15 Bug Report Templates to Boost Your QA Process

A detailed and effective bug report is important for maintaining the quality of your SaaS product. 

A well-structured report will speed up bug fixes and reduce frustration among developers and users, who can otherwise waste hours!

This guide will help you understand how to create efficient bug report templates for various tools. With 15 templates to consider, you’ll have everything you need to streamline your bug-reporting processes. 👇

Top 15 bug report templates for your QA team

1. 🥇 Featurebase
2. Jira
3. ClickUp
4. Zendesk
5. Trello
6. GitHub
7. GitLab
8. Linear
9. Asana
10. Teamwork
11. Monday
12. Slack
13. Excel
14. Word
15. Email

What is a bug report?

A bug report is a concise document that details the nature of a bug and its level of urgency. 🐛

It provides all the relevant information product managers and developers need to understand and fix the problem.

Producing an effective bug report offers the following benefits:

• Clarity and precision: A well-documented bug report eliminates unnecessary confusion and assumptions. Clear reports provide a precise understanding of the issue, which speeds up troubleshooting.
• Documentation: Good bug reports describe software bugs and offer clues for solutions. This helps developers quickly identify the root cause and implement fixes more efficiently in the future.
• Consistency and habit formation: Using bug report templates standardizes the reporting process. This consistency makes writing good bug reports habitual.
• Enhanced communication: Tools like Featurebase let you attach screenshots within your bug reports. This visual proof helps developers understand the problem better, leading to quicker resolutions.

What should be included in a bug report template?

Creating a comprehensive bug report will help you fix issues more effectively. Here’s a list of the elements most good bug reports include:

• ID/Name: Make it brief, clear, and concise. Be sure to mention the feature affected by the bug. (Example: Add to Cart button not responsive on Chrome.)
• Description: Explain the bug in a few words, including specific keywords that people might search for.
  Environment: Specify your browser, operating system, screen size, or other relevant aspects of the environment. Digital products behave differently across various environments, so developers must know the technical setup.
• Console logs: These logs contain all the errors and warnings that developers need to reproduce and resolve any bug.
• Source URL: Include the URL of the page where you found the bug to help developers spot the problem quickly.
• Visual proof: Attach screenshots or recordings to help developers understand the problem better and faster.
• Steps to reproduce: Describe in detail the steps that led you toward the bug. This information helps developers reproduce the issue on their end.
• Expected result vs. actual result: Explain what you expected to happen and what actually happened. Be specific and guide the developer by describing your experience.
• Additional information: Enter any extra information relevant to the issue. This could include priority (high, medium, low) or how often the issue occurred in the past.

Read our full guide on writing effective bug reports →

If it’s difficult to keep track of these steps, so having a checklist at hand can be helpful. 

You can use tools like Featurebase to create an intuitive bug report form. It allows you to ask users for specific information through required fields and placeholders.

Top 15 bug report templates

Bug report theory is useful, but it’s even more helpful to see it in practice. In this section, we will explore 15 of the best bug report templates for popular issue-tracking tools like Github, Trello, and Jira.

1. Featurebase

Featurebase is a modern and intuitive bug-reporting tool that offers the best bang for your buck in the market. With a neat interface, in-app widgets, roadmaps, and changelogs, you stand to make the most of every piece of feedback you receive.

Moreover, it integrates with popular tools such as Jira, ClickUp, and Linear. You can use Featurebase for collecting bugs from your users and then seamlessly sync them into your issue-management tools to have developers fix them.

Having a template in place can help maintain consistency across your bug reports. With the required fields, screenshotting, and placeholder text options, you can easily ensure that users will give you the important information.

It also automatically informs users about the bug's status and notifies them when it's fixed.

Template Structure:

• Title: A brief and clear line stating the issue.
• Description: A brief, specific description of the bug.
• Steps to reproduce: List down the steps you took before you encountered the bug.
• Additional info: Mention any extra context that could help developers understand the issue.
• Attachments: Attach screenshots, videos, or logs for more context.
• Platform: Mention the OS/environment in which the bug was found.
• Optional information: For instance, include the software version or steps you’ve already taken to fix the bug.

