Exact System Information application: Which information is retrieved?

In my previous blog I introduced the Exact System Information application. The goal of this application is to retrieve statistics how customers are using our software. With this information we can improve the software. We do NOT want to know how a customer is doing their business. Company sensitive data is not useful for us to improve the software. We want to minimize the valuable time of the customer to get this information in a consistent way. This blog post will explain what kind of information is retrieved:

 

1. Index usage statistics. Every table can have multiple indexes. SQL Server stores information how these indexes are used. This information is useful to optimize the index structure of the database.
2. Index suggestions. Every database is used in a different way. Exact is a standard package which can be used in different ways. Sometimes the standard index structure is not good enough and can be optimized. SQL Server stores information how the index structure can be optimized. The combination of index usage statistics and index suggestion will enable Exact to improve the standard index structure.
3. Logged errors. This information is useful to fix errors in the software.
4. Number of times an application is started. This will give inside in the most used applications and which functionality is used.
5. Number of records per tables. This will give inside in the most used applications and which functionality is used. No information is retrieved about the content of the individual records. In combination with the hardware statistics we can make better hardware requirements for the customer situation.
6. Background processes which are started in the last 60 days. This information will be used to give feedback if all necessary background jobs are configured.
7. Installed Exact software package
8. Size of the database and log file.
9. Configured Exact settings. This information is useful to know which functionality is used.
10. Hardware statistics like Amount of Memory, Number of CPU's, SQL Server edition etc..

The information which is send to Exact is also stored as a CSV file on the desktop of the user who has started the Exact System Information application. It can also be seen in the menu Logs, View CSV file.

In a later post I will describe the advantage of this application for the customer on the short and long term.
If you are interested to take part of the controlled release phase of this application, please send an email to me