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Ask HN: How do you track issues, todos, features?

75 points by karjaluoto ↗ HN
For the past few months building our app, we’ve used BugHerd for three main purposes:

1. Tracking issues

2. Posting to-do items

3. Noting new features

BugHerd is great for client websites, but we feel like it’s not quite right for a more long-term build.

Specifically, our lists get so long (we have a few hundred items in the Backlog) that it becomes difficult to find certain issues. Plus, organizing them isn’t that smooth.

I know some use Jira for this sort of thing, but it feels pretty old-fashioned. And, I know there are many other products, but researching all of them seems daunting.

So, I’m going to cheat, and ask: What do you use? Why? Do you like it?

77 comments

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edimaudo
I concur with dangrossman, you need to think through your process & systems.
sageabilly
Yup, seconding this. You can't implement a solution without thoroughly understanding what the problem is. Also, be sure you're looping in everyone who would be working with the new system at some point to get their thoughts and feedback- after all, if they have to use the system every day you want to make sure it actually helps instead of hinders them!
tommob
We're using Usersnap and it works great for larger projects. With a easy to use filtering / tagging & searching features it simple to find certain bug reports.
phankinson
I'm actually working on a new start-up to try to take a stab at this problem. Would love to get some beta users, if any of you are interested: http://hellofocus.com/
edent
Could I politely recommend that you put some screenshots on your front page. Generic statements and stock photos really don't make anything more than a superficial impression.

I'd like to get an idea of what I'm signing up for before I commit.

phankinson
Thanks for the recommendation. We do have some screenshots on the features page. Ideally next iteration will have more focus on the screenshots. Much of our design is changing at the moment while in beta.
icebraining
It seems the data analysis is an important part of your product; I know this is probably too early, but consider building an API to enable companies to plug-in their existing solutions into yours. It would be hard for us to move away from our existing system, especially since it's integrated with our accounting, billing, and CRM.
mgberlin
I want to try your product, but I'm not going to sign up to do it.
agentargo
//TODO: fix this thing below here

Been mulling around making a vim plugin like vim-flake to put the todos into the quickfix window on :w

logn
I use this feature in Eclipse. A GitHub plugin would also be cool (i.e., open an issue when a new todo appears; close it when it's removed).
pythongonode
I use Things for my todo list. Been using it for years and once you get the flow down it's amazing.
sotojuan
Things is the perfect midpoint between a simple todo list and a complex, overwhelming GTD-like system. You can easily use it however you want, and the iPhone syncing is great.
web007
I would recommend Jira - get the GreenHopper plugin to make it less "old-fashioned", but it's the right tool for the job. You can customize it if you want to go down that rabbit hole, but the built-in workflows should get you started. Projects, epics and tags should solve the problem of finding issues. Set each client as a project, or more likely as an epic so you can have one view for your developers / designers that splits by client.

Currently using Pivotal Tracker after coming from a Jira shop, and it's awful. Others seem to like it, but it's too simplistic for my taste. Even something as simple as "A blocks B" isn't possible, and seems to be by design.

ashwinaj
+1 for Jira. It's clean, simple and easy to understand.
twblalock
And it integrates well with other software.
orless
I'm a fan of JIRA but wouldn't really call it "clean, simple".
bmulholland
Pivotal Tracker is great for what it's intended for, but it's a very opinionated tool. It's not a good repository for storing a large number of bugs or features, and as such doesn't have fancy features like "X blocks Y".

If you have an external system for your features (we just use a google docs roadmap) and immediately triage bugs (will fix next sprint, or won't fix), it works great. Lots of discipline required, though, and it takes some understanding of their specific approach before things start to make sense.

tajen
Since October, JIRA+GreenHopper = JIRA Software.
maxxxxx
Jira with Bitbucket Server works for us pretty well. You just have to resist the urge to customize too much and stick to the basics instead. BTW you don't need Greenhopper anymore. Jira Agile is now integrated into Jira software
anonymous_shoe
I use a TODO.md doc in the project root as long as it's <50 lines of todos and issues. You can use `- [ ]` to create checkbox lists in markdown.

For a larger project I use GitHub issues with tags.

err4nt
Markdown is perfect for to-do lists, I keep 5 days (1 week) of todo files that I compile to HTML and view on any device in-browser, and edit on whatever machine I'm working from at the time.
JasonCEC
We've been using Phabricator[1], a spin-out of Facebook, and love it. It's perfect for technical teams, and usable enough for the rest of the company.

[1] http://phabricator.org/

jon-wood
Even if you're not in the market for management software you should go and look at their website. I really want to use it just because they had the balls to advertise Awesome Edition and Serious Business Edition.
huuu
Imho Jira is one of the best tools voor large projects. From brainstorming to development to support. But maybe it feels too old because it can be difficult to setup?
robbiep
Looking at some of those 'complex' management tasks it seems like a missing feature would be to poll your repositories to look for TODO: 's and list them.

For instance, I'm the sole developer of my web backend, iOS and android platformy thing and while android studio has good TODO: Integration sublime and Xcode require plugins, it would be awesome to have something that looks at all three repositories and tells me where i have scribbled a TODO: somewhere; or even just for comparing the different method names of my app across platforms -

Perhaps someone knows of some such tool already out there that does this?

random_rr
Might not work for your development needs, but such a feature exists in PHPStorm/Webstorm, and I'm guessing probably all of the other IntelliJ products.

