FAQ

1. General

What is Software Statistics Service?
Software Statistics Service is an analytics tool, that tracks your software usage and helps you understand what happens to your software after it was downloaded.
What information does this service provide me?
Software Statistics Service collects significant information about: frequency of application usage, its average session duration time, number of its installations, downloads, runs, versions popularity and much more.
How Software Statistics Service can help me?
This service is especially essential for software developers! It allows you to understand what happens to your software after it was downloaded. SSS collects a precise desktop metrics about your software usage and transforms it into a range of comprehencive reports. Using this statistics service you can find out the number of your software installations, downloads, first and repeated starts, you can create a weekly and daily statistics of your software usage, determine the most popular software version, review your software usage per country, etc. With SSS you can increase the efficiency of your marketing activities and business itself if you base your decisions on precise desktop metrics rather than on your guesswork. Read more detailed information about SSS benefits here.
How can I use all the information SSS collects for me?
Please read detailed information about SSS benefits.
I work in B2B (corporate customers). My customers have high security requirements. Will SSS work for this segment?
Yes, Software Statistics Service will work very well for your segment. Just make sure you make statistics collection optional as described in SSS Privacy Policy.
How do I start using Software Statistics Service?
All you have to do to start getting desktop metrics is create your account on our site. Choose a Service Plan that fits you the most and create one account for all of your projects. After subscribing for a certain Service Plan you will get a unique identifier for each of your projects. Download program code and integrate it into your desktop software, use unique project identifier to separate one project from another. As soon as you’ve inserted the code in a program you will start getting desktop statistics and will see it in your account page.

2. Functionality and Features

How Software Statistics Service works?
Software Statistics Service provides you with a code that contains verifications for each project. You need to integrate this code into your software application in order to start gathering statistics from your customers.
Is it possible to track the usage of each software application separately?
Yes. Software Statistics Service allows you to review data for a certain amount of your products separately, depending on your Service Plan.
Can I track individual versions usage in my software?
Yes. Software Statistics Service enables to monitor each version of your product separately.
Is it possible to view data per country?
Yes. For this purpose there are two options. You can go to World Map and move your mouse to a certain country to see the detailed report. Or you can use a Filter Feature and set up filter on the required country.
How many users SSS can handle? Can SSS handle high load (millions of installations)?
Yes, SSS can handle high load and unlimited amount of users. It uses dedicated servers deployed on Amazon’s Elastic Cloud (EC2) service, what ensures a large capacity for data storage and high speed of data transition.
Does SSS require an internet connection?
Yes, but not all the time. The service collects all the data and sends them to central servers. If you do not have an internet connection it will store your data locally and attempt to deliver them to you later. But this local server can store only limited amount of information and when it get overfilled your old data will be replaced with newer ones. You need to connect to internet at least once in a month, otherwise your old data will be lost.
Is SSS usable for partially offline applications?
Yes, it is. SSS does not require constant internet connection. It collects most of the statistics locally and send it to the server in seldom periods of time. If there is no internet connection the service will send data next time internet connection is available.
Is there any slowdowns when using SSS?
No. It is running in a separate thread and doesn’t affect your primary application run time. If there are any issues with SSS it will just stop without affecting your parent software.
Does SSS support xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (new technologies, platforms, programming languages)?
We invite you to use our online wish management tool to make your technology suggestion. If there will be interest of more than a dozen users we will support this technology.
How often does SSS reports data to the server?
This is a dynamic value. Depending on SSS server load it may send data from every 5 minutes to approximately once per day. Also it tries to send most recent data when host application is closing.
How much data is sent?
It depends on how many custom events you’ve logged. Default data package (in case of basic integration) contains about 1-2 kilobytes of general system information. Each custom event (button click, feature use and so on) contains approx 100 bytes of information. If you want to send textual data package size can contain string up to 255 characters plus up to 100 bytes of service data. All data are stored (cashed) locally. When SSS module decides to send data it will divide it into portions of 50Kb in size.
Can I collect users feedback with this service?
No. For this reason we developed BetaEasy service – customers feedback service. You can easily integrate it with your software application and effectively manage your users feedback.
What does session in SSS mean?
Session is data package collected at applications integrated with SSS and send to SSS server. It may contain whether the information about software and hardware environment or data about activities you want to track (user behavior, mobile or desktop software usage, etc). Note! The number of sessions differ in correspondence to the type of Service Plan. Check the one that suits your needs and requirements here.
How would I know when the number of sessions allowed end?
There is no need for you to worry about tracking the number of sessions performed. Our Service will inform you when the number of sessions are nearly to end, so you will have the possibility to upgrade and extend the time of data storage.
Can Software Statistics Service track ID?
Software Statistics Service collects only general information that can be aggregated and arranged in different ways, e.g. “Number of runs for today”, “Percentage of operating systems”, “Min/Max amount of memory” etc. but we do not track individual application instances.
Does the service track hours of use per day?
Currently we have “Average Session Time” feature indicating how long the tracked application is used per day. In order to see the total number of hours software is running you should use “Custom Events” feature.
Can the service track each of the versions of the software if several of them are used?
Yes, you can track the number of instances when each version is used (“Versions” section), however some information cannot be divided by application versions (Hardware, World Map, User Loyalty). Another way to track everything by version is to create a new project for every new version.
Can the service track via the custom feature when and how often new functionality is used?
Yes, you can use “Custom Events” for that purpose. Any application event can be named and logged along with some numeric value. All those events will appear in “Custom Events”.
Does the system, that is being tracked, have to be online?
Not all the time. When there’s no Internet connection currently available it will store data into local storage for some time. Later, when the device goes online the usage data will be transferred to the server.
Does SSS save data into the local storage if offline and then update the data on the server?
Yes. When there’s no Internet connection currently available it will store the data into local storage for some time. Later, when the device goes online it will transfer usage data to the server.
What happens if the unit is not online?
The data are stored locally. When the Internet connection is available Software Statistics Service will transfer the usage data to the server.
How, if at all, will this work with the software that is already installed in the field?
A new version of the software with a tracker module built in must be released, published and distributed among users. Only this new version will collect usage data.
Does this work with cloud-based applications as well?
In general it doesn’t matter how the application is used. But in every particular case application should be tested with a trial period and sandbox before it is published to a cloud.

