Bugtracker - agregation and automated workflow

Question

Intro:

I'm working for a contractor company. We're making SW for different corporate clients, each with their own rules, SW standards etc.

Problem:

The result is, that we are using several bug-tracking systems. The amount of tickets flow is relatively big and the SLA are deadly sometimes. The main problem is, that we are keeping track of these tickets in our own BT (currently Mantis) but we're also communicating with clients in theirs BT. But as it is, two many channels of communication are making too much information noise.

Solution, progress:

Actual solution is an employee having responsibility for synchronizing the streams and keeping track of the SLA and many other things. It's consuming quite a large part of his time (cca 70%) that can be spend on something more valuable. The other thing is, that he is not fast enough and sometimes the sync is not really synced. Some parts of the comments are left only on one system, some are lost completely. (And don't start me at holidays or sickness, that's where the fun begins)

Question:

How to automate this process: aggregating tasks, watching SLA, notifying the right people etc. partially or all together?

Thank you, for your answers.

Answer 1

You need something like Zapier. It can map different applications and synchronize data between them. It works simply:

1. You create zap (for example between redmine and teamwork).
2. You configure mapping (how items/attributes in redmine maps to items/attributes in teamwork)
3. You generate access tokens in both systems and write them to zap.
4. Zapier makes regular synchronization between redmine and teamwork.

But mantis is not yet supported by Zapier. If all/most of your clients BT are in Zapier's apps list, you may move your own BT to another platform or make a request to Zapier for mantis support.

Another way is develop your own synchronization service that will connect to all client's BTs as each employee using login/password/token and download updates to your own BT. It is hard way and this solution requires continious development to support actual virsions of client's BTs.