Requirements of an issue/bug tracker

Question

I've been looking at various issue/bug trackers available on the net. There are some very good ones, but I'm unable to use them as my server does not support Perl/Ruby (for example), I'm not too bothered however because I am able to write code in PHP and as such would prefer something in that language.

So I've taken it upon myself to write a custom issue tracker system. As of now it's in early planning stages, and before I continue, I'd like to find out what people need from such an application.

My current list of things to add include:

• Creating/Editing/Deleting issues - both on user and admin level
• Related issues (similar to that of STO)
• Admins will be able to create builds/milestones and version control of projects
• Admins will be able to assign users/groups to a project
• Roadmap of projects
• Possible SVN integration with Git? What do you think?

There are a couple more things I'd like to add, but I'm sure you'll think of a better way of adding such feature.

What would you like to see from an issue tracker?

Answer 1

I'm currently using redmine as my projects issue tracker. A few feature that might be added to your system would be :

• Email notifications for tickets.
• Personal page/dashboard for ticket/issue management
• Statistics Page ( not too useful )
• wiki

Answer 2

One big thing I think you left out is searching/filtering. Once you get the info into your issue tracker you must make it easy for your users to perform the following tasks:

• find a issues based on keyword searching, date created, author,category, ect
• decide on the next issue or issues to be examined/fixed based on a criteria (priority, date, milestone,status, ect).

I also use redmine and one pet peeve (having moved from Bugzilla) is that there is no easy way to step through a list of issue. In Bugzilla once you had a list, any specific issue had a next previous link to allow this. Redmine seems to not have this functionality.

Cheers, Drew

Answer 3

Try Mantis BT before you roll your own. Its written in php and has a pretty good set of features. Definitely recommended. It has all the features you mentioned, plus a web service framework, so you can build your own wrappers if need be

Answer 4

If you really want to roll your own, add

• The ability to save searches

• Extensive search filters

• Automatic periodic emailing of bug lists
• rss feeds