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Getting Started: Instabug Customization and Bug Reporting Best Practices
Getting Started: Instabug Customization and Bug Reporting Best Practices

Get the most out of Instabug Bug Reporting in your mobile app by customizing the SDK and automating your workflow.

Moataz avatar
Written by Moataz
Updated over a week ago


You can maximize efficiency and minimize your workload by configuring Instabug to automate several components of your workflow. Here are the top customizations we recommend for getting started.

Need any help setting up Instabug in your app and figuring out the best workflow for your team? You can get in touch with us right away using the Intercom bubble or book a call below.

1. Tailor Instabug’s UI with themes and colors

You can easily tweak Instabug's UI to match your design and brand palette. There are two main customizations you can set:

  1. Choose between the dark and light themes. If your app supports both modes, we recommend that you set Instabug's theme to match the user selection affecting the entire app.

  2. Set the UI color that matches your brand. The UI color that you specify will be reflected on all icons and colored text used by the SDK.

For more details, check out the docs: iOS, Android and React Native.

2. Customize gestures and invocation methods

You can select one or more gestures to invoke Instabug from a variety of supported options. The available options are: shake, screenshot, floating button, pan to the left, one-finger swipe, or manually through your app's UI.

If you're using Instabug in your live app, we recommend triggering Instabug from an action in the Settings or Help screen. This is a common practice and is usually the first place users will check when they want to send feedback or get help.

For more details, check out the docs: iOS, Android and React Native.

3. Set Instabug's default prompts

By default, Instabug's menu includes four options and each of them directs the user to a different view:

  1. Report a problem: this option is used to report the defects and problems that users spot in your app. When chosen, users will be shown a list of report categories to pick from (if you have report categories enabled) and then a view appears where they can compose a new report, add a description, attach screenshots and video recordings.

  2. Suggest an improvement: this option is used to suggest improvements and enhancements by your users, providing valuable feedback that will be very helpful for your product team. Choosing this option will direct them to compose a new report.

  3. Ask a question: this is usually used for support questions and inquiries. When users select this option, it immediately starts a new live chat.

  4. Previous threads (the icon on the top right): when users tap on this icon, it opens their list of conversations with your team. A conversation is created when you reply back to a report that you received from the first 2 categories, or when the user starts a new live chat through "Ask a question".

Depending on your support model and team capacity, you might need to tweak the initial menu. We recommend that you always enable the first two options, "Report a problem" and "Suggest an improvement". As for the third option, "Ask a question", our recommendation is to enable it only when you have a dedicated support team who will be able to keep up with your users' messages and provide a good live chat experience.

For more details about how to customize the initial Instabug prompt titled "Need help?" check the docs: iOS, Android and React Native.

4. Select categories for incoming reports

If you look at the screenshot in the previous section, you will find a second list that appears when users tap on "Report a problem". We highly recommend that you set up your own custom list of "Report Categories," as explained here. These categories can be mapped to main components or features in your app. For instance, if you're building a social media platform, your list of categories might include Newsfeed, Profile, Notifications, Chats, and Settings. This will help you make decisions quickly when you look at your reports, gain more context, and easily prioritize them by their categories. Additionally, you can use rules to automate a lot of your workflow based on the category selected by your users.

You can find more details about how to automate your workflow through customized categories here.

5. Reply to your users

Your users will reach out to you with bugs or issues, suggestions or improvements they want to see, questions, or requests for help. In all cases, we highly recommend that you “close the feedback loop” by replying to them—whether it’s to acknowledge that your team is working on a fix to the problem they reported, notify them that a fix is released, ask for more details, or help them with any difficulties they are facing.

Engaging with your users will boost their satisfaction and loyalty and increase the likelihood that they reach out to you again. From your reports list, you can easily spot the following:

  • Have I replied to this user yet?

  • Do I have any new messages from users?

6. Set up auto-replies

While we highly encourage replying to your users and engaging with them, we know that it can get tough sometimes. No one likes to keep their users waiting. Auto Replies are an effective solution that can help you with this. You can use rules to automatically send saved replies to your users according to the type and category of their report. Here are a few examples of how you can use them:

  • Set their expectations with an ETA: "Thank you so much for reaching out! Someone from the team will reach out to you within 24 hours max."

  • Thank them for their suggestions: "Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us! Our product team will check your out suggestion and we'll get back to you if we need any further details. Have a nice day!"

  • Direct them to your help center: "Thank you for reaching out! Our support team will get back to you within 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can look for an answer in our help center here."

  • Let them know you're working on a fix: "We're really sorry you're facing this problem! We're looking into it and will get back to you shortly".

You can find more details about how to set up automation rules here.

7. Assign reports to team members

Report assignments can save your team's time and help everyone focus on the issues relevant to them. You can automatically route and assign new reports to specific team members. Simply create a rule that sets the assignee based on the report category selected by the user.

You can find more details about how to set up automation rules here.

8. Set up forwarding to Zendesk

If your support team uses Zendesk, we’ve got you covered! In a few steps, you can integrate Instabug with Zendesk. Now, whenever you receive any new report, chat, or reply, you can automatically or manually forward it to Zendesk. And when you reply from Zendesk, your users will receive their replies in-app as if you replied from your Instabug dashboard.

You can find more details about how to integrate with Zendesk here.

9. Integrate with Slack and more

Your product, support, QA, and engineering team will likely be closely interacting with your Instabug dashboard and keeping track of reports sent by your users. They are either triaging the reports, replying to your users, or fixing reported bugs. But what about your business teams? Keeping your sales, marketing, content, and other business teams in the loop can be very beneficial. It brings your team closer to your users, making them more user-centric and improving the overall culture.

Create a public Slack channel that all your team can join and call it #instabug_reports, for instance. Then, on your Instabug dashboard, create a Slack integration, and make sure that "A new bug is reported" is checked in the last step.

You can find more details about how to set up your integration here.

Looking for more integrations? You can learn more and see other available integrations here.

If you have any questions, please let us know! We'd love to help. Book a call below or get in touch with us immediately by clicking the Intercom bubble on the lower right-hand side of your screen.

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