SRS – Elementool Blog

How To prevent Bugs From Falling Through the Cracks

Hi, I’m Allison.

Today I want to talk to you about bugs and how to prevent them from falling through the cracks and getting ignored.

I don’t like bugs. Bugs cause problems. But bugs are a part of the programming game. I hate it when you think that the product is ready for release and after it’s out clients call to report bugs. That can be pretty embarrassing.

But you know what can be even worse? When a bug is discovered by the client, and then you find out that this bug was actually known to the team before the release — but because of a weak reporting process, it fell through the cracks and was never fixed.

It’s like when you make a grocery list for a big meal. You buy everything on the list, but then when you’re in the middle of making the meal, you realize you’re missing an ingredient. You look over your list and realize you did include it – it’s just that you scribbled it on the back of the paper instead of putting it neatly on the front with everything else, so it was overlooked.

That’s annoying enough in cooking, but it’s really bad news in project management, because the stakes are much higher. For instance, I was once working on a project that we had just finished and released, only to discover afterwards that there was a significant bug. Well, when my team and I re-traced our steps to try to figure out what went wrong, we discovered that someone had found the bug and simply didn’t report it correctly. As a result, a problem that could have easily been fixed long before the software release was overlooked.

That’s why Elementool utilizes the Bug Life Cycle model, an effective method for preventing bugs from falling through the cracks.

The cycle starts with new bugs and enhancements being submitted into the Elementool account by Quality Assurance as new issues.

Next, team leaders assign priority to new issues, and those issues are assigned to developers in the Elementool account.

After that, R&D fixes issues according to priority, and the issues’ status is changed to Fixed in the Elementool account. The issues are then assigned back to the QA for testing.

Following that, R&D releases a new internal version with fixed bugs and new features.

Then QA checks fixed issues in the new release, using the Elementool report engine.

Finally, fixed issues are closed in Elementool by QAand non-fixed issues are reopened in the Elementool account, allowing the cycle to resume.

By using the Bug Life Cycle model, Elementoolis able to keep bugs in check, making sure that any reported bugs are fixed before software is released.

You can get Elementool’s Issue Tracking for only $89.99 a month with unlimited users.

I would like to offer you to add three more services to your Issue Tracking account. Any combination of three additional services from the following:
• Help Desk – for running customer support and making your clients happy.
• File Sharing – for sharing files on the online and saving time.
• Test Cases – for making sure everything is tested and no bugs are slipping through the crack
• Requirements Management – for making sure the project is developed according to what your clients want.
• Scheduling – for managing the project plan and schedule and making sure tasks are completed on time.
• Conference – for running online meetings and improving communication.

Pick three of these services for only additional $30 a month.

Yes, that’s right.

For $119.99 a month you can have any combination of 4 Elementool services.
But that’s not all, if you upgrade your account now, I’ll give you 50% off the rate of the first month.
For example: if you upgrade now to $119.99, you will pay only $59.99 this time.
You better hurry because this special discount will expire at the end of the day.

So click on the button below and upgrade your account now!

How To prevent Bugs From Falling Through the Cracks

Hi, I’m Allison.

Today I want to talk to you about bugs and how to prevent them from falling through the cracks and getting ignored.

That’s why Elementool utilizes the Bug Life Cycle model, an effective method for preventing bugs from falling through the cracks.

The cycle starts with new bugs and enhancements being submitted into the Elementool account by Quality Assurance as new issues.

Next, team leaders assign priority to new issues, and those issues are assigned to developers in the Elementool account.

After that, R&D fixes issues according to priority, and the issues’ status is changed to Fixed in the Elementool account. The issues are then assigned back to the QA for testing.
Following that, R&D releases a new internal version with fixed bugs and new features.
Then QA checks fixed issues in the new release, using the Elementool report engine.
Finally, fixed issues are closed in Elementool by QAand non-fixed issues are reopened in the Elementool account, allowing the cycle to resume.

By using the Bug Life Cycle model, Elementoolis able to keep bugs in check, making sure that any reported bugs are fixed before software is released.