Best Practices:

1. Visual elements are powerful, so take advantage of Featurebase’s screenshot engine to capture what the bug is like.
2. Use custom fields to guide users into giving all the information you need. These can also be made required.
3. Use integrations with issue-management tools like Jira and Linear to send those bug reports straight to developers. Featurebase automatically notifies the user when the bug is fixed. 😉

2. Jira

Jira is a versatile project management tool used for issue tracking and bug reporting. Tech companies often use it to collect internal bug reports from the team because everyone is used to it already.

But it's not the best for collecting bug reports from your users. You'd have to require each user to create a paid account or manually add the reports yourself...

Fortunately, you can use Featurebase's Jira integration to conveniently gather bug reports from your users and sync them to Jira so your developers can fix them. When they've completed the fix, Featurbease will notify the user, ensuring they're always informed about their requests.

Template Structure:

• Project: Name of the website or app you’re testing.
• Summary: Briefly describe the bug.
• Description: Provide a detailed explanation, including steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, and any additional context.
• Environment: Include browser, OS, and other relevant technical details.
• Attachments: Add screenshots, videos, and console logs.
• Priority and severity: Specify the priority level and severity of the bug.
• Reporter: Name of the person reporting the bug.

Best Practices:

1. Use Featurebase to collect bug reports and use the integration to sync them into your Jira projects.
2. Have your developers conveniently use Jira to manage the bug fixes - once they complete one, Featurebase will automatically notify the user(s) about it.

3. ClickUp

ClickUp is a highly customizable project management tool that can also be used for bug tracking. Its functionality and ease of use allow both solo developers and companies to become more productive with it.

Again, it's the same story as with Jira - it's not meant for collecting bugs from users.

To populate your ClickUp boards with bug reports, you can use Featurebase's ClickUp integration. This way, you can use Featurebase as an in-app bug report form and sync these reports straight to your clickup boards.

Template Structure:

• Task title: Summarize the bug briefly.
• Description: Detail the bug, including steps to reproduce and expected vs. actual results.
• Source URL: URL of the page where you found the bug.
• Console log: A log of the errors and warning messages you encountered. 
• Custom fields: Include fields for environment details, priority, severity, and other relevant information.
• Attachments: Add visual proof such as screenshots or videos.
• Assignee: Assign the bug to the responsible team member.

Best Practices:

1. Use ClickUp’s bug report form template to standardize bug reporting for your team.
2. Use Featurebase's ClickUp integration to collect bug reports from your end-users and sync them to ClickUp for better management.

4. Zendesk

It’s not uncommon for customers to highlight bugs in the app or website. They typically submit the bug via customer support chat.

However, feedback from support chats can be difficult to organize and manage. This is where Featurebase’s Zendesk integration comes in—it lets you save reports from different channels, including Zendesk chats, to one place for a better overview. You can then automatically sync them into your issue-management tools.

It also helps you automate the follow-up process with your users to always close the feedback loop with them. As a result, you can better manage and prioritize bug reports to ensure complete customer satisfaction.

Best Practices:

1. Use Featurebase's integration to conveniently channel all bug reports from support chats into one place.

5. Trello

Trello is a flexible tool for organizing tasks and projects, including bug tracking and using boards, lists, and cards. However, it's primarily focused on Kanban roadmaps and lacks the ability to collect customer feedback.

There's no way to collect reports from inside your product, it doesn't have a screenshot option, and it doesn't notify users that the bug is fixed.

So, if you're looking for a bug collection tool instead of project management, check out Featurebase.

