How O2, Smart Box, and Lifesum Rely on Instabug+GitHub to Fix Bugs

Instabug's integrations help mobile teams get all the details they need about reported issues sent to their primary workspaces. Many of our users rely on GitHub, a platform loved by more than 27 million developers for open-source projects, private team repositories, and collaborative development.With our GitHub integration, all bugs and user feedback can be converted into GitHub issues with just one click. We spoke to two of our users about how they make the best use of Instabug + GitHub to fix bugs faster.

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O2 is the largest integrated telecommunications operator in the Czech Republic with more than six million lines, both fixed and mobile. We spoke to Ondrej Sebelik, Cloud and Mobile Development Lead at O2 Smart Box, about how they manage user feedback and track bugs.

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In 2017, O2 launched Smart Box, a DSL modem, Wi-Fi router, and smart home gateway in a single device that quickly became the centerpiece of the company's broadband product. Since the O2 Smart Box mobile application serves as the interface of the device, it also became a natural place for customers to interact with O2 as a company.

"Smart Box relies heavily on GitHub for code hosting and issue tracking, so it was only natural to integrate Instabug as it allowed us to keep everything in one place," Sebelik explained.

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The most important thing is that thanks to the integration, the distance between the users and our developers has shortened and there is a clear link between reporting a bug and someone working on a fix for it. It hugely benefits both sides – users have a simple and easy way to communicate their issues and our developers can get all the details they need to be able to fix them.
-Ondrej Sebelik, Cloud and Mobile Development Lead

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The O2 Smart Box team uses the Instabug SDK in their live application as well in their beta builds. The company's beta team have set up automatic forwarding of Instabug bug reports to GitHub. Whenever any of their beta testers report a bug, it automatically gets redirected to GitHub where developers can investigate it, work on a fix, and track its progress on the project board.

Beta testing happens continuously as part of their development process. Before releases, they usually have five to seven days of testing in beta and if everything goes well, the build is then published. With the help of the Instabug + GitHub integration, the steps of transferring bug reports and manually creating GitHub issues are automated in their workflow and the development team has more time to focus on fixing bugs.

"In production, the situation is a little bit different since many customers do not actually report bugs in the app itself but ask questions or look for help with their broadband service. So the bugs are first handled by the technical support team who either help the customer resolve the issue/answer the question, or forward the bug to GitHub manually if they are not able to resolve it themselves. From there, it’s the same as in beta," Sebelik told us.

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Of all the options on the market, Instabug seems to best combine everything we expected from a bug reporting tool. If we had to choose one thing we couldn’t live without though, it would be Instabug logs. Sometimes we just send ourselves bug reports even during development because it’s just easier that way.
-Ondrej Sebelik, Cloud and Mobile Development Lead

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Lifesum is a Swedish digital health startup with a vision to make people healthier and happier by using applied psychology and technology. Founded in 2013, the company was selected by Wired UK as one of Stockholm’s 10 hottest startups. We spoke to Sebastian Bredberg, Product Owner and Director of Customer Support and QA, and Tim Gunnarsson, QA Tester, about the Lifesum app and their development process using GitHub + Instabug.

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Lifesum relies heavily on GitHub for product management and issue handling to ensure transparency and collaboration across the whole company. To streamline their workflow and better serve their 27 million registered app users and counting, they moved all product decision management and bug reporting to GitHub Projects.

Before releasing major builds, the QA team conducts manual and automated tests, including receiving bug reports on GitHub through Instabug. When an issue is found, testers take a screenshot, describe the exact problem, and submit. The issues then get forwarded automatically to GitHub, where the QA team sorts, labels, and triages them to send to the right teams.

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The Instabug integration provides excellent insights to the QA team and the ability to handle and control the bug reports and feedback to understand how our app is doing.
-Tim Gunnarsson, QA Tester

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The team has several ways of collecting feedback, including on social media, through their support team, and conducting in-house experiments and focus groups. Before they integrated the Instabug SDK, gathering all the necessary details for each issue was a tedious job.

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The integration has helped a lot as bug reporting is such a complex, time-consuming process. Instabug made it very simple by attaching images, explaining issues easily, and getting contextual data right inside GitHub where we handle our all of our projects and development."
-Sebastian Bredberg, Product Owner