* A specialized Web-based project mgmt. tool
In the last issue, I discussed a general-purpose Web-based project management system. Today, I have another more specialized Web-based project management tool that focuses on one of the most difficult and complex areas of project management: software development.
Created by Fog Creek Software (see editorial links below) FogBugz is described as “a complete project management system for software teams.”
That description is however potentially misleading as FogBugz is not about code development but rather about managing feature requests, customer e-mail, bug tracking, as well as high level design discussions.
What distinguishes FogBugz is that the system is based on a philosophy of how the bug tracking process should work: “High ceremony bug tracking systems with hundreds of fields to fill out just don’t get used. When you use a complicated bug tracking system, most bug tracking happens informally: in e-mail, on post-its, and in comments in the source code: everywhere except the bug tracking database where it’s supposed to happen.”
Fog Creek continues: “A picture is worth a thousand words (and saves lots of typing!) That’s why the designers of FogBugz obsessed over making it easy to enter bugs. Our exclusive screenshot tool captures a screenshot with one mouse click and submits it to FogBugz with another. You can even highlight a part of the screenshot to indicate what you think is wrong. Many bugs can be entered in about ten seconds without touching the keyboard!”
FogBugz is designed for use by a team with fine-grained access permissions so you can grant permissions for groups based on clients or departments.
Moderated discussion groups (with spam filtering) are intended for both developers and customers and you can link discussion topics to FogBugz cases “to make sure your customers are getting replies to questions they ask in the discussion group,” says Fog Creek. Supporting this is automatic conflict detection, which warns of replying to a customer who has already received a reply.
You can manage bugs as groups with batch editing so that you can make adjustments such as changing all their priorities at once, and you can perform multiple steps such as resolving and then closing multiple bugs.
FogBugz includes an AutoSort feature that automatically sorts incoming e-mail into categories based on the training you provide and can compose and track e-mail to customers. When mail messages are received FogBugz can automatically send a confirmation e-mail to customers with an optional URL the customer can use to track the status of their case and you can set a timeout for responding to customer e-mail and track messages that haven’t been replied to in time.
To streamline customer responses FogBugz provides predefined “snippets” that Fog Creek says lets you respond to frequently-asked questions by typing a couple of keystrokes.
FogBugz is available for Windows (Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, and Windows Server 2003), SuSE, Debian, Red Hat, and Mandrake Linux as well as FreeBSD and Macintosh OS X.
FogBugz is licensed based on the total number of named users with currently active accounts and pricing starts at $99 for a single user.