Template Structure:

• Card title: Use a clear and concise bug title.
• Description: Detail the bug, steps to reproduce, and expected vs. actual outcomes.
• Checklist: Create a checklist for necessary actions.
• Labels: Use labels to indicate priority, severity, and status.
• Attachments: Include relevant screenshots and videos.
• Comments: Allow team members to add insights or updates.

Best Practices:

1. Use Trello for project and issue management - it's not optimized for collecting feedback and bug reports.
2. Use Featurebase to collect bug reports from inside your app, product, support chats, etc., into one place.

6. GitHub

GitHub is one of the most popular tools for project and issue management for software developers. The platform’s Issues feature helps track and manage bug reports. Moreover, creating a bug report template on GitHub is pretty straightforward.

But, filling out multiple bug reports from scratch on GitHub can be time-consuming. You can make the process more efficient with the help of Featurebase’s GitHub integration.

The integration lets you easily collect and sync bugs reports from Featurebase to GitHub. You can choose to automatically push all new bug reports or manually push specific ones.

Once your developers have completed a GitHub issue, Featurebase automatically notifies customers to ensure they're updated about their issues.

Best Practices:

1. Use Featurebase's integration to collect bug reports from inside your app, product, support chats, etc., into one place.
2. Then, sync them seamlessly with Github for better management.

7. GitLab

GitLab is a comprehensive DevOps platform with robust issue-tracking capabilities. Similar to GitHub, it focuses on reliability and stability instead of speed.

All GitLab projects feature an issue tracker that helps you with bug reporting. You can create a comprehensive bug report on the platform using the following template.

Template Structure:

• Title: Concisely describe the bug.
• Description: Provide steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, and additional context.
• Environment: Specify the browser, OS, and other technical details.
• Attachments: Include screenshots, videos, and console logs.
• Labels: Use labels to categorize issues by priority, severity, and type.
• Milestones: Assign bugs to relevant milestones.

Best Practices:

1. Use GitLab for project and issue management - it's not optimized for collecting feedback and bug reports.
2. Use bug reporting tools to collect feedback from inside your app, product, support chats, etc., into one place.

8. Linear

Linear is a popular modern issue-tracking tool designed for software development teams. It helps project managers streamline sprints, tasks, and bug-tracking.

However, you can't collect bug reports with it.

For that, you can use Featurebase's Linear integration to gather bug reports from inside your product, app, customer chats, etc., and sync them to Linear. When your team has completed the fix, Featurebase will automatically notify the user, ensuring they're always informed about their report.

Since Featurebase is seamlessly synced with Linear's issues, you can also create a public product roadmap to foster transparency and communicate your plans to users:

Template Structure:

• Issue title: Provide a brief description of the bug.
• Description: Detail the bug with reproduction steps, expected vs. actual results, and context.
• Labels: Categorize the issue by priority, severity, and status.
• Attachments: Add relevant screenshots, videos, and logs.
• Assignee: Assign the bug to the responsible team member.

Best Practices:

1. Use Featurebase's Linear integration to collect bug reports from inside your app, product, support chats, etc., and sync them to Linear.
2. Create a public roadmap in Featurebase that's automatically in sync with your Linear issues, helping with customers' expectations, transparency, and keeping them in the loop.

9. Asana

Asana is a popular project management tool that can also be used for bug tracking. As with other similar tools, developers appreciate receiving a comprehensive bug report on Asana. You can accomplish this with the following elements in your bug report:

Template Structure:

• Task title: Summarize the bug.
• Description: Provide detailed steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, and additional information.
• Subtasks: Break down steps to reproduce or necessary actions.
• Custom fields: Include fields for environment details, priority, and severity.
• Attachments: Add screenshots, videos, and logs.
• Assignee: Assign the bug to the responsible person.

Best Practices:

1. Choose a standardized format for all bug reports to ensure consistency.
2. Be sure to provide any necessary subtasks to help the dev team with the bug resolution process.

10. Teamwork

Teamwork is yet another easy-to-use yet powerful project management tool that supports bug reporting.

