Issue Tracking? What’s That?

It might be that you have heard an issue tracker or issue tracking system mentioned, and you may have even been advised that your business could benefit from using one. But what exactly is an issue tracking system?

Basically and issue tracker is an application that allows an organisation to log and track the progress of issues that occur during a project, and allows users to track in a variety of ways, such as by priority, owner or a customised field.

Issue trackers also allows organisations to produce reports on these issues, giving them access to detailed reports and breakdowns which can then be learnt from, which not only improves current projects but can also be applied when planning future tasks.

The issues which can be tracked using an issue tracking system range from a customer complaint to a server failure and issue trackers are utilised in a range of businesses, from call centres to software development houses. However, regardless of the industry, issue tracking systems work in a very similar way and follow a simple workflow.

In most cases the workflow pattern will develop as follows. An issue or problem is identified and reported. Once it has been reported and defined as a ‘real’ issue it is then it is created in the system, then once the issue is ‘live whenever action is taken to resolve it this is also entered into the system. Once these actions have lead to a resolution, the issue is then marked as resolved.

This is obviously a bare bones of the process, but essentially most issue entered into a tracking system will follow the same pattern, but often with additional stages and actions, such as assigning issues or specific tasks to particular users, or giving different issues different priority levels.

An organisation or business can make sure problems are rectified more efficiently if they adopt the use of an issue tracker and often find that there is a more clear understanding of an issues progress amongst those involved.

project management software often incorporates an issue tracker which will allow all your project monitoring and reporting to be in one place.