Issue tracking system

Draft

“An issue tracking system (also ITS, trouble ticket system, support ticket, request management or incident ticket system) is a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of issues, as needed by an organization. Issue tracking systems are commonly used in an organization's customer support call center to create, update, and resolve reported customer issues, or even issues reported by that organization's other employees. An issue tracking system often also contains a knowledge base containing information on each customer, resolutions to common problems, and other such data. An issue tracking system is similar to a "bugtracker", and often, a software company will sell both, and some bugtrackers are capable of being used as an issue tracking system, and vice versa. Consistent use of an issue or bug tracking system is considered one of the "hallmarks of a good software team".” (Wikipedia, July 2014).

Issue tracking system also can be used to manage smaller projects, i.e. distribute, coordinate and track tasks. As such it can become an interesting teaching tool for project-oriented learning designs.

Also, some systems combine issue tracking with other functionality like bug tracking. In a similar way, some systems (e.g. various project management tools) do include issue tracking.

Links

Popular free and open source systems

(not complete)

• MantisBT, PHP/MySQL based
• Trac, Python/*SQL based

Lists of systems

• Comparison of issue tracking systems (Wikipedia)
• 17 Bug and Issue Tracking Apps for Developers (by Grace Smith, Feb 2014, Mashable)
• Top Issue Tracking Software Products (list of commercial projects)
• Top 10 Open Source Bug Tracking System (by Ramesh Natarajan, Aug 2010)