How to Write an Incident Report? A Step-by-Step Guide

What is an Incident in Software Testing?

During test execution, it is possible to analyze variations between the expected and actual results. These discrepancies can be categorized as incidents when the actual outcome deviates from the expected outcome. The main reason behind this occurrence could be several. Some of those are:

• Misconfiguration of the test environment.
• Corrupted and invalid test data.
• The input of the wrong expected result.
• Flawed tests.

Also, mistakes made by software testers during the testing process contribute to these incidents. However, if the main cause of the error is within the software, these incidents manifest as defects, bugs, and other discrepancies.

When discussing incidents that arise during defect management in software testing, it is important to note that many flaws may initially remain hidden and not immediately apparent. Managing such bugs becomes challenging when they are not readily observable. It is crucial to pause and consider effective strategies to address these situations. This report aims to provide you with valuable insights into incorporating such instances.

Types of Incidents in Software Testing

In software testing, different types of errors and defects are identified by the testers to ensure the functionality of the software application. During the testing process, different types of incidents and issues are encountered, which is important to be understood by the testers to have its resolution. Here are some types of incidents in software testing:

• Functional issues: This issue is related to the functionality of the software application, which occurs due to the failure of the software to perform as per the SRS—for example, missing and accurate data, malfunctioning features, and incorrect calculations.
• Performance issues: It occurs when the performance of the software application does not address the SRS. Some example of those incidents includes speed, responsiveness, and scalability.
• Compatibility issues: Such issue occurs when any software application fails to work and integrate into different software components and environment. Examples include differences in hardware configuration, OS, browsers, and versions.
• Compatibility issues: Usability issues relate to difficulties or challenges end-users face in effectively and efficiently utilizing the software product. For example, such incidents are around the user interface, user experience, and others.
• Usability issues: Security issue: These are the vulnerabilities in the software application that interfere with the reliability of the software application. Some security issues are data breaches, unauthorized access, and inadequate encryption.

Apart from the categories mentioned above, there can be other types of incidents specific to the software being tested. Some of those are:

• Data integrity issues.
• Regulatory compliance violations.
• Localization or internationalization problems.
• Performance under stress or load conditions.

What is an Incident Report?

The test incident report is a document generated after the software testing process. Its purpose is to ensure transparency among team members by reporting and logging various incidents and defects. This report addresses these issues by facilitating assessment, investigation, and resolution. During the planning phase, the objective is to report all incidents that require thorough evaluation and investigation while meeting the predetermined output criteria.

The test incident report categorizes the incidents that affect the software's performance and functionality. It provides detailed information and evidence of test failures, enabling tracking of multiple defects within the system. Moreover, it assists in reporting, classifying, assigning, and managing the identification of defects until their final resolution.

The incident report aims to give developers, testers, and other stakeholders comprehensive insights into the observed behavior of the software application and the defects it exhibits. This information empowers them to eliminate these issues effectively. Now let us understand the need to report an incident in software testing.

Why Report the Incident?

In specific projects, there may be a high volume of identified defects. Even on smaller projects with 100 or fewer defects, it can be challenging to effectively manage and keep track of them without a structured process for reporting, categorizing, assigning, and overseeing the defects from initial discovery until their final resolution.

An incident report consists of a description of the observed misbehavior and the classification of that misbehavior. Similar to any written communication, having clear objectives in mind is beneficial when composing such reports. One common objective is to provide comprehensive information about the observed behavior and the defect.

Another objective is to facilitate the analysis of patterns in aggregated defect data, either to gain deeper insights into specific problem areas or tests or to comprehend and report on the overall level of software quality . Ultimately, verifying defect reports across projects and throughout a project's life cycle can provide valuable information that can lead to improvements in development and testing processes.

Now that we have learned about the reasons to report any incident in software testing, we will discuss the need for an incident report in the below section.

Why Need Incident Reports in Software Testing?

The software testers develop the report after completing the software projects and help the team members specifically. Such incident reports improve the communication between the team members and help them to address measures taken to develop, test, and evaluate the software application. Some of those measures include development methodologies like Agile, coding standards, testing approaches like unit testing, and others.

In the same way, a test incident report allows the team to document and classify different incidents that affect the behavior, performance, and functionality of the software application. Such incidents include programming errors, compatibility issues, performance bottlenecks, and security vulnerabilities.

By logging incident reports with accurate information, details, and evidence, this report enables testers to convey information about tracked incidents to the incident management team. Some examples of that information include descriptions of incidents, log files and error messages, test case information, and others.