3. Payment

What happens when I go over the limit?
When you exceed allowed limit your account will be suspended. Software Statistics Service will continue to collect data about your software usage during one month. To unlock account please contact our support team.
Are there any long-term obligations (can I cancel my subscription anytime)?
There are no long-term obligations and you can stop using Software Statistics Service any time you want.
Can I change my service plan anytime?
Yes, you can change your service plan anytime you want. To upgrade your Service Plan go to the Account page and click at Purchase Subscription. Select Service Plan that fits you the most and click Sign Up. To downgrade your account please contact our support team.
Can I try Software Statistics Service for free?
For this reason we offer you a free service plan. It allows you to integrate Software Statistics Service Tracker into your application and collect precise statistics about your software usage.

4. Security and Privacy

Does your software interfere with Firewall Anti-viruses?
Our software requires network connection to work properly. It regular connects over HTTP protocol to our data server. End-customers will need to allow this activity on their firewalls.
How firewalls and antivirus programs are reacting to SSS activity?
In general they will react in the same way as to any other network activity. They may prompt user to allow or deny network access for this program or even block software silently. In order to get antivirus and firewall software more tolerable to your program you should sign your code with a digital signature. Usually when such signature is present the program will get much lower warning level.
Is SSS safe? And how is users privacy protected?
Software Statistics Service team takes many precautions in protecting the information that is collected and transmitted from potentially harmful access. SSS only collects anonymous information about your software application. It doesn’t gather any private data such as user’s name, address, or phone number. We strongly recommend you to include a prominent option in your software informing users about statistics gathering and allowing them to turn this feature off. Usual practice is to show such option during software installation and also add it to your EULA (see SSS EULA template here).
End-users will be afraid of such functionality, don’t you think?
Nowadays all large companies have similar functionality and it becomes widespread. They represent it as Product Improvement Program. Click here to see examples we’ve collected. As a software author you need to make statistics gathering optional during setup and add it to your EULA (read SSS EULA template for end-users). Make sure you do not collect any personal information.
Does statistics collected by SSS worth the risk of using it (customers fears, unusual software behaviour)?
SSS team takes many measures to ensure high security and flawless performance of the service. The risks you may face are negligible comparing to enormous benefits you get. SSS can save your resources and helps to make more income in a long-term period. Click here to read detailed SSS advantages description.
Is Software Statistics Service spyware?
No. SSS cannot collect information without your full knowledge or consent and you can choose to start or stop participating at any time.