This FogBugz Review Covers the Features of FogBugz like Defect Tracking, Project Management, Agile Management, & Wiki to Collaboratively Maintain Documents:
A good bug tracking tool forms an important part of any software project/application. It is actually a tool that is used to keep track of all the bugs found while testing. The defects are tracked from beginning to closure.
Initially, when a defect is logged/opened, it will be in ‘New’ state, then it is ‘Assign’ ed to the developer to fix it. Once it is fixed it will be assigned back to the tester to verify it. The tester verifies the defect and if it satisfies the expected behavior of the requirement, it will be closed. This is how the journey goes in a normal process for any bug.
Apart from bug tracking features, what if you come across a tool that has other features like Project management, Agile management, Wiki – collaboratively maintain documents within an organization or project team! Yes, it is possible in one tool called FogBugz.
Table of Contents:
Introduction To FogBugz
FogBugz is a web-based project management system, which has various features. It is mainly used:
- As a bug tracking tool
- Project management
- Agile management – Kanban
- Discussion forums/Wikis
If you want to experience the features of FogBugz, you can try it for free. You will find it very user-friendly. It is licensed and is also available for a free trial period for 7 days.
Click here to get the details like FogBugz software licensing and price.
Features Of FogBugz
Let us explore FogBugz and its few features like Project Management, Kanban, and Wiki.
#1) Bug Tracking Tool
Creating And Tracking A Case In FogBugz
Once you register online, you will receive an email. Click on the link provided in the mail. Log in to FogBugz with the registered email id and password.
After logging in, the below screen is displayed. In FogBugz, everything you track whether it is Bug, Feature, Inquiry or Schedule Item, is termed as ‘Case’. Actually, in FogBugz, you track a ‘Case’.
So, to create a case just click on the ‘New Case’ button. Enter the description of the Title, select the Project which it belongs to, select Area, and Category whether it is a Bug, Feature, Inquiry or Schedule Item.
Select Milestone (if created for the particular project is selected).
Assign respective Priority, draft the steps required to understand the case and attach a screenshot if required, by clicking on “Attach files”. Enter the required estimate and story points which is useful in tracking the cases and finally click on the Open button.
It will be saved as a case with a FogBugz id and will be listed under Inbox/My cases. A mail will also be generated once the case is created.
Assign a case: Click on the case number listed for a particular project and assign the case to the particular developer by selecting from options under “Assigned To”. The person who has been assigned will receive an email for the case assigned.
Resolved and Closed:
The case will be analyzed and the required fix will be done by the developer. Once resolved, the status of the case is changed to “Resolved (Fixed) “and assigned back to the tester or owner of the case who created.
Starting from creating a case until the case is closed, as and when the status is changed and assigned, emails are generated accordingly. This is how each case is tracked and this is an important feature of any good bug tracking tool.
In FogBugz, there is an interesting feature that is not seen in any other bug tracking tool. It gives the user various Resolved status options like ‘Resolved(Fixed)’, ‘Resolved (Not Reproducible)’, ‘Resolved (Duplicate)’, ‘Resolved(Postponed)’, ‘Resolved(Won’t Fix)’ and ‘Resolved (By Design)’.
Based on the case type whether it is a Bug, Feature, Inquiry or Schedule Item, it can either be directly closed by clicking on “Resolve and close” button or else change it as ‘Resolved’ so that the tester can test the resolved issue and finally if it meets the expected behavior of the requirement, the case can be ‘closed’.
This is how a case in FogBugz is tracked through various stages.
Useful And User-Friendly Filters
If you want to have a quick look at the cases based on specified attributes, create a ‘Filter’ and save it. To do this, click on the Cases dropdown menu. We can see a list of filter items of ‘Current Filter’.
Select the required filter items to view. For Example, if we want to see all the open cases of ‘Testproject’ for ‘Backlog’ milestone which are ‘Bugs’, give the filter name as ‘Backlog’ and save it. This filter will be saved as a ‘Backlog’ under the Cases menu dropdown.
Navigate around and if you want to see the above-created filter cases again, then just click on the ‘Backlog’ filter under Cases menu dropdown.
Likewise, Manage filters will list all the created filters. On clicking the ‘Filter Name’ hyperlink, you will be navigated to the respective page filter.
Click on ‘Select Columns’ dropdown on the right side. By checking any of the filter attributes checkboxes, you can add it to the filtered column grid list. Again by unchecking you can remove the not required filter attributes.
Isn’t it very user-friendly?
Export To Excel
Just click on the ‘More’ dropdown on the right side and select ‘Export to Excel’ option. All that you can see in the grid list can be exported to Excel.
Useful Search Option Feature
FogBugz provides a very good ‘Search’ feature. You can search for any case just by entering the case number in the ‘Search’ text box. It supports very advanced search queries also, For Example, we can search using OR.
It returns a maximum of 50 case results, sorted by relevance.
Also, it uses the ‘axis: query’ to search for specific fields.