Template Structure:

• Task title: Provide a clear and concise bug description.
• Description: Detail the issue, steps to reproduce, and expected vs. actual results.
• Source URL: The URL of the page where the bug was discovered.
• Attachments: Include screenshots, videos, and logs.
• Comments: Allow team members to discuss and update the issue.

Best Practices:

1. Make your titles and descriptions clear and concise.

11. Monday

Monday.com is a versatile work operating system (similar to ClickUp) that can also be used to track bugs.

Template Structure:

• Item name: Briefly describe the bug.
• Description: Provide detailed steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, and additional context.
• Status column: Track the bug’s progress.
• Priority column: Assign a priority level.
• Attachments: Include screenshots, videos, and logs.
• Custom columns: Add columns for environment details, severity, and reporter information.

Best Practices:

1. Leverage the Status column to keep track of progress in your bug reporting process.

12. Slack

Slack is a popular communication tool where your team and users can often conveniently leave bug reports. The problem is, however, that it can be pretty tough to get an overview of them and follow up with everyone.

With a proper bug reporting tool like Featurebase, you can easily send these reports into one place for a better overview using the Slack integration.

This way, your team can better manage, prioritize, and fix these bugs. Moreover, Featurebase will also automatically notify users when the fix is live!

You can utilize the following template to ensure standardized bug reports if you’re using Slack.

Template Structure:

• Message title: Summarize the bug briefly.
• Description: Provide a detailed explanation, including steps to reproduce and expected vs. actual results.
• Environment: Include relevant technical details.
• Attachments: Add screenshots, videos, and logs.
• Priority and severity: Specify levels if necessary.
• Channel/Assignee: Direct the bug report to the appropriate channel or person.

Best Practices:

1. Be clear and direct with the exact steps you took before you encountered the bug.
2. Use Featurebase’s Slack integration to quickly send bug reports to Featurebase for a better overview and management. You can even connect Featurebase with issue-management tools like Jira to sync these reports straight to your developers' workflow.

13. Excel

Excel can even be used as a basic bug-tracking tool in spreadsheets! It's just not super intuitive compared to modern feedback management tools, but here's the structure:

Template Structure:

• ID/Name: Briefly describe the bug.
• Description: Provide detailed steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, and context.
• Environment: Include technical details.
• Priority and severity: Assign levels.
• Attachments: Include links to screenshots, videos, and logs.
• Assignee: Specify the person responsible.

There are also different templates available on the internet.

14. Word

Word can be used to document bug reports quickly and in a structured format. But again, it's a super basic way to do so, and it can't be shared, managed, prioritized conveniently, etc.

Template Structure:

• Title: Summarize the bug.
• Description: Provide detailed steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, and context.
• Environment: Include technical details.
• Priority and severity: Specify levels.
• Attachments: Insert screenshots, videos, and logs.
• Reporter and assignee: Include the relevant names.

15. Email

Even email can be used as a quick way to report bugs directly to the development team, albeit very basic again.

Who has the energy to always go through the emails to find and manage all of the bug reports? Today's standards are bug collecting and issue management tools.

Still, if you do it, do it in a structured way.

Template Structure:

• Subject: Briefly describe the bug.
• Body:
  • Description: Provide detailed steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, and context.
  • Environment: Include relevant technical details.
  • Attachments: Attach screenshots, videos, and logs.
  • Priority and severity: Specify levels if necessary.
  • Assignee: Direct the email to the appropriate person.

The best template..

Having a well-structured bug report template is essential for effective communication and tracking.

With a consistent template, you can ensure that all the necessary information is included in the bug report. This makes it easier for developers to fix the issue quickly, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

Featurebase is one of the best tools for collecting & managing bug reports. With features like required fields, screenshotting, and custom placeholders, you can guide your users to give you the most comprehensive bug reports.

The best part is that you can test the waters with a Free Plan that lets you collect unlimited bug reports.

Level up your bug-tracking process with Featurebase today →