Private beta test communication and infrastructure

Answer 1

I'd suggest having a trac like site, or vBulletin's project addon.

Personally, I built a solution that was fitting to the solution, and is called Bugzilla, but any project management suit should do the trick.

Answer 2

1. We have our beta testers communicate through our local testers (QA) usually via email not directly with the developers.

   • This allows QA manage the bugs/issues by combine duplicates, remove non-bugs (feature request) etc.
   • Also they will be the ones retesting the issues before they go back out to the users so it's important for them to fully understand the bug/issue, they may build some automated test if necessary.
   • They document it so that it is consistent, some beta testers are good testers but not good at documentation.
   • Any huge/complicated issues can be discussed as a group (developers, QA, beta testers)

2. We use Team Foundation Server but like I said we don't allow the beta-testers access to it. It is all managed by QA. We are not are not "tightly coupled" with TFS but is does the job.

Just they way that works well for us...