Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition provides a defect management solution which integrates into the Team System environment.
Visual Studio Team System 2008 has been designed with a number of inbuilt test tools. One of these test tools is for defect management. Work items are used in Team System to manage work.
A bug work item has four states:
- New -Test Engineers or Software Engineers are raising a bug.
- Active - Software Engineer is investigating bug and potentially fixing the bug.
- Resolved - Test Engineers is retesting bug (the Engineer should closes or re-actives the bug they opened).
- Closed – Bug is closed, however it is available to be re-activated if bug reappears.
Also the reason field, complements the state field, by indicating why a bug is in a given state.
Image 1 - The states & reasons of bug work item
I personally prefer the term “Issue”, instead of “Bug” or “Defect”.
From my experience, Software Engineers do not like bugs or defects raised against their code, when the problem relates to inadequate requirements and these requirements were perceived correct at the time of coding.
Basically the Software Engineer says ‘the software is “as designed”, it’s not a bug! The software works!’
I prefer using “Issue” as it is more associated with the final solution and therefore removes the blame from the Software Engineer.
The bug work item has five main parts:
- Title - Title of the bug report; one line summary.
- Classification - Detailing the software area the bug was found and its iteration.
- Status – Details the current state of the bug.
- Editor – History of all the bug’s editors for a given state.
- Description tabs - Addition information to support with the bug report.
Image 2 - Defect Management - Bug Report
My Configuration for Team System
Team System has a very powerful query tool; this tool allows user defined queries for querying any work item details. I have a number of queries defined, both individual and global.
Image 3 - My Query
Cool Features
- Software Engineers can check in change sets against an individual bug, and at the same time the bug’s state is changed to Resolved.
- TeamPlain: This web interface to Team System allows creation and execution of queries and to produce query outputs in the form of Microsoft Excel files and PDF files.
Wanted Feature
- A Team System configuration tool, that easily configures the Team System’s graphical user interface.
For example, the configuration tool would allow the simple adding of the “Known Issue” field and setting of mandatory fields to the bug report form; therefore not having to learn what configuration files require updating.
Homepage: MSDN
Download Trial: Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
Solution
This solution allows defect management to be integrated with Visual Studio Team System environment.
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