There is a 'TODO' tab that shows you all 'TODO's in your project directory. Like so: http://i.imgur.com/TW4jXN8.png

robbiep
Yes, that's exactly what android studio has (to my understanding it's just a modified IntelliJ environment). But I want one that knows about all three Of my repositories (all of them relating to the same project). A global IDE, if you will. Or at least a global coordinator
ashark
What does grep or a couple lines of Perl with a clever-ish Regex not do that you need them to, for the TODO finding thing?
robbiep
Ideally I would have an application that knows that my three repositories are part of the same project, and can display all the TODOs across them. Bonus points for opening Xcode or android studio or sublime to the correct file for editing.

Also, whilst I could do it on the command line, or can do it in each particular development environment (with the right plugins), I want some global overview of the whole shebang

FanaHOVA
Atom has a package like that, it finds TODO in your code and returns that line in a list. You could open a folder containing the other repos in Atom and achieve that.
dyarosla
I like to use https://kanbanflow.com/

It takes the usual kanban approach that Jira and Trello use, but is contained in a no-nonsense html5 friendly, mobile friendly website. No complaints, free to start, and premium features aren't costly if you need them.

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pkfrank
We use Trello with a slack integration on certain boards.
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mmwako
This is a fascinating problem, the "Project Management Tool dilemma": there are hundreds of software alternatives out there, and there seems to be another one coming out everyday, and nonetheless there is always demand for new solutions, and no clear leader in this segment (altough Jira is pretty ahead, and Trello is the strongest newcomer). I've been struggling myself trying to find one in my new work context. I guess there are so many project use-cases, that it's impossible to have a one-size-fits-all solution (and get the pricing right!).

It could be fun to have a global online poll to see who's using what, to know which tools are the most popular, just out of curiosity.

aturek
At my company, over the last 6 months we've tried Trello, Pivotal, and Sprintly. At past companies I've used Trac, Jira, and Asana. And for the last 7 years I've kept a daily todo.txt, where I append today's date and the 1-2 things I want to try to get done, adding detail as I figure out plans. (This is the only task tracking tool I've recommended that coworkers adopt and are actually using years later)

I've come to conclude that no tool for this will ever satisfy everybody's needs perfectly. Part of that is that everyone has different priorities for their task tracking tool. And frankly, some of those priorities are directly contradictory. What's trackable and detailed to a project manager who lives in the task tracker is heavyweight and clunky to an engineer who sees it as a bookkeeping annoyance. My personal todo.txt is exactly me-focused and only changes when I want it to, but it scales to exactly one engineer.

I think you just have to pick something and use it. Changing tools just adds friction and costs you familiarity. Ideally, the people who have to interact with it the most choose the best tool for them.

user_0001
I keep trying out new tools and always go back to txt files and a notepad with a daily list of things todo and weekly things.
dorfsmay
Same here, I have to track at a personal level, I'll update the Jira etc... But I still have to track it. I've tried Task Coal, org mode, Remember the Milk, etc... But at the end of the day I always go back to a Simple text file.

For family stuff (eg: shits that has to be done before we go on holidays) we've been using Google doc which allows concurrent access all sort of devices.

I don't use Google doc for my personal list because I'm still more efficient at whacking text in vim. I need evil mode for Google doc :-)

devarist
Hi aturek, you should checkout our startup Devarist https://devarist.com

This used to be our workflow too and we built Devarist for exactly this purpose.

mgberlin
I wanted to see what you've built, but I'm not going to sign in to do it. You should have a demo.
cweagans
Something simple like Wunderlist or Asana is a good choice, IMO. The less time you spend dealing with your PM tool, the more time you can spend on actually doing important things.

I've also heard this argument if you're running a product, though I'm not sure how on board I am with it: don't record user requests. The important ones will be requested enough that you'll remember it.

win_ini
The important ones do keep making it to the top - it's important to have the pattern recognition and telling others that even though we're saying "not now" for a feature...that can change if it comes up more and more often. The hard part is that people don't tell you when the issue occurs again because they "know you already said no to that..." It's a tough line to follow.

I direct all feature requests go on a list that CS owns and we review it with our customer team, vp eng, myself and qa in a weekly meeting. We talk about the problems, get shared understanding and we collectively agree if we can say "not now". "Worth looking into". "This is easy let's do it now". "This could be tough or easy - needs more info". This is basically what partly feeds a short backlog (~20 items) that gets prioritized during sprint planning. Plus longer term roadmap stories.

Roadmap - a ppt with: Next 3 months (most detail) Next quarter (high level, use cases identified) Next Half (broad themes)

ypeterholmes
We use redmine for development ticket tracking and basecamp client side.
JohnLeTigre
As a sole developper, I use TodoList from AbstractSpoon I am totally addicted to it.

For a team, it's probably not what you need though.

crcw
I will highly recommend Redmine. Using it for almost 2 years and love it. It has pretty much all the features of Jira but absolutely free of cost. http://www.redmine.org/
Ologn
I worked for a company that used Request Tracker for this stuff. It worked for our purposes. I also used it in another context after that.

For the free software projects on the web I'm familiar with, many use Bugzilla to deal with issues and feature requests. Also popular, although a little less so, seems to be Trac. They are all over the web - http://bugzilla.redhat.com is one example for Bugzilla, https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/latest an example for Trac.

wozmirek
Zenhub (integrates with github), Bugsnag.
rylee
We've been using Taiga[0] recently. It's pretty nice, and free for now. I'm a big fan of how easy it is to loop it into our workflow.

[0]: https://taiga.io/