How end users can change their participation in Feature Usage Reporting

Date: 11/15/2010
Product: SmartAssembly

This article is intended for software developers using SmartAssembly 6 to add feature usage reporting to their programs. In text displayed to end users, feature usage reporting is called the 'quality improvement program'.

We strongly recommend that you implement a way for the user to change whether they participate in feature usage reporting in your program's user interface.

If you choose not to let users change their participation, they will only be asked once (the first or second time that the program runs). You should add a version of these instructions to the documentation for your program. Ensure that you include the usual warnings about why manually editing the registry can be dangerous.

When users are asked to participate

End users are asked whether they wish to participate in the quality improvement program when all of the following conditions are met:

The end user has not already decided whether to enable feature usage reporting.
The end user is using a feature in your program that reports its usage.
This is the first or second time that the program has run, depending on which template you selected in the Project Settings.

Allowing end users to change their participation at any time

If the end user agrees to participate in the quality improvement program, SmartAssembly's feature usage reporting is enabled. The end user's decision is recorded in the registry at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CompanyName\ApplicationName
(where CompanyName and ApplicationName are the values provided in the Error Reporting or Feature Usage Reporting settings in the SmartAssembly project.)

The registry key's name is SmartAssemblyReportUsage and it can take three values: True, False or Unknown:

If the value is True, your program will report its usage. If the end user subsequently wishes to opt-out of feature usage reporting, set the value to False.
If the value is False, your program will not report its usage. If the end user subsequently wishes to opt-in to feature usage reporting, set the value to True.
If the value is Unknown, or if the key does not exist, your program will ask the end user to decide whether to participate when the program next runs. The end user's decision will be recorded in this key.

You can change the value of this key to allow users to opt-in or opt-out of feature usage reporting at any time.

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