11/6/2007 9:39:16 AM

Hi Corey, thanks a lot for putting this list together. I am currently in the process of researching issue trackers for my development team, and this list was like finding gold.

Cheers,
ewH

ewH

11/11/2007 2:17:22 AM

Like, dude, this is a fantastically great list of lists. However there is one thing that your site is screaming out for: screenshots.

I can't find them.

Like many others out there looking for the holiest of grails for their particular needs, we simply don't have the time nor resources to download, install and configure any issue tracker unless we get some 'feel' of what we are looking at.

Either a demo site or screenshots would be muchus gracias!!!

Anon

11/12/2007 10:35:02 PM

yeah i tried a few, trac, jira, fogbug and yours truly
- trac = commandline setup, i basically stopped evaluating there
- jira = came across too complex, too many options/features (we are dummies here)
- fogbugz = limited but simple to use (this is the one we choose in the end)
- bugtracker.net = don't want to offend but didn't look as nice as fogbugz or trac, sorry but first judgment (subconsciously) is always looks. spruce up the look and feel a bit and you will see a massive increase in downloads

bumperbox

12/14/2007 1:23:47 AM

Hi Corey,

Thanks a lot for bringing out such an useful tool for bugs i.e."Bug Tracker".i am a "Quality Assurance analyst" and previously doing my testing by using Bugzilla but ur new Bug Tracker is far better with all its enhancements..
I have a query to ask is that how do i add "cc" when sending the bug reports.pls reply me uegently if possible.

Thanks&Regards,
Gloria

Gloria Devi

3/22/2008 12:23:14 AM

Bumperbox, if you tried several bug trackers why don't you write a review of one of them or all of them here: www.mytestbox.com (SEcutiry systems category)?

Others are welcomed too...

Mircea

3/27/2008 12:28:41 PM

Corey,

I imagine that what bumperbox is talking about in terms of the "look", he might be getting at the idea of "web 2.0 graphic design", which seems to be includes the following: lots of white/light colors, gradients, 3D/plastic/chrome/reflective design elements. Here are a few references for you:
www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm
webdesignfromscratch.com/...design-style-guide.cfm
mittermayr.wordpress.com/2006/02/03/20-culture/

or just do a Google search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=web+2.0+graphic+design&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B2GGGL_enUS208US209&aq=t

-Heather

Heather Floyd

4/25/2008 9:39:05 AM

Thanks for the nice set of links! I would like to add some input and put some impressions that I received from using Scriptlogic's BridgeTrak http://scriptlogic.com/bridgetrak system. I won't be comparing the tool to some others leaving the opportunity for others since I don't like comparing something that can't be compared apples to apples. Personally I haven’t used the tool that came that close to provided functionality and easy of use combined with level of automation that I found in BridgeTrak so that it would make to sense comparing something that has found not match. Similarly you can't compare a behavior of a service in an isolated environment in Windows Vista and Windows XP since there's no service isolation in Session 0 in Windows XP. Talking about features I liked in Scriptlogic's tool I would select some that make the tool stand and simply those I found to be useful for me. The first step you start with any application on Windows is installation. This step is a pretty small one and takes nothing more than 'double click and wait' if you wouldn't count the need to set a SQL database to be used by a tracking system. Advantages. SQL is definitely one of the them. You don't have to work with some proprietary database where you don't know what to expect to get from there. You just get a plain robust SQL server engine and a lightweight control that may be used from every point depending on how you configure it. The tool ships in two flavors but I prefer deploying both the standalone and a web-version depending on the PC that I deploy it too. On my desktop I have deployed a standalone version since it provides more ease in management and on-demand control features like a nifty set of notification widgets on dashboard allowing to control what we have received from users, how many of user requests we've already handled, percentage, etc. On my laptop I use a web-version which I work with right from within the browser. This is very useful since there's no limit on which tool I can use to manage the ticket database. I also like the way I can add issues to the tracker system. There are both the fully automated and the semi-automated methods which I can use in parallel. For example I configure a robot that automatically converts user issues coming from users into tickets delivered and registered right within the issue database. I like that the whole underlying process of issue management is fully transparent for the user and doesn’t require any input from him while allowing him to control the process at any time. I configured the process so that the user just need to mail the issue to a mail address monitored by a ticket conversion system. The ticket will then get handled by pre-configured rules defining who from our team will be responsible to handle a particular user request. There's no need to handle each user request manually trying to find who will be the right person for this issue. I just configured I once, set the rules and everything gets managed automatically which is controlled by an issue ticket autoescalation feature. If the user wants to see who was assigned to handle the ticket and the process development he can control that through the web adding his comments and expanding the information about the issue that he provided the first time. There's also a nice protection from user mistakes. If the user mistakenly sends e-mail to one of us here at the team avoiding the recommendation to send the message to dedicated e-mail address, we can convert such issues automatically by selecting corresponding command from the Outlook plug-in interacting with the ticket tracking system. Tracking system is a tools' strength. I like how fast I can find any information that had ever been entered into the database. That saves from the significant amount of work that you have to do when you want to find out what you have on this type of issue. For example if you find out that there's some issue that is frequently experienced by a number of users you can transform a solution made for the issue to a knowledgebase article. That all provides for a better integration with user so that you don't have to think about what the user wanted to say, what can cause the problem or how you can further help the user to solve the problem. I like integration with a remote management feature of Desktop Authority. If I don’t understand the problem from the description provided by the user or there's no way for me to solve the problem other that just visit the user I now prefer using remote management and solve the problem interactively without needing to spend the time on visiting the user. Yes, when you have that many modules that the tool is providing you may expect a big mess with authentication. But I wouldn't be using this Scriptlogic's tool if there was no integration with Active Directory. All the tools I use in our environment have a tight integration with Active Directory so that was one of the main reasons why I selected the tool.

