Lifecycle
As illustrated by the following diagram (click diagram to enlarge), SentriaTM is the heart of the product lifecycle.
Development
Debug and source files usually aren't shipped to the end user but are kept and maintained by the developer. As a result, keeping these release and source components consistent requires extra care and effort from the developer. Sentria Release StudioTM alleviates much of this burden by enabling the developer to create release configurations that control all these components and therefore accomplishes several important objectives:
1. Keeps binary, debug information and source files together as consistent sets of files.
2. Enables the identification of exactly which release generated a problem report file.
3. Provides a reliable set of debug information and source files to pinpoint and solve reported problems.
In addition, the Sentria Embedded ReporterTM API enables the developer to insert trace statements into the application code. When something goes wrong, these traces provide a map of where the software was going just before the problem occurred.
In-house & Beta Testing
Even before a product is released, Sentria plays an important role in expediting the testing process. By having Sentria Embedded Reporter in test versions of a product, when a problem occurs, testers simply fill out their contact information and a problem description--Sentria Embedded Reporter does all the hard work of collecting the technical information, packaging it and sending it to the developer.
When the developer receives the problem report, importing it into Sentria Release Studio locates the exact release that generated the report and displays where in the source the problem occurred. As a result, the turnaround time between test releases and fixes is significantly reduced. More testing and fixing in less time yields better software.
Post-Sales
Sentria also improves the end user experience by making the problem reporting process painless and automatic. When the host application crashes, a problem report is generated automatically by Sentria Embedded Reporter. As a result, technical support agents don't have to spend valuable time trying to get information about the user's system, run-time environment and other issues related to the crash.
Often, interactions between technical support and end users lead to frustrations for both parties as they seek to achieve the same goal--fix the problem. The end user is not happy when he's unable to describe what really happened and the system's run-time environment when the problem occurred. The technical support representative is not happy because she's in the middle, unable to help the end user fix the problem and unable to provide adequate information to the development department to get the problem diagnosed and fixed.
By making the problem reporting process automatic, Sentria handles the collection and flow of technical information to considerably speed up the technical support process.