The Loupe Agent can be configured to automatically send completed sessions to the Loupe Server in the background while a monitored application is running.  When you and your team run Loupe Desktop, that information is automatically sent down to you.  This capability is configured in the server configuration section.

How it Works

When the Agent runs, it checks for eligible sessions to send.  If the Server is reachable then the sessions summary information will be uploaded.  Once that's complete, the Agent will as the Server what sessions to send detailed data for.  Each of those sessions will be quietly uploaded using a compressed, restartable protocol that works through HTTP.  If the network connection is lost the transfer will pause and resume when the server can be reached.

Always Safe

In keeping with the Loupe philosophy of doing no harm there are several safeties:

• Only one instance will transfer at a time:  If multiple copies of your application can run at the same time only one will attempt to transfer data at a time.  If that instance exits, another running instance will take over the transfer within a minute.
• Isolated thread:  All interaction for the transfer is done on a dedicated thread that is independent of the logging control flow to ensure that network issues can't interrupt the normal operation of the Agent.
• Lower priority thread:  Transfers are done using a thread set to lower than normal priority to ensure they don't interrupt active work you're performing.
• Only sessions for the current Product and Application:  By default, only sessions for the application represented by the Agent can be sent.  This can be optionally broadened (see below) to include all applications in the same product family as the Agent.  Sessions for another product can't be sent in the background.

Sending On Error

When Auto Send Sessions is enabled the agent will automatically send data when errors occur.  When you only want data sent at the end of the session you can disable this option (Set AutoSendOnError to false). 

Send on error is implemented internally by changing the default values of the SendSession and MinimumNotificationDelay properties on the MessageAlert event.  When the MessageAlert event is raised these will default to true and five minutes respectively.  You can still override the behavior individually by changing either property during the event.

Sending Multiple Applications

If you have a family of applications that should all report their data to the same Server, you can improve the data transfer effectiveness by enabling the Send All Applications option.  When this is set, the Agent will look for eligible sessions from any application that shares the same Product Name as the Agent.  It will also ensure that only one instance of any of the applications in the product family are sending at a time. 

To take advantage of this feature, make sure that all of the applications are configured to either not send data or use the same Server and have the option enabled. 

Scenario One:  Have any application in a product family transfer for the entire product

Most of the time if you have multiple applications in your product family it's best to let them work together so they send information on the entire product.  To do this, provide the same server configuration section to all of the applications in the product with the Send All Applications option set.

Scenario Two:  Use one application to transfer all sessions

If you have one application in your family that you want to use to transfer all of the session data for your product then:

• Do not set the AutoSendSessions option on any other application, although you may want to configure the Server section to allow them to use the Packager to send sessions manually.
• Configure the Server options on the primary application to connect to the Server of your choice and set the SendAllApplications option.  As long as this application is running it will periodically check for sessions to send from any of the applications.

This option is particularly useful when there are secondary applications that are short lived or where there are concerns that it just isn't suitable to send data (such as an application plugin to Visual Studio)

You can see details on this and many other Server usage scenarios at Loupe Server - Session Submission Scenarios.

Minimizing Local Disk Usage

If you have configured the agent to automatically send sessions to a Server you might consider raising the local disk space permitted for each application and setting the Purge Sent Sessions option.  When this is set each session that has been sent to the server (or the server has elected to not receive details for) will be removed from the local repository.  While this option is not enabled by default (because it deletes data) it is a recommended option for the best customer experience.