SoftwareDioxide.com
Bangalore based testing strategy & consulting firm STAG
Software has developed a tool that automates defect management.
Dubbed ‘FMAS’ – for Fault Management and
Analysis System, the product specializes in the ‘analysis’
part of defects data. “This is one area where teams and
organizations don’t have a lot of automation,” says
Ashok T, STAG’s founder. “People put in a lot of
efforts trying to collect data. After that, not enough analysis
is done on this data.”
In addition to helping managing defects, FMAS is intended to
help analyze the defect data to assess the product quality,
and process capability. This is what will assist in management
tracking.
This product consists of a defect repository core that allows
filing and tracking of defects (faults) for a project. The information
captured is highly customizable without involving any programming
on the tool. Features include notification mechanism and alerts,
and upcoming add on-on components to mine the defect data.
A ‘quick search’ engine is built to search on various
fields such as defect ID, status, priority, severity, open date,
close date and combinations using simple boolean logic. Defects
can also be e-mailed to team members using which the testers
can ensure that the reported defects receive proper attention
from the developers and are resolved.
High usability has been tried to achieve by building a minimal
number of screens that are ‘just one-click away,’
and so can be taught and deployed in less than an hour. The
‘heart’ of the system is ‘visual’ or
‘visualization’ capability. A variety of reports
can be created using reporting mechanisms that are an integral
part of FMAS. Things like pre-configured graphs help in viewing
defect status, progress, age and priority, and other fields
including custom-defined fields.
In addition, predefined user roles like developer, tester,
project manager allows better control on ‘who can do what’
with the defects. Project-wise users allows for greater control.
The product is built using Java technologies (JSP, JDBC, Java
Mail) and distributed as a site-license provides for a low cost-of-ownership.
The web-enabled user interface is easy to use and allows for
easy deployment over your company’s intranet. Therefore,
it can be deployed on any platform (Windows, Linux, Unix) using
mySQL/Access/Oracle.
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