You can get Elementool’s Issue Tracking with unlimited users.
I would like to offer you to add three more services to your Issue Tracking account. Any combination of three additional services from the following:
• Help Desk – for running customer support and making your clients happy.
• File Sharing – for sharing files on the online and saving time.
• Test Cases – for making sure everything is tested and no bugs are slipping through the crack
• Requirements Management – for making sure the project is developed according to what your clients want.
• Scheduling – for managing the project plan and schedule and making sure tasks are completed on time.
• Conference – for running online meetings and improving communication.
Pick three of these services for only additional $30 a month.

Yes, that’s right.

And it gets even better.
You can try Elementool for 30 days for free.

So there is nothing for you to lose.

Open a free Elementool trial account. Use the system with all its features for free for 30 days. If you like it, keep it.

If not, don’t use it. No strings attached and no questions asked.

Very simple.

So click on the Sign Up button below now!

How To Save $1,360 For Every Team Member

This is a Café Latte and this is a muffin. Together they cost $6.
What if there was a machine that, if you fed it a Café Latte and a muffin every day, it could save you $13,160 a month for every 10 people that you have on your team, which is a daily savings of $438?

Would you want this machine?

Impossible, you say.

Today I’m going to show you how you can save 340 hours, or $13,160 a month for every 10 people that you have on your team, by using Elementool for a low investment of $6 per day.

You might think at first that you need to take a big step to save so much money, but you’ll soon discover that the small improvements add up to big savings.
I would like to break that down so that you can get a better sense of how this works.
First, there’s Project Snapshot.

With Elementool’s Issue Tracking, your team members login to the account and immediately see a snapshot overview showing all relevant information regarding issues currently in the system. They can see exactly how many issues are assigned to them, sorted by status, severity, priority or any other criteria you choose.

This type of report takes about one minute to create using in-house software or Excel. Done once an hour, that is 8 minutes a day, adding up to 3 hours per month per person or $150 worth of a programmer’s time, spent on creating reports instead of spent working on the project. So if you use Elementool instead, you’re looking at $1500 in savings for 10 team members.
Second, File Attachment.

Another near constant demand for the QA or development person is the need to attach files to various issues reported to the system. Then, when a team member works on fixing an issue, he has access to the files related to the issue. For example, issues related to the UI could be pictured in a screen shot and attached to the issue to aid in quickly describing the problem. There’s no need for the user to conduct a tiresome search for the screen shot in the company’s file server. On average, each person spends five hours per month on file searching. But using Elementool, that time is reduced to about 5 minutes a month because you don’t need to look for the files, they are right there, attached to the issues. That’s a cost saving of $2500 for every 10 team members.
Next

Organized and clear information saves communication time for developers when interfacing with the tester who reported the issue. When issues are reported using Excel spreadsheets or e-mail, the developer often needs to contact the tester to get more information. That extra time is costly. It’s an average of 5 minutes of a team member’s time. If these actions are performed an average of 10 times a day, it’s 50 minutes of wasted time. That is about 18 hours or $916 a month per person. You can do the math yourself: $9160 for every 10 people on the team.

So far we have 1500 + 2500 + 9160 = $13,160

That’s an annual saving of $157,920 for every 10 people on your team.

Now thing about how much you save if you have 30 people on your team ($473,760/year)
Or 80 people ($1,263,360/year)

There are few more time savings activities that cannot even be measured and can save you much more time and money while running the project.
Project Control is another important task.

Knowing how many open issues there are in each stage of the project and how much time it takes for issues to be fixed can provide the project manager better control over their project. Project managers find it difficult to run the project according to schedule if they don’t know at any given moment how many open issues there are to fix, what the priority of each issue is, which issues can be postponed until the next release and how long it takes for issues to be fixed. Elementool enables you to run reports that show you within seconds exactly how many issues are still open, what their priority is and how long it takes for issues to be fixed.

