- Have you noticed that it has become a challenge to manage your business operations through traditional methods?
- Can you have aholistic and combined view of what, how, where and when of your business, whenever you want?
- Are you being notified at the various stages an issue or incidence undergoes?
- Do you find problem in handling your customer requests?
- Is resource optimization getting difficult day-in day-out?
If your answer is “YES”, even for two to three questions, then it’s an indication towards the need of acquiring a specialized issue tracking system.
Whether it’s logging issues or incidences, handling customer or service requests, managing teams or tasks, maintaining projects, generating weekly or daily reports; an issue tracking software proves to be an apt solution. It aids in managing various business process operations of a company, irrespective of its size and type.
Issue tracking software is a booster to businesses because of the following reasons:
- Scores over traditional MS Excel
MS Excel and email are widely used applications to manage issues and tasks. But, the reality is they are not meant for it! While primary purpose of the email is communication, excel is designed to hold tabular data and perform operations on them. Like silos are meant for storing grains and ideal for them, an issue tracking system is built to manage, share, assign and process issues and thus,scores over traditional systems with features like: issue flagging, escalating, versioning, etc.
- Builds collaborated environment
Call it collaboration or even cohesion, it’s the biggest benefit of adopting an issue tracker. It brings your entire work-force on thesame platform and they work in cohesion (Yes cohesion! ‘Together’ is a less-fitting word because of the bigger benefits one yields out of issue tracking software). Different people and also different departments can work simultaneously on the same issue without waiting for the file to be closed (like in excel), or without the need of creating a separate version.
- Provides single version of truth
Because everyone is working on the same version and the information is updated in real-time what is available is the same information to all. It even eliminates the risk of using an outdated or older version of data thus helping them to concentrate on issues rather than on synchronization.
- Assures security via multi-levelpermissions
Un-authorized intrusion, data-theft and data mishandling can be largely controlled through these applications as they provide role-based and project-based permissions. Some software are even capable of providing still tighter control through issue-based permissions, that enable just viewing, just editing or both abilities for an issue.
- Offers benefits of an online application
Most issue tracking software are built on SaaS model whichoffersits own set of benefits. They are different from traditional model and require only internet as the infrastructure. Thus, the adoption rate is high, cost is low, upgrades are fast and painless, and scalability is up. The application becomes very easy to use, requires no long implementations or installations, but mostly a payment plus registration and you are good to go. Updates and upgrades are automatic with no extra charges.
- Leverages the power of multi-platform
Multi-platform capability allows everyone in the company, no matter which platform they work on- iOS, android or windows, etc., to use the same application on their device and shun the system dependency.And certainly, it is an ability to be leveraged for it is platform independency that provides greater accessibility, smoother information flow and ease of use.
- Sends alerts and notifications
Another reason which cannot be ignored:alerts, emails and notifications to users through SMS or by any such meansthat make sure that not even a single issue/task is missed.
- Offers advanced reporting capabilities
How reports are created manually? Data is collected from numerous sources and put together in a readable form. Result: It is prone to errors and has consumed such long time that the information has become outdated. Usability left: probably minimum, in many cases. An issue tracking system meets your reporting needs through a number of reports and many times with dashboards too for an in-depth analysis. Not just this, many systems even offer advanced reporting capabilities like- generating graphical reports, exporting the same to MS Word, MS Excel and Adobe PDF, or directly e-mailing it to external authority.
- Extensive record-keeping, attachments and notes
Today due to legal and regulatory requirements, most industries are required to maintain and keep records of their processes. Issue tracking software gives the flexibility to attach all kinds of files to include SOPs, notes, documents, process flows and such with your issues that can be used for audit and reference purposes.
These reasons are drawing more and more companies towards a specialized issue tracking system.If your existing issue tracking system also lacks them (even few of them), it’s time you start looking for another. Here’s one free issue tracker you can look into. Having such a system in place can not only save your time, provide convenience, scale collaboration and offer ease of cloud computing but can also give you an edge over your competitors.
