After demoing Vault 3.0 and Dragnet, my company is pretty much sold that we'll be moving to Vault as our source control provider (although we'll probably wait until the 3.0 release), but we're not sold on Dragnet as a bug tracking utility. It just doesn't have the polish that other systems like FogBugz have.
I've read about the integration between the two products in previous versions of Vault, where you can type a case number into a field in the checkin dialog, and Vault will link the checkin comment between the two systems and potentially resolve the item. I'm impressed with the browse dialog in the Vault 3.0 client that displays the available tickets in a Dragnet database. Does FogBugz integrate into the new Vault client in the same fashion? What improvements have been made in general in terms of the integration between Vault and FogBugz?
Also, I noticed that if you rollback over a file that resolves a bug, the Dragnet ticket is not automatically reopened. Is this intended, a configuration problem, or simply a feature that wasn't implemented in the first generation product?
Thanks in advance.
-Steve
Vault 3.0 and FogBugz
Moderator: SourceGear
Re: Vault 3.0 and FogBugz
Thanks for the honest feedback. Are there any specific things about Dragnet that would make you feel more comfortable using it?bushidocoder wrote:After demoing Vault 3.0 and Dragnet, my company is pretty much sold that we'll be moving to Vault as our source control provider (although we'll probably wait until the 3.0 release), but we're not sold on Dragnet as a bug tracking utility. It just doesn't have the polish that other systems like FogBugz have.
We have not added any new features for FogBugz integration.I've read about the integration between the two products in previous versions of Vault, where you can type a case number into a field in the checkin dialog, and Vault will link the checkin comment between the two systems and potentially resolve the item. I'm impressed with the browse dialog in the Vault 3.0 client that displays the available tickets in a Dragnet database. Does FogBugz integrate into the new Vault client in the same fashion? What improvements have been made in general in terms of the integration between Vault and FogBugz?
This was a feature that simply isn' there yet.
Also, I noticed that if you rollback over a file that resolves a bug, the Dragnet ticket is not automatically reopened. Is this intended, a configuration problem, or simply a feature that wasn't implemented in the first generation product?
Thanks again for the feedback
-
bushidocoder
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:43 am
Dragnet issues
Based on my admittedly limitted experience, here's a short list of things that drive me crazy about Dragnet.
1) There's no system for allowing external parties to add items to the system. I can give a client access to a project database, but I don't want them to see everything in there. FogBugz brilliantly executes allowing people to email in issues - it provides a clean, understandable interface to the client and it requires no extra data entry on the part of our team. We can shuffle the ticket around within the system, fix it / implement it, and we can follow up with the client via email in a wholely logged manner. Not only that, but whoever responds to the client responds through the system, not their individual email, which for contractors is an absolute blessing - the last thing I want is for the client to know the email addys of developers on my team and start to contact them directly (and they do it all the time). The worst part is that, once you get used to a feature like this, not having it is a deal breaker.
2) Its too difficult to look at tickets across multiple projects. Sure you can go to the main page and run a query (although you can't save your query, which is annoying in itself) but if you go to My Items, its just going to show you items in that project. If you want to see my items in other projects, you have to click server home, select the new project, then click my items there.
Its not just annoying, its a huge problem. Suppose I have a project that's an internal webcontrols library. No bugs have been reported on it in 4 months or so. It just works. One day, someone finds a minor bug, I put that bug into Dragnet and assign it to someone. That person is never going to see that ticket. They're not in the habit of walking through every project repository daily, particularly the ones that haven't had activity in months. Granted, if they had email integration turned on, they'd be notified that way, but I still consider it to be a failure of the UI.
3) The UI in general seems to take more clicks to get someplace than "feels" right. You've got alot of data, and I think the UI is just a little clunky. That's not a deal-breaker of course, but a minor annoyance. Take the audit trail on a ticket for example. Why isn't the audit trail on the ticket's page? You have to click a button in order to go see it, and then when you're looking at the audit trail, if a comment was added the trail doesn't show it. You have to go back to the main ticket page and look at the comment trail. FogBugz shows this right imho - they show changes to a ticket inline with the comment trail, to give perspective to the comments. If you see a comment followed immediately by a bug's status being elevated to urgent, it adds weight to the comment that should be there. Again, if the background to this grid was colorcoded by priority, that'd make it that much easier to read.
4) The grids of open tasks should be color-coded by something (one of the few things Mantis did right). Priority probably, maybe status. With a large number of tickets, its too difficult for the important ones to stand out. There should be some form of visual indication of a ticket that the individual hasn't read yet that stands it apart from the other tickets.