Martin Lorenc

4/29/2008 6:18:08 PM

Did you notice there is a new kid on the block?
www.bugwiki.com

Looks really simple to use, some people might think it's too simple. But it's free for single users so ill give it a try and report back to you later.

Richard Devon

5/14/2008 9:23:11 AM

Is there an upload template available. We have been tracking bugs manually on a spreadsheet, and would now like to upload them rather than re-key. Thanks!

Andy

5/14/2008 11:01:27 PM

So I tried BugWiki (see above) for a few weeks and I must say it has it's moments. They promise a limited feature set, and boy do they deliver ;-) I'm sure a lot of professionals will feel it is too limited, but I actually think it is a relief. You can start using it right away, there is virtually no learnning curve. No install, no tiered rights and all that. For me it has definately worked out as a case of less is more, but others might feel differently.

Richard Devon

5/23/2008 3:59:25 AM

@Andy: if you can get your data into a tabular format in Excel, then it's an easy matter to suck all that into SQL Server by either using the SQL DTS mechanism, or by generating INSERT statements inside Excel off of your data - an example here:
tgrignon.wordpress.com/.../

Tian

5/25/2008 1:52:29 PM

So I tried out BugWiki (www.bugwiki.com) for a few weeks and I must say I kinda like it. The UI is elegant, but the real scoop is the simplicity. If I had to introduce a bug tracker to my mum, I would much prefer BugWiki over anything else I have tried...

It gives you significantly less features than market standard (on e-mail, no RSS), so it is definately not competing with the likes of BugTracker.NET. But if you think a simpler tool could be the way to go in your case, then check this option out.

Richard Devon

5/25/2008 1:53:55 PM

that should be "no e-mail"

Richard Devon

6/2/2008 3:01:38 PM

Is it just me or is Richard Devon a BugWiki employee. I have been researching some bug tracking tools recently and everywhere I see, there are some recent comments about how good bugwiki is (twitter, some bug tracker comparisons etc). I look at bugwiki and it's no better than scribbling down stuff in a spreadsheet. I am not saying it's bad (everything has it's uses), but 3 persistent comments stating how great bugwiki is, is pretty darn suspicious.

I'd Rather not

6/24/2008 8:16:28 AM

I've been using Mantis for a long time for software development. If you configure the source control integration properly, it's very good for this and only this. It doesn't have any bonus features like wiki's, time tracking or project management charts and graphs. Also it uses "bug" terminology as opposed to "issue" terminology, this turned off some people when we were looking for something to log infrastructure issues.

We considered using Trac, when we had a quick play with it it didn't seem to have project hierarchy features. It seemed to be orientated towards a single project only. We also discovered Redmine, and this appears to do the whole shabang. This thing is Trac on steroids. It's packed full of features that will keep management, developers and the clients very happy. I'd never heard of it before, and there doesn't seem to be many reviews, but it's well worth a look.

Sam

6/26/2008 11:12:52 AM

Phew...what a list!!! I agree with that linked article above by Ian Landsman about the *blur* between service desk software and bug tracker software. I've used Bugzilla in the past...and liked it for traditional software bug tracking. ...but my most recent career melds the line between help desk and software dev. We've been using the <a href="http://www.webhelpdesk.com">Web Help Desk software</a> for some time, as a help desk solution and an issue tracking solution.

We really enjoy it! It's crazy easy to implement and their USA based Tech Support is simply stellar. I do hope this helps!

PaulR

Paul Rutledge

7/12/2008 2:28:45 PM

We evaluated several bug tracking software or ticket management system. We realised that none has all the features. BugTracker.NET does seem to be easy to use. Eventum seems to be able to handle the complexities. Bug Wiki is simple. EasyHelpDeskHosting.com is plug n play, hosted solution in software as a service (saas) form. I think, still there isn't a clear winner in this helpdesk solution space.

Surya Prakash Loonker