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How FogBUGZ Works
FogBUGZ keeps track of cases.
There are three kinds of cases:
- Features that you want to add to your product,
- Bugs or other possible flaws in your product, and
- Inquiries, when someone has a question about how something should work, a suggestion for improvement, or an email from a customer.
 New cases can be entered using the FogBUGZ web interface. You can also send email into FogBUGZ by setting up an email account for that purpose: incoming messages instantly become cases. Cases can come from anyone: someone on your team, a manager or a tester; they can also come from your customers, who email you or fill out a form on your web site. You can even modify your own software to create a case automatically whenever it crashes or encounters an unexpected situation.
Every case is always assigned to exactly one person until it is closed. That person is responsible for it until they assign it to someone else. Here's the lifecycle of a simple bug:
 A tester finds a bug, enters it, and assigns it to the development manager.
- The development manager assigns it to the programmer who is responsible for that area of the code.
- The programmer fixes it, and assigns it back to the tester to check that it's really fixed.
- The tester confirms that it's fixed and closes the bug.
FogBUGZ can be used for customer support, to manage email sent in to global accounts like customer-service@example.com. Each mail message can be assigned and tracked. Anyone can reply to the message right in FogBUGZ. If the customer responds to that response, the entire thread is kept together in one FogBUGZ case so that everyone can always see the full history and provide seamless customer service. Here's the lifecycle of a typical customer feature request:
 Customer has problem, emails feature request alias. Case is automatically imported to FogBUGZ and assigned to the product manager.
- Product manager designs a new feature that solves the customer's problem, and assigns it to development lead to implement.
- The development lead assigns it to a programmer to implement.
- The programmer implements it and assigns it to tester to test.
- When it is tested and working, tester assigns it back to the product manager who emails the customer announcing the new feature.
In either case an entire record is kept in one place.
 FogBUGZ has completely flexible workflow. A programmer might assign a reported bug back to the tester to clarify something before the bug can be reproduced. Or a programmer might discover that a bug is in another programmer's code and assign it to the second programmer to fix. Or the programmer may think that the behavior reported is correct, and assign the case to the product manager to confirm. FogBUGZ can handle any workflow scenario automatically: you don't need to define rigid workflow diagrams which never seem to correspond to reality and you never need to go "off line," resorting to side-discussions on email which are not tracked and lost to posterity.
 Whenever a case is assigned to somone, they get an email. Anyone can subscribe to any case, and receive email notifications when it changes. And because you can create cases with email, you don't have to persuade your pointy-hair boss or your best customers to use FogBUGZ: let them email their bug reports and suggestions and receive email replies, without losing any of the benefits of a real database.
 FogBUGZ users create custom filters which show them all the cases that match a certain set of rules. Anyone can easily create and save filters using a simple form.
 For example:
- show me all the cases assigned to me
- show me all the cases that need to be fixed for version x
- show me all the cases that were opened today
- show me all the cases in project x that I opened which have been resolved
 You can attach screenshots, sample files, or just about any kind of document to a case in FogBugz. FogBugz supports Unicode so bugs can be entered in any language.
Cases can, optionally, have time estimates. This is especially useful for planning new features. You can use FogBUGZ to plan the next release of your software by entering all the features under consideration, setting priorities on them, and entering time estimates. Then you can assign features to release dates or milestones until you've got a complete schedule.
 FogBUGZ can be integrated with CVS or Perforce source code managers. You can maintain bidirectional links between checkins and bugs.
 FogBUGZ can be accessed using any web browser. It runs on a Windows NT/2000/.Net based server, on your own intranet for speed and security. Setting up FogBugz is easy with our wizard-based installation program that does everything you need to get up and running in a matter of minutes. And of course if anything goes wrong, our engineers are standing by to help: we'll make sure you get FogBugz installed any questions you might have.
 FogBUGZ Home Page
Email: fogbugz@fogcreek.com | 
