A simple bug reporting process your whole company can use
As Senior Product Manager I wear a lot of hats and am always looking to bring efficiency to my workflow. Part of my job is managing the various bug reports that come in from the rest of the business— validating, prioritising and preparing for development.
Early on in my current job I found a significant portion of my time was taken up with people bringing bugs to my attention — this was normally done verbally, on the spur of the moment as something occurred, and meant I had to hastily scribble down all possible information before that person went about their day. Things were inevitably missed, and more time had to be spent later on getting all the information needed so the developers could fix whatever had gone wrong.
Something had to change!
Enter the 3 tools that helped me streamline this process — Typeform, Zapier and Trello.
By implementing a lightweight process that uses the non-paid version of these 3 tools, I’ve been able to drastically reduce the amount of effort I expend dealing with bug reports, whilst greatly increasing the quality of reports I get through. All this without needing to give people training in Jira!
What these tools do
- Trello — project management
- Typeform — form creator
- Zapier — web automation, or more simply, you can use an action in one program to make an effect in another
How to set this process up
1. Create a new Trello board — this will be where all of your bug reports will land. If you don’t have a Trello account, go here to sign up
2. Create columns within your new board. It’s up to you what columns you think are necessary, I have a column for every step I’ll take the bug report through as this is what I use to communicate progress with the rest of my company
3. Now, go over to Typeform and create a new form — this is where you’ll set up the bug reporting template. If you don’t have a Typeform account, go here to sign up
4. Add questions to build your template. For example -
- Summary of bug
- URL (or equivalent locator) for where bug is happening
- What is the expected behaviour of this page or feature?
- What is the actual behaviour of this page or feature?
- What time and date did the bug occur at?
- What are the steps to reproduce?
- If applicable, what data was being entered when the bug occurred?
- Describe the business impact of this not being resolved
5. Go to Zapier and create a new zap — this is what will power your bug reporting process. If you don’t have a Zapier account, go here to sign up
6. Select Typeform as your trigger app, and Trello as your action app. Follow instructions to set up the trigger (when a new form is submitted) and action (create a new card). Make sure to test that it’s working!
7. Share the Typeform URL with your team and explain the new bug reporting process — including where they should check for updates.
And that’s it! If you follow these steps, you too can set up an efficient bug reporting process that your whole team can follow, and standardise the quality of reports you receive.
Bonus steps for even more efficiency
- Create a 2nd Zapier zap that triggers an email to you every time a new card appears on the board, so you’re proactively notified instead of having to check for new submissions
- Power-up your Trello board with Jira, so you can create Jira tickets directly from the information in the Trello card