Such incident report allows testers to deliver information about tracked incidents to the incident management team. This helps the team target inappropriate behavior incidents and undertake required actions to resolve them. Now let us learn some of the specific benefits of creating incident reports in software testing.

Benefits of Creating an Incident Report

Below is a list of some of the benefits of incident reports in software testing.

• It conveys detailed information about the observed behavior of the software application and the various defects tracked by the testing team.
• It provides specifics about failed tests, including when they occurred and supporting evidence.
• It prioritizes defects and incidents, saving the team's time, effort, and resources.
• It helps distinguish between defects and incidents.
• It offers transparency among team members and reduces communication gaps between the team and other project stakeholders.
• It tracks, reports, categorizes, assigns, and manages defects and incidents from their discovery until their final resolution.

Structure of an Incident Report

An incident report was created by international organizations such as IEEE and ISO to define the standardized formats for various reports generated during the Software Development Life Cycle. These formats are universally recognized and accepted by software developers and testers. The IEEE std 829-1998 specifies the format for the test incident report as follows:

• Test incident report identifier:The first information in the report is the test incident report identifier. It is a unique number generated by the organization to provide an identity to the report and distinguish it from others. The identifier helps identify the report's level and association with specific software. It also enables tracking of the testing phase where the incident initially occurred and facilitates effective incident resolution through process improvement.
• Test incident report identifier::After assigning a unique identifier, the team provides an overview or summary of the incident. This section includes all the necessary information and details, focusing on how, when, and where the incident occurred and how the team discovered it. These details help resolve the incident and enhance the quality of the end product. Other details covered in this section include:
• Test procedures, techniques, methodologies, etc., used for incident discovery.
• Test logs that demonstrate the execution of various test cases and procedures.
• Test case specifications illustrate the recreation of the incident.
• Methods employed to discover and resolve the incident.
• Any other significant detail reported by the testing team regarding the incident.
• Incident description: In this section, the team provides additional information about the incident, which is not covered in the summary. It includes comprehensive and detailed information about the incident, along with any supporting evidence that helps developers or the incident management team understand the defects and incidents more effectively. Some of the items included in this section are:
• Expected results/outputs.
• Inputs
• Actual results of the conducted tests.
• Testing procedures and their steps.
• Date and time of the executed tests.
• Levels of testing where the incident(s) were discovered.
• Impact::After assigning a unique identifier, the team provides an overview or summary of the incident. This section includes all the necessary information and details, focusing on how, when, and where the incident occurred and how the team discovered it. These details help resolve the incident and enhance the quality of the end product. Other details covered in this section include:

Tricks for Writing an Incident Report

To create an effective incident report for software testing, follow these tips for composing your report on defect management:

• Ensure that the information in your software testing incident report is accurate and detailed.
• Identify and gather all the necessary information before starting to write your bug testing incident report.
• Always use a well-designed template to maintain a professional appearance for your report.
• Create a draft and revise your report before finalizing the document.
• Clearly outline the strategies and steps you will take to resolve the incident.
• Maintain a professional tone while writing your software test incident report.
• Avoid using complex language when documenting your testing incident report.

Ways to Report Incidents in Software Testing

An incident report in software testing is a systematic process to detect issues and errors in the software application. Here are the steps to report incidents:

Step 1: Identify and document the incidents

• When you perform a software test and encounter any error, you need to observe and identify the issues.
• You need to mark all required details on the incidents, like steps to reproduce it, in which environment it has occurred, and the inclusion of specific inputs and configuration.
• Here, you can also capture screenshots, logs, and other material which give additional evidence.

Step 2: Use a standardized incident report template

• You can use a standard format or template with different fields and sections like incident identification, severity, and priority.
• You have to fill in all the necessary information and details for each section of the templates to give a complete view of the incidents.

Step 3: Give a clear and detailed incident description

• In this step, you have to describe the incidents concisely. For example, you can explain what happened and how it occurred.
• While describing, you have to be precise and subjective in your language.
• Include different error messages.

Step 4: Classify the incident

• On successfully describing the incident reports, you now have to categorize the incidents based on their types and impacts like usability and performance.

Step 5: Assess incident severity

• Based on the prepared report, you now have to determine the severity of the incident related to the functionality of the software application.
• For this, you can assign a pre-defined severity scale to mark different severity levels.

Step 6: Determine the incident priority

• Evaluate the priority and importance of the incident.
• Consider factors such as business impact, user needs, and any associated time constraints.
• Assign a priority level (e.g., high, medium, low) to indicate the order in which the incident should be addressed.

