The Advantages and Disadvantages to Bug Tracking Software

Bug tracking has been around as early as the 1940’s, just not in a software form. In these early days, simply using a pen and a paper created tracking systems. It evolved from then to using spreadsheets. Now there is bug tracking software like the defect tracking tool and even more specific programs like Mantis and Bugzilla, just to name a couple. As with anything that evolves however, there will always be those that are 100% for the programs and those that are against it. This article will cover all claims – both positive and negative – of bug tracking software like the defect tracking tool.

The Positive Claims

It certainly depends on the type of bug tracking software that is used, but it seems as if there are many more advantages to these tools than disadvantages. The most obvious advantage is that these types of tools allow companies to keep a record of the issues that are recorded, who fixed them, and even how long it took to fix the issue for some types of programs. Customers are encouraged to be as detailed as they can be when requesting that an issue be fixed so that companies can complete their requests as quickly as possible. The fact that the issues are recorded and saved is a huge benefit for the companies because sending the recorded bug list with the purchased software is a common practice. This is a benefit to customers because if it is a common error, they can simply look up this issue in the previously recorded bug list. However, if the list is incredibly long (a common disadvantage) it can become more of a hassle.

The Negative Claims

As with anything that has a list of positive aspects there is also a list of negative aspects, though there are few. One of the biggest complaints is not so much from the bug tracking software or defect tracking tool itself but more from the process of submitting issue requests. Customers need to be extremely detailed with their issue requests if they want a detailed response. Miscommunication isn’t a fault of the product, the customer, or the company – it’s simply something that happens. Customers and companies alike both need to remember to be patient with each other and to treat each other with a mutual respect. A second complaint that was previously mentioned is the length of issues in some of these software programs.

Some customers don’t have the patience to look through a long list of software issues that have been previously recorded and this causes frustration among the companies that took the time to purchase software that saves them. The length of issues that are submitted can also become a problem because if there are too many issues submitted and not enough engineers to address them, some can get overlooked. Nobody likes to be forgotten, but usually these types of bug tracking software include detailed instructions and are easy to use.

Usually when a company purchases a bug tracking software or defect tracking tool it already has an experienced IT department in place. Whatever the software is that is being used with these programs should have some sort of backup for when the work is completed so it does not get lost if the issues that occur are deadly.

Source by Keith Andrews