5) I feel kinda silly mentioning this, but having to click on the ID column to go to a ticket's page is a huge pet peeve for me. Until you get up to 6-7 digit numbers, the link you have to click is really small. Personally, I'd like to see the description column moved to the second from the left immediately behind ID, and make the description the link that takes you to the ticket's page.
Despite my gripes, I do have to give credit where it's due. The featureset is impressive. I wish there was more granularity in terms of permissions, but the permissions system as is is substantially better than most systems I've seen. Alot of my UI gripes are fixed by FogBugz, but I've got some UI gripes with their system too. The summaries page is fantastic and something many other bug tracking systems don't have, and the ability to click on a number and have it show a grid of all the tickets that matched the criteria on the summary page is such a smooth and useable UI that its hard to not be impressed. Its just awesome.
Those are just some thoughts I've had using Dragnet. The thing that annoys me the most is that the backend seems to be implemented perfectly - its just a bit of UI that drives the user crazy. Its a great start - I just don't think you're at the finish line yet.
1) There's no system for allowing external parties to add items to the system. I can give a client access to a project database, but I don't want them to see everything in there. FogBugz brilliantly executes allowing people to email in issues - it provides a clean, understandable interface to the client and it requires no extra data entry on the part of our team. We can shuffle the ticket around within the system, fix it / implement it, and we can follow up with the client via email in a wholely logged manner. Not only that, but whoever responds to the client responds through the system, not their individual email, which for contractors is an absolute blessing - the last thing I want is for the client to know the email addys of developers on my team and start to contact them directly (and they do it all the time). The worst part is that, once you get used to a feature like this, not having it is a deal breaker.
2) Its too difficult to look at tickets across multiple projects. Sure you can go to the main page and run a query (although you can't save your query, which is annoying in itself) but if you go to My Items, its just going to show you items in that project. If you want to see my items in other projects, you have to click server home, select the new project, then click my items there.
Its not just annoying, its a huge problem. Suppose I have a project that's an internal webcontrols library. No bugs have been reported on it in 4 months or so. It just works. One day, someone finds a minor bug, I put that bug into Dragnet and assign it to someone. That person is never going to see that ticket. They're not in the habit of walking through every project repository daily, particularly the ones that haven't had activity in months. Granted, if they had email integration turned on, they'd be notified that way, but I still consider it to be a failure of the UI.
3) The UI in general seems to take more clicks to get someplace than "feels" right. You've got alot of data, and I think the UI is just a little clunky. That's not a deal-breaker of course, but a minor annoyance. Take the audit trail on a ticket for example. Why isn't the audit trail on the ticket's page? You have to click a button in order to go see it, and then when you're looking at the audit trail, if a comment was added the trail doesn't show it. You have to go back to the main ticket page and look at the comment trail. FogBugz shows this right imho - they show changes to a ticket inline with the comment trail, to give perspective to the comments. If you see a comment followed immediately by a bug's status being elevated to urgent, it adds weight to the comment that should be there. Again, if the background to this grid was colorcoded by priority, that'd make it that much easier to read.
4) The grids of open tasks should be color-coded by something (one of the few things Mantis did right). Priority probably, maybe status. With a large number of tickets, its too difficult for the important ones to stand out. There should be some form of visual indication of a ticket that the individual hasn't read yet that stands it apart from the other tickets.
5) I feel kinda silly mentioning this, but having to click on the ID column to go to a ticket's page is a huge pet peeve for me. Until you get up to 6-7 digit numbers, the link you have to click is really small. Personally, I'd like to see the description column moved to the second from the left immediately behind ID, and make the description the link that takes you to the ticket's page.
Despite my gripes, I do have to give credit where it's due. The featureset is impressive. I wish there was more granularity in terms of permissions, but the permissions system as is is substantially better than most systems I've seen. Alot of my UI gripes are fixed by FogBugz, but I've got some UI gripes with their system too. The summaries page is fantastic and something many other bug tracking systems don't have, and the ability to click on a number and have it show a grid of all the tickets that matched the criteria on the summary page is such a smooth and useable UI that its hard to not be impressed. Its just awesome.
Those are just some thoughts I've had using Dragnet. The thing that annoys me the most is that the backend seems to be implemented perfectly - its just a bit of UI that drives the user crazy. Its a great start - I just don't think you're at the finish line yet.