Step 7: Submit the incident report

• Submit the completed incident report to the designated person or team responsible for incident management.
• Ensure that the report reaches the appropriate stakeholders, such as developers, testers, or project managers, who need to be aware of and address the incident.

Step 8: Follow up and track incident resolution

• Monitor the progress of the incident resolution process and communicate with the relevant stakeholders as needed.
• Keep track of any updates, actions taken, and the final resolution of the incident.
• Close the incident report once the issue has been resolved and verified.

Incident Report Analysis

Incident report analysis involves evaluating reports documenting different incidents within a particular context and organization. Here are some crucial points on this:

• It is done to have adequate information about the incident that occurred during software testing.
• In addition to this, incident report analysis also allows for identifying the root cause and patterns and develop different approaches to mitigate similar incidents if occurred in the future.
• When the team analyzes the incident report, an organization can better understand the potential risks, improvise safety protocols and undertake informed decisions to prevent a recurrence.

In the process of incident report analysis, one of the most crucial aspects is incident trend analysis. It involves verifying and validating incidents over time to find and comprehend the trends and patterns that have taken place.

Here, some examples of patterns may include common types of incidents, specific locations or times when incidents occur, or recurring factors that contribute to incidents. Likewise, trends include increases or decreases in the frequency or severity of incidents, shifts in the types of incidents occurring, or changes in the patterns observed.

What is the significance of the above analysis? Incident trend analysis will help to detect any long-term patterns and issues, which might be adequate when evaluating individual incident reports. When an organization performs this analysis, identifying patterns of incidents and assessing their severity becomes easy. Such information can be later used to make decisions, resource allocation, and implement measures to address the issue and its cause to prevent its occurrence in the future.

Incident Report Metrics

Metrics for incident reporting are defined as the specific measurement or indicators used to track incidents during software testing. Such metrics give deep insight into the frequency and impact of incidents that helps organization have a good understanding of them. Some of the commonly used incident report metrics include the following:

• Incident frequency: It measures the number of incidents during software testing in a particular timeframe.
• Incident severity: This indicates the level of impact that happened due to each incident in software testing.
• Mean Time to Detect (MTTD): MTTD measures the average time involved in evaluating or detecting any incident in software testing from the time it occurred.
• Mean Time to Respond (MTTR): MTTR measures the average time required to respond to any incident soon after its detection in software testing.
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): RTO is the target time to restore normal operations after an incident.

Incident Reporting in Agile and DevOps

In Agile and DevOps environments, the development of software and its delivery to production is rapid. For this, incident reports have a very crucial role in maintaining the quality of the software application and ensuring smooth operation. Some of the key aspects of the incident reports in Agile and DevOps are as follows:

Integration of Incident Reporting in Agile Methodologies

The integration of incident reporting in Agile development methodologies is done to establish transparency and continuous improvement and give quick solutions to the emergence of any incidents. Here is the basic Agile incident reporting process:

• During development iterations, testers, developers, or end users identify incidents or issues that arise during software testing.
• When an incident is identified, it is captured and documented using Agile tools. Some examples of such tools include the defect tracking tool and Agile project management software.
• Regarding the documented incidents, the Agile team, including the product owner, scrum master, and development team, discusses those incidents. Based on the discussion, the incidents are prioritized, considering the impacts on the functionality of software applications and user experience.
• Then, the incidents are assigned to the development and tester team for investigating and fixing the issue.
• The team is involved in investigating the incidents and finding the root cause to fix the issue.
• On resolving the issue, incidents undergo verification testing to ensure that it is fixed, and the incident is then closed.

Incident Management in Continuous Integration and Deployment

In a DevOps environment, incident reporting is closely related to the CI/CD pipeline, which requires you to follow specific considerations.

• Automated testing and monitoring

  The crucial components in CI/CD pipeline include automated testing and monitoring tools. These mainly help to identify the incident in the initial stage of the development process. For this, the automatic generation of incident reports is done when a test fails.

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• Real-time reporting

  The incident reports are generated in real-time as the crucial component of the CI/CD pipeline, highlighting the issue. Mainly such reports include detailed information regarding the failed test and environmental conditions and related logs.

• Continuous improvement

  In the CI/CD pipeline, the incident reports help give information on the incident patterns and trends where the team can detect any systematic issue and undertake action to fix those. Incident reports enable teams to conduct in-depth root cause analysis for recurring incidents and give relevant feedback to the development team about the reliability of the software.

  By investigating the underlying reasons behind incidents, teams can uncover systemic flaws in the development, testing, or deployment processes.