Performing development and testing tasks according to their priority can increase efficiency and prevent unnecessary waste of time during the product development process. In many cases developers don’t know the priority of each task and often spend more time on low priority tasks than high priority tasks. As a result the project is not completed on time. Elementool enables you to define the priority and severity of individual issues and assign them to the different developers. This way, developers know which issues are assigned to them and what the priority of each issue is. Fixing issues according to priority is yet another priceless advantage that comes with using Elementool.

Upgrade your Elementool account and start saving right away.

When you upgrade, you will get Elementool’s
• Issue Tracking that enables you to track new bugs, prioritize and assign issues to team members, generate reports, send email messages between team members, attach files, type notes on a message board, customize the account according to your special needs and more.
• Help Desk for running customer support, create a Contact Us form, store all the messages received from and sent to customers in a database, track and view the correspondence history of each message, generate reports and more.
• Scheduling lets you design the project plan, monitor projects and resource performance, define different tasks, compare estimated time requirements with actual time reports, calculate the project cost based on the time reports submitted by the users, create Gantt charts and more.
• Requirements enables you to collect the full project’s feature list, assign priorities, create SRS documents, assign requirements to team members and much more.
• Test Cases to manage and delegate test cases so that bugs don’t get lost or overlooked. To track new test cases, define test case steps and procedure, prioritize and assign test cases to your team members, generate reports and customize the accounts according to your needs.
• And File Sharing that lets you to upload and share files from any place in the world. The web-based file sharing from Elementool quick to set up, easy to use and cost-effective.

And it gets even better.
You can try Elementool for 30 days for free.
So there is nothing for you to lose.

Open a free Elementool trial account. Use the system with all its features for free for 30 days. If you like it, keep it.
If not, don’t use it. No strings attached and no questions asked.

Very simple.

So click on the Sign Up button below now!

Learn How to Create SRS Documents in 10 Seconds

Hi, it’s Allison again. When most people think of three little letters that might save your life, SOS comes to mind. But for me, S-R-S is the ultimate lifesaver when it comes to project management. SRS stands for Software Requirements Specification, which is a document that fully describes the expected behavior of a software system.

Functional requirements are documented in an SRS, as are non-functional requirements such as performance goals and descriptions of quality attributes.

The SRS states the functions and capabilities that a software system needs to provide, as well as the constraints that it must respect. The SRS provides the basis for all subsequent project planning, design, coding, and testing. Virtually everyone involved in the project rely on the SRS. The development team, maintenance staff, testers, technical writers, support people, and the marketing department, This is why this document is so important.

There are many significant benefits to having a SRS document. For starters, the SRS improves communication between your team members by saving and displaying the product feature description in one central location that everybody can easily access. It also prevents confusion within your team by maintaining an up-to-date definition list of all the features included in the project. This way you ensure that everyone develops the same set of features, avoiding a situation in which there are several different versions of product documents out there. And because all that information is available in one document, the SRS makes it easy for new employees to quickly learn the details of the project.

Another benefit that comes from the development of the SRS document is that it ultimately saves you the effort and cost of late-stage re-design and re-testing. That is because putting the SRS together requires all stakeholders to agree on the requirements at the beginning of the project.

Given that estimating costs and developing a project schedule can be a challenge for any project manager, the SRS document provides a great deal of help in that area as well by acting as a basis for creating such estimates.

Other benefits of utilizing an SRS document include its ability to provide a basis for enhancement of the product at a later time. The SRS can also provide a baseline when it comes time to develop plans for validation and verification.

Furthermore, the Software Requirements Specification functions as a contract between the client and your company. Once the SRS is complete, you can simply send it to your clients, and it will act as an agreement of what should be developed.

Now I initially planned to give you a template of an SRS document that you can use to create your own. But then I thought, why do that, when you can just use Elementool’s Requirements Management to automatically create SRS documents, in seconds, right from your feature requirements list? Simply:
Go to the ‘View Requirements’ page.
Click on the Print Requirements button.
On the right side, select the features you wish to include in the SRS document.
Move them to the left side.
Click on the Print Document button.
And, voila, I have an SRS document ready in less than 10 seconds.

It couldn’t be easier!