Defect tracking is the process of finding defects in a product, (by inspection, testing, or recording feedback from customers), and making new versions of the product that fix the defects.
Defect tracking is important in software engineering as complex software systems typically have tens or hundreds of thousands of defects: managing, evaluating and prioritizing these defects is a difficult task. Defect tracking systems are computer database systems that store defects and help people to manage them.
Using Defect tracking tool the following process is followed
- Logging in to the tool
- Defect Life Cycle
- Creating a defect
- Changing status of defects
- Generating metrics and reports
In software development process, the bug has a life cycle. The bug should go through the life cycle to be closed. A specific life cycle ensures that the process is standardized. The bug attains different states in the life cycle. The life cycle of the bug can be shown diagrammatically as follows:
Description of Various Stages of Bug life cycle
1. New: When the bug is posted for the first time, its state will be ?NEW?. This means that the bug is not yet approved.
2. Open: After a tester has posted a bug, the lead of the tester approves that the bug is genuine and he changes the state as ?OPEN?.
3. Assign: Once the lead changes the state as ?OPEN?, he assigns the bug to corresponding developer or developer team. The state of the bug now is changed to ?ASSIGN?.
4. Test: Once the developer fixes the bug, he has to assign the bug to the testing team for next round of testing. Before he releases the software with bug fixed, he changes the state of bug to ?TEST?. It specifies that the bug has been fixed and is released to testing team.
5. Deferred: The bug, changed to deferred state means the bug is expected to be fixed in next releases. The reasons for changing the bug to this state have many factors. Some of them are priority of the bug may be low, lack of time for the release or the bug may not have major effect on the software.
6. Rejected: If the developer feels that the bug is not genuine, he rejects the bug. Then the state of the bug is changed to ?REJECTED?.
7. Duplicate: If the bug is repeated twice or the two bugs mention the same concept of the bug, then one bug status is changed to ?DUPLICATE?.
8. Verified: Once the bug is fixed and the status is changed to ?TEST?, the tester tests the bug. If the bug is not present in the software, he approves that the bug is fixed and changes the status to ?VERIFIED?.
9. Reopened: If the bug still exists even after the bug is fixed by the developer, the tester changes the status to ?REOPENED?. The bug traverses the life cycle once again.
10. Closed: Once the bug is fixed, it is tested by the tester. If the tester feels that the bug no longer exists in the software, he changes the status of the bug to ?CLOSED?. This state means that the bug is fixed, tested and approved.
Deciding Severity of the Bug
Bug priority is assigned on the below guidelines:
1. Critical / Show Stopper ? an item that prevents further testing of the product or function under test can be classified as Critical Bug. No workaround is possible for such bugs. Examples of this include a missing menu option or security permission required to access a function under test.
2. Major / High ? a defect that does not function as expected/designed or cause other functionality to fail to meet requirements can be classified as Major Bug. The workaround can be provided for such bugs. Examples of this include inaccurate calculations; the wrong field being updated, etc.
3. Average / Medium ? the defects which do not conform to standards and conventions can be classified as Medium Bugs. Easy workarounds exists to achieve functionality objectives. Examples include matching visual and text links which lead to different end points.
4. Minor / Low ? Cosmetic defects which does not affect the functionality of the system can be classified as Minor Bugs.