Incident Management and Tracking

The incident management and tracking are essential for maintaining software quality and ensuring the resolution of issues. Let us discuss the critical aspects of incident management and tracking.

Incident Logging and Tracking Tools

Incident logging and tracking tool helps in reviewing the record, monitoring it, and managing them throughout the life cycle. Such tools allow the team to address incident details, assign ownerships and track progress and maintain a repository of any incident found in the testing process. Some of the commonly used logging and tracking tools are as follows:

• Issue tracking system: To track the issue in the system, some used tools like Jira, Bugzilla, and Trello help in creating and tracking the incidents in software testing and assigning priorities.
• Service management platform: To have incident management ability with different IT service management features platforms, including ServiceNow and Zendesk, which helps in giving a structured approach to incident resolution.

The choice of incident logging and tracking tool depends on factors such as team size, complexity of projects, and integration requirements with other development and monitoring systems.

Challenges of Incident Reports

Organizations may encounter several challenges associated with incident reporting, which may impact the whole process. Here are some of those challenges:

• One of the main challenges of incident reports is incomplete or inaccurate information about the error or issue. This happens due to the involvement of an individual reporting incidents failing to provide comprehensive details.
• Reporting bias may happen due to underreporting incidents due to the tester’s subjective interpretation or personal preference.
• Incident reports also face the challenge of a lack of standardized reporting format and guidelines. This can lead to variations in structure, content, and level of detail.
• Incident reports may lack sufficient supporting documentation like logs, screenshots, and test data.
• Testers often work under tight schedules, and incident reporting might be rushed or given lower priority.
• Collaboration among the team is the key to correct reporting of incidents. However, poor communication and collaboration can lead to delays, misunderstandings, or overlooked incidents.
• Incident reports may lack contextual information regarding the test environment, system configuration, or user actions, making it challenging to understand the specific conditions that contributed to the incident.

Best Practices for Effective Incident Reporting

Effective incident reporting is crucial for maintaining safety, improving processes, and preventing future issues. Whether in a workplace, a software development environment, or any other context, following best practices can help ensure that incidents are properly documented, communicated, and addressed. Here are some best practices for effective incident reporting:

• To effectively identify and address faults, it is essential to carefully select changes in the fault reproduction processes, aiming to isolate the issue. By identifying the flaw, you can assist the coder in navigating through the challenging section of the software application.
• Writing an incident report is beneficial as it enhances your understanding of the system's functioning and failure patterns. Some test cases focus on boundary conditions, creating the perception that defects are less likely to occur frequently during actual usage.

  However, it is always wise to explore broader causes of failure instead of relying solely on the test case. This approach helps avoid the infamous response, "No actual user is ever going to do that," and reduces duplicate reports.

• Specific faults exhibit irregular or occasional symptoms, which can be an issue when an incident report is labeled "irreproducible." Hence, it is advisable to make an effort to replicate the observed symptoms. Since the software application undergoes extensive testing during the test period, there are numerous other test results available.
• A helpful technique is to compare the observed problem with other test results and known flaws, allowing you to discover and record additional data that the programmer will likely find valuable.

  Understanding the impact of the issue on the project is crucial for incident report readers, particularly managers, in terms of bug severity versus priority. Most defect-tracking software requires specifying the impact in the summary field or title.

• In incident software testing reports, word choice plays a vital role. It is essential to be unambiguous, concise, objective, impartial, and fact-focused while considering testing-related interpersonal concerns.
• Lastly, to maintain readers' attention, it is advisable to keep the report concise and focused, avoiding excessive details that may cause readers to lose interest.
• As a general rule for incident reports, it is recommended to implement a review process for each submitted report. Having the lead tester review the reports is an effective approach.

Conclusion

Logging and reporting incidents and defects after software testing is an essential responsibility assigned to the team of testers. By reporting and documenting various information and details about these incidents, the team can effectively track each occurrence and devise strategies to eliminate and resolve them.

Furthermore, by creating a test incident report, they can effectively communicate testing details to other stakeholders involved in the project and avoid any potential communication vulnerabilities. Therefore, if you aim to ensure the smooth functioning of your team and promote effective management, preparing a test incident report after software testing is crucial.

About Author

Nazneen Ahmad is an experienced technical writer with over five years of experience in the software development and testing field. As a freelancer, she has worked on various projects to create technical documentation, user manuals, training materials, and other SEO-optimized content in various domains, including IT, healthcare, finance, and education. You can also follow her on Twitter.