FogBugz
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FogBugz is an integrated web-based project management system featuring bug/issue tracking, discussion forums, wikis, customer relationship management, and evidence based scheduling developed by Fog Creek Software.
The feature tracker allows users to manage, filter, sort and navigate a tree-structure of tasks, that contain information, tags and attached files related to a particular issue. Discussion forums and wikis may be created around any topic and posts/pages may be added into the same. Users may integrate their email accounts into the system to send/receive email and create issues regarding the same.
Prediction of future tasks and completion estimation of future milestones are based upon past records of user performance. Users must manually input an estimated duration for every task, and state the task they are currently working on which builds a daily work log (timesheet) that may be reviewed later.
History
FogBugz originally started as an internal bug tracking tool for Fog Creek Software while the company was focused on consulting. It was first released in November, 2000.[1]
In 2003, FogBugz was originally written in classic Active Server Pages and VBScript. In order to run on both Microsoft Windows and Linux, Fog Creek developed an ASP to PHP compiler called Thistle.[2]
As the requirements for FogBugz grew, it became clear that VBScript did not have the features desired to continue development. Instead of switching technologies, Fog Creek decided to start extending VBScript with modern programming language features such as first-class functions, automatic programming, and object-relational mapping.[3] The result was an entirely new programming language, Wasabi, with a compiler written in C#, that compiled to .NET or PHP, depending on what the client requires.[4]
Version history
- Version 1.0 - November, 2000
- Version 2.0 - March, 2001
- Version 3.0 - November, 2002
- Version 3.1 - February, 2003
- Version 4.0 - December, 2004
- Version 5.0 - March, 2006
- Version 6.0 - August, 2007
- Version 7.0 - July, 2009
- Version 8.0 - September, 2010
Features
- Project management
- Manage multiple projects, with areas within each and milestones within each
- Tree-structure outline of tasks, issues, bugs, features or customer inquiries
- Full history maintained per task, including edits, user assignments and updates
- Integrated file upload system to attach any file to tasks, optional screenshot tool
- Local search to filter list of tasks based upon keywords in title, description, etc.
- Time management
- Manually entered estimates per task, along with manually set start/end times
- Timesheet and user history based upon work done on tasks, per day
- Scheduling with milestones, to predict completion of tasks assigned
- Evidence-Based Scheduling to accurately predict completion dates and milestone probability
- Visually represented timelines per user, displaying milestone at past/present/future dates
- All predictions are displayed in ranges, depending on the accuracy of the user's estimates
- Overall management
- Display line, bar, column or pie charts for any filtered view of the task tree-structure
- View charts based upon present data, or past historical records of tasks
- Tabular reports of tasks, users, projects and their parameters or records
- Drill down to view hierarchical information within a section of a chart
Deployment
Pricing is based on user licenses, where each logged-in user must have one license. Each user in the application can filter tasks assigned to him/her and may create new, update existing, or resolve/close tasks with his/her name.
It is offered in two versions, an online hosted version entitled "FogBugz On Demand", and a self managed version that may be installed on client servers. With the self managed version, full access to the FogBugz database is possible by system administrators increasing automation possibility.
API
The FogBugz API allows developers to integrate FogBugz into their applications. It allows applications to access and modify FogBugz data. It is implemented as XML responses to HTTP requests.
Prediction
Evidence-based Scheduling is a software estimation approach created by Joel Spolsky.[5] This approach is similar[6] to that used in Agile software development where it is referred to as velocity.
In standard project management, non-project activities such as holidays, sick days, project support and breaks are expected to be excluded from schedules and recorded time usage so that only the time actually spent on a project is recorded.
In practice non-project time can be difficult to cleanly separate out. As one example, Spolsky gives "boss's painful fishing stories" as time usage that is unlikely to be identified separately on the schedule.
To avoid these complexity issues, Evidence-based Scheduling measures and estimates only the actual total time taken to complete a particular task. EBS then uses the Monte Carlo method to adjust predicted completion dates based on the accuracy of each worker's prior estimates.
Instead of a single completion date, this method produces a table of possible completion dates, each with an associated probability of being correct. This gives management a more accurate picture of how reliable the estimates are.
See also
References
- ^ Livingston, Jessica (2007-01-22). "Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days". Apress. Retrieved 2008-02-27.
- ^ Spolsky, Joel (2005-03-30). "The Road to FogBugz 4.0: Part III". Retrieved 2008-10-17.
- ^ Spolsky, Joel (2006-09-01). "Language Wars". Retrieved 2008-10-17.
- ^ Spolsky, Joel (2006-09-01). "Wasabi". Retrieved 2008-10-17.
- ^ Evidence Based Scheduling - Joel on Software
- ^ Evidence Based Scheduling - C2
External links
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