For Example, If you want to search for the cases assigned to Tester1 you can use the query
assigned to:” Tester 1”
where ‘assigned to’ is the ‘axis’ and “Tester 1” is the query.
You can find a useful guide here for advanced searching.
#2) Project Management
Schedules
An important aspect of any project is the ‘Schedules’. Using this tool, if you want to know the information related to Project Schedule, click on the ‘Schedule’ button and select the respective project.
Here it is! Complete information related to the Project Schedule is displayed.
Timesheet
FogBugz provides the feature to enter timesheet on a daily basis as it is useful to track the time spent on the cases, indirectly helping to track the project milestones/sprints.
Track Projects
In FogBugz, on the right side of the page, you can see a list of options. Click on the “Projects” option. It displays a list of Projects which are tracked as shown below.
Iteration Planner
To plan the iterations of the project backlogs effectively and efficiently, the Iteration Planner is used. The cases here are collected in milestones, which can be mapped for a sprint. The below image explains how we create a planner.
Enter the name of the planner and click on the ‘Create’ button. After creating a Planner, now add the milestone to it. Adding milestones is just like adding new sprints.
It is similar to planning like, you will be completing these many cases under this milestone. Typically, you can create a ‘Backlog’ from which you can pull the cases you want to complete in the current milestone. Just drag and drop the cases into the current milestone.
FogBugz identifies the case created whether it is a Bug, Feature, Inquiry or Schedule Item by associating a unique color image with each one as can be seen in the below screenshot.
We can either create a new case in the current milestone by clicking on the ‘ + ‘ plus icon button near the ‘Cases’ or you can use the existing cases of the project. When you are adding a new case, just hit ‘Enter’ to confirm for saving the case.
In milestones, we can view information regarding case description, case number, Estimation that is story points, and priority.
Click on the image of any case as shown below, you can see the list of case types as ‘Bug’, ‘Feature’, ‘Inquiry’ or ‘Schedule Item’ in the dropdown.
Select any of the cases, click on the “Needs Estimate’ link, enter the time and press enter button to save the estimate. This estimation will help in planning and tracking projects.
As and when the time is updated for each case, we can see the progress bar. For Example, the estimate provided for a particular case is 5 hours, out of which you entered 2 hours have been spent on the case, it will show the remaining 3 hours in the progress bar as shown below.
#3) Agile Management: Kanban
A brief introduction to Agile methodology. Agile in its simplest form provides a framework to maintain focus on the rapid delivery of business value. As it involves continuous planning and feedback, it ensures that value is maximized throughout the development process.
Agile has very good characteristics. It is used, implemented by many and popular nowadays as it easily adapts to changing requirements throughout the process. It addresses the customer requirements at the earliest. As it follows adaptive planning, it results in early delivery.
Any suggestion/change request from the client can be included in the sprint cycle itself, instead of waiting for the whole development process to complete. And hence it results in continuous improvement.
There are many flavors of Agile. ‘Kanban’ is one of the popular frameworks followed in Agile methodology. The strategy of any ‘Kanban board’ function is to ensure that the team’s work is visualized, the workflow is standardized and optimized, and all blockers and dependencies are immediately identified and resolved.
Every work item is represented as a card in Kanban known as ‘Kanban card’. This allows a team member to track the progress of work through its workflow in a highly visual manner.
A basic Kanban board has a three-step workflow: ‘To Do’, ‘In Progress,’ and ‘Done’.
In FogBugz, just click on the Kanban button, it will take you to the Kanban board represented as below. Here, you can see a list of cases that are yet to be started (To Do), cases that are under ‘Doing’ (In progress) and cases closed (Done).
To add a new case to the Kanban board, click on ‘+’ plus button next to ‘Cases” as shown below and click on “create new”.
If you want to check for the cases, which are created in the milestone, just click on “Cases in this milestone”.
#4) WIKI
Another useful feature provided by FogBugz is ‘WIKI’. It is used for creating and maintaining any kind of documents being it ‘Requirement’ document, end-user document, status pages or report, etc.. You can create a ‘Wiki’ as shown below. While creating a wiki, by selecting proper ‘Permission’ you can control the users, who can edit it.
When the permission is given to all users to edit, anyone in the team can edit the wiki and add their pages simultaneously. It checks for changes in conflict when two users are updating the same wiki simultaneously. It provides a very good collaboration in a multiuser environment.
You can upload your project-related documents here and it will maintain the history of who and all edited, what, and when.
A list of ‘Wikis’ created is listed below. By accessing the edit link of Wiki, you can edit it. Also, community users can be added by providing either only read or read and write access.
Conclusion
This tutorial is just a brief introduction to the important features of the FogBugz tool. There is more to understand when you start using it and explore to understand more. Please try the free trial version and explore to know better, have a look and experience how user-friendly it is.
I hope this introduction to FogBugz was useful. If you are a FogBugz user please share your experiences.