itself.
Once you connect it with PM tools, you can send reports to their respective workspaces with the specified template from them. Again, no manual copy-pasting is required. And this allows it to be a perfect fit for development and QA activities in software (debugging, bug tracking, bug reporting, documenting UI issues, creating support tickets, beta testing, bug bash events, QA overall).
For information exchange, sharing, and debugging, you usually have to document issues in text format, which might miss important visual and interdependent context. This might not be able to present the complete picture of a bug or issue scenario for the complete context. This poses a risk of overlooking the complete environment and sequence that led to the bug, making it harder to diagnose what went wrong and retrace steps to get to the root cause.
With BetterBugs.io, you can:
Get Visual Proofs and Not Just Text
Using BetterBugs, you can take screenshots or capture videos and annotate or highlight areas to share everything with all the context required.
Complete Context and Clarity with Personalized Video Messages
It comes with webcam and mic support for you to add video messages to your bug reports. This prevents you from resorting to lengthy email chains to gather missing context. Plus, you can ensure that critical information doesn’t get lost or misinterpreted.
Include Attachments
You can easily add upto five attachments (Supported Types: DOC, Excel, PDF, Txt, Image) to the report so that you don’t have to share them separately each time for every report you create.
AI Debugger for Smart Debugging
BetterBugs comes bundled with an AI debugger for getting issue reproduction steps within seconds. With this, you get smart error analysis for speedy debugging sessions.
Nishil is a successful serial entrepreneur. He has more than a decade of experience in the software industry. He advocates for a culture of excellence in every software product.
Meet the Author: Nishil Patel, CEO, and Co-founder of BetterBugs. With a passion for innovation and a mission to improve software quality.
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