Every software company has a bug triage process for finding anomalies in the product or service offerings. Without this process, a software company will be unable to rectify the flaws in its products/services. In addition, the organization will also be unable to provide proper after-sales assistance. Not only that but not having a defect triage process for bug tracking will also affect the productivity of the core development and QA testing. 

It will also compromise the organization’s primary objective, that of producing a flawless service or product. What is the use of troubling the customers by giving them something riddled with defects? 

What is a Defect Triage? 

To induce a defect triage system in your organization, you need to understand the whole process. In this procedure, the bugs are identified. Then each bug is prioritized based on how severe it is. What is the frequency of its appearance? And what is the risk at stake?

Apart from the method mentioned above of prioritizing bug finding, there are other types of factors that also need to be considered. The software testing system or the Quality Assurance system is also helpful in determining how fixing a following should be prioritized. This is entirely based on the factors that have been mentioned.

Points to focus on while running the Bug Triage Process

• The defect triage process involves identifying and prioritizing tracker issues and assuring that the reported bug is an improvement feature or a request feature. 
• We also have to assess whether all this has been managed properly. 
• After the Quality Assurance Team begins the test execution process, they start the reporting phase, informing the rest of the team about the bugs.

That is when the Defect Triage Meeting is organized. The defect triage meetings, also called the bug Councils, are then divided into various project meetings as per the resolution situation. 

The categorization is thus, as follows – 

• Bugs that need to be fixed presently
• Bugs that can be fixed afterward
• Bugs that don’t need any fixing

Why is a Bug Triage Process required? 

The objective of having a Bug Triage system in an organization is to assess the process, sequence all these necessary processes and allocate how to resolve the bugs that have been discovered. 

• During the entirety of the process, the team needs to confirm how problematic the bug is. Then it needs to assess what processes it requires to be fixed.
• How would they be making those required changes as per the requirement? It could be a momentary defect or something recurring.
• They should also be able to resolve any additional issues as laid out by the client. 
• After finalizing the method(s) in which they would resolve the bugs and allocate the resources for their elimination, they would get down to work. 

Another notable feature of the Bug Triage Process is that this system is mainly used in Agile Project Management.

The course of a Defect Triage Meeting

The testing team’s leader hands a bug report pointing out the new bugs that were located during the testing. During these meetings, a perusal of each bug is done to assess whether the priority and severity assigned to it are correct. Otherwise, there is a rearrangement of the resolution order.

• Defects are perused repeatedly till the issue is not resolved as per the protocol.
• This includes discussing the risk involved in defect resolution and how complex these bugs are. 
• The reassignment and rejection of processes are done in this stage.
• Then the updates are also recorded in this process. 
• Every attendee is provided with all these details. In addition, their inputs regarding the processes are also recorded.  

There are different phases in the Defect Triage Meeting, and here is an overview of the Bug Triage Process in the form of a questionnaire–

The Primary or the Initial Screening

In this phase, the following questions are asked – 

• Is it a request or a help issue?
• Has the defect been correctly pointed out, or is it a mistake in observation?
• Has any previous report on this issue been mentioned?
• Is it an issue arising out of an unsupported version?
• Is it an issue arising out of usability?
• Will this problem be resolved if a plugin eliminates the defects?
• Has it been caused because of third-party plugins?
• Is the solution a rational one?
• Can this issue be replicated or cloned in any manner?

The Confirmation Phase

In this phase, we need to ask the following questions – 

• What is the security level of the issue before and after the bug resolution?
• Has the summary of the bug been provided to the relevant members?
• What is the priority level assigned to each bug?
• What effect does the resolution bring out in the current version?
• Is the bug resolution process being documented?

The Follow-up or Revisiting Phase

In the concluding phase of the Bug Triaging Process, the following questions are asked –  

• Is the bug issue still lingering?
• Are any new resolutions required in the current version after the bug rectification?
• Are all the software product/service packages still relevant after fixing bugs?
• Are there any other duplication issues left?
• Are there any other bugs left?

These phases and questions summarize the whole Bug Triage Process.

What result can be expected out of the Bug Triaging?

The conclusion of each meeting will be done by providing each member who is present at the meeting with the bug triage statistics. All the report data will be handed out, and the issues present in these reports are expected to be resolved, or some action will undoubtedly be taken. The discussion of the meeting will be recorded so that it is helpful in future meetings.

How does BrowserStack help in the Bug Triage Process?

Since the sole objective of Bug Triage is the evaluation and prioritization of defect resolution, this process holds significance in the entire process of bug tracking and resolution. The frequency of meetings for the defect triage is therefore decided by considering team members’ overall project health and availability. 

With BrowserStack, the triage process has become more flexible due to the range of debugging options available:

• Live: Pre-installed developer tools on all remote desktop browsers and Chrome developer tools on real mobile devices (exclusive on BrowserStack)
• App Live: Real-time Device Logs from Logcat or Console

• Automate: Screenshots, Video Recording, Video-Log Sync, Text Logs, Network Logs, Selenium Logs, Console Logs
• App Automate: Screenshots, Video Recording, Video-Log Sync, Text Logs, Network Logs, Appium Logs, Device Logs, App Profiling

Also, your team can choose from integrations and project management tools such as GitHub and Slack to simplify your bug triage process.

Try BrowserStack

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