Does a bug tracking application that does this exist?

Question

< EDIT > My initial wording seems to have caused some confusion. I'm NOT at all married to SharePoint. Please suggest other things that can do something like what I'm talking about if you know about them. < / EDIT >

Right now we've got SharePoint installed, but it isn't really set up or anything. I'm faced with the task of possibly customizing it (as it seems is necessary) so it can be used as a bug / new feature / general development tracking system.

Sooooo I'm trying to figure out if that's possible, or if there is another system we should use. More importantly, I'm trying to figure out how issues (new development, bugs, feature requests, etc) can best be tracked. Here's the workflow I envision:

• "Clients" (non developers, whoever they may be) decide there is something developers need to do.
• They submit their request to a web site, specifying which application or project it's related to.
• Newly submitted requests go into an "unassigned" pool. Some kind of inbox for the project they are associated with that is accessible by specific people for each project -- call them project managers or something.
• The manager for the aforementioned project or application looks them over and gives them a priority.
• He then assigns them to an individual.
• It'd be cool if lower priority tasks could be thrown into a "whoever can do this first do it!" pool that everyone (maybe confined to that specific application's team) has access to.

Is this stupid? Shortsighted? Is there an application that already works mostly like this?

Thanks guys!

Answer 1

This seems like something most bug tracking systems can do with the right configuration.

My favorite is Redmine. It lets you configure users, allow access to the public, and has a completely customizable workflow for each type of ticket.

Answer 2

Pretty much all bugtracking systems do what you want. Bugzilla is my favorite so far. It is very configurable/customizable to track whatever you would like.

For your last bullet point you could create a custom search for the lower priority tasks and share it with all the developers and just make them aware that if they need something to do, just hit that search button.

Answer 3

All this is pretty default for every IssueTracking software I know of. Depending on your taste I can give you some suggestions:

If you don't want to setup the software yourself:

• LighthouseApp free for opensource
• probably there are more, but this is the only one I know right now.

If you're able to do it yourself there are some options:

• Redmine written in Ruby - my personal favorite (integrated forum, wiki, document server)
• Trac written in Python
• Mantis written in PHP

If you want to pay you can use - JIRA written in Java

A long list of many Issue/Bug Tracker software can be found on wikipedia

It'd be cool if lower priority tasks could be thrown into a "whoever can do this first do it!" pool that everyone (maybe confined to that specific application's team) has access to.

As far as I know, there is no such explicit feature, but IMHO this is a policy thing. Just tell you developers, that they can do all bugs that aren't assigned to anybody, if they hava some time.

Answer 4

It is important to find a system that the users feel is easy to use. We do exactly this with VisionProject today. We have set up a web page on our Intranet where any user can add issues quickly. If they want to follow the progress of the issue, they can log in to the portal that comes with VisionProject. Now, this is still very easy to use, but has a bit more functionality, where they can communicate with the developer and view documents that the developer might publish (still within the system).

We use the system in the way that we have the system checking what kind of issue is coming in and auto-assigning the issue. This makes it more easy for the flow in the daily work.

So, I really recommend to check it out. We are really satisfied with it.

Answer 5

Highly recommend Fogbugz.

Answer 6

Maybe this bug tracker will help you - BontQ

Answer 7

fixx should be able to pretty much do everything you want although it might need slight tweaks to the workflow as follows,

• "Clients" (non developers, whoever they may be) decide there is something developers need to do.

fixx has a "Client" account type which allows you to give access to external clients to specific projects, so this should suit you perfectly.

• They submit their request to a web site, specifying which application or project it's related to.

Clients can login to the system to submit issues directly against a project or you could use the simple REST API to create an anonymous submission form on a website that creates issues in fixx directly.

• Newly submitted requests go into an "unassigned" pool. Some kind of inbox for the project they are associated with that is accessible by specific people for each project -- call them project managers or something.

In fixx, any issues raised by a client are automatically assigned to the Project Lead/Manager. There is no specific Unassigned Inbox but you could create filters which determine issues. Otherwise, there is a concept of "Undecided" versions (milestone) which pretty much works like a generic Inbox.

• The manager for the aforementioned project or application looks them over and gives them a priority.

Using a filter for "Assigned to me" or "Undecided" versions, based on which approach you take.

• He then assigns them to an individual.

PM can then use the re-assign capability to assign it to an "internal user" who is usually a developer.

• It'd be cool if lower priority tasks could be thrown into a "whoever can do this first do it!" pool that everyone (maybe confined to that specific application's team) has access to.

Again, you could create a "filter" which is named (literally) "Whoever can do this first" and users can pick issues at random from that.

Hope this helps.

Answer 8

The workflow you've described seems to be similar to the one we follow. YouTrack should be able to cover your needs:

• Youtrack is a web application, so can be easily used by the external users. You may tune the access to the your projects to make some of them visible to all users or to specific user group(s) only.
• You can enable authentication through the OpenID providers. The issue can be also reported without registration with the guest account.
• For each project/subsystem you can setup the default assignee. So all the issues related to specific project will be automatically assigned.
• The assigned person/manager gives the priority and reassigns the issue to an individual/developer. All these actions can be performed at once and for multiple issues in Youtrack via the command window. It makes the process fast and easy.
• The lower priority issues can be tagged with "whoever can do this first do it!" tag, so it'll be visible to all the team members. You can also tune the visibility per-issue to make some issues (even in public projects) visible to specific user group(s) only.

Answer 9

Take a peak at Gemini, it should be able to do all you require. We used it and our clients love the fact that they can see their tickets (we only show them theirs).