FogBugz is a complete project management system optimized for software teams. It helps you make better software by tracking, prioritizing, and coordinating the thousands of small tasks a development team has to do. FogBugz is web based, so you access most of the functionality through your web browser.
At the heart of FogBugz is a database of cases. There are three kinds of cases:
Bugs: things which don't work right
Features: new things being planned
Inquiries: email questions from customers
Every case is prioritized, categorized, and assigned to exactly one person on your team who must either resolve it or assign it to someone else. Developers work through their cases one by one, in order of priority. Source code integration makes it easy to see which check-ins were associated with which bugs or features, and allows you to set up an elegant online code review system.
Where do cases come from?
A case can be entered by someone on your team or by an outside customer. It can be submitted via the web or through email. Email inquiries can be automatically sorted into categories. A case can be entered automatically from running software in the field. For example, if your software crashes, it can upload details of the crash to FogBugz automatically. A handy screenshot tool that runs on your Windows or Macintosh desktop lets you submit a picture of a bug to FogBugz in two clicks. FogBugz even runs online discussion groups for your customers; when a customer finds a bug or brings up a feature request, a single click creates a new case linked to the discussion.
Slicing and Dicing
The FogBugz filter feature and advanced full-text search make it easy to sort and search. You can constantly re-prioritize and reassign cases and track estimates, making it easy to track your project and ship on schedule. When a release is done you can automatically generate release notes.
Customer Email
One of the best features of FogBugz is the email management capability. When an email message comes in from a customer, spam is automatically discarded and the remaining messages are sorted into categories, based on how you train the system. Anyone on the team can respond to email and instantly see the entire history of the email conversation with that customer. Customers get an automatic email reply with a URL they can click to check the status of their inquiry. When a customer asks a common question, you can reply with a predefined snippet with as few as two keystrokes. When a customer reports a bug, via email or on a discussion group, it can easily be assigned to a developer to fix and be tracked just like any other bug. You can assign due dates and receive escalation reports to make sure customers receive timely responses.
Discussion Groups
The discussion group feature allows you to create clean, simple, and easy-to-use discussion groups for your customers. Innovative anti-spam technology prevents abuse, while a super-simple user interface encourages participation. You can even customize the appearance of the discussion groups to fit right in with your corporate web site. You can set up private discussion groups which are a great way to coordinate far-flung teams of developers and capture their knowledge permanently.
Don't Let The Documentation Scare You!
FogBugz is quite an elaborate system, and as you learn more about it, you'll be surprised at just how useful it is for managing software projects. Although we have extremely detailed online documentation, the truth is that most people will never read it—FogBugz is that easy. The documentation is designed to be an "encyclopedia of FogBugz" that you can use to look things up. If you're just getting started, it's probably enough to read one topic—The Basics of Bug Tracking—and then dive into using FogBugz. Later you can refer back to the help topics as needed if you have any questions.
