Beta Tester Page/Becoming a Beta Tester

Who can be a beta tester?

Analytica 4.0 introduces a wide variety of new features. We plan an extended beta testing period of 3 months to make sure it is very stable before officially releasing it. We have invited a small number of active Analytica users to be early beta testers.

In a month or two, after we get feedback from the early testers, and fix any problems they uncover, we will extend invitations to be beta testers to all licensed Analytica users with active maintenance -- to all who purchased a new copy or extended their maintenance contract in the last year.

Why become a beta tester?

• Test drive Analytica 4.0 early at no cost.
• Take advantage of the many new 4.0 features immediately.
• Help improve the final release.
• Participate in webinars on tips and guides on 4.0 features.

Responsibilities as a beta tester

We expect beta testers to:

• Sign up as a beta tester.
• Keep up-to-date by installing the latest beta build. We will email you when a new build is ready for download -- typically, every 1 to 2 weeks.
• When you encounter an issue, submit a bug report as described in the next sub-section.
• Read through What's new in Analytica 4.0? so you know what new features are available.
• Explore new Analytica 4.0 enhancements of interest to you.
• Revisit the Analytica Wiki periodically. We will be updating and adding to content here throughout the beta period.

Contributing 4.0 documention on the Analytica wiki

As you will see, we are creating documentation for the Analytica 4.0 features on this wiki. At present, the wiki documentation varies in detail and clarity. We at Lumina will be expanding and refining it during the beta period. Descriptions of 4.0 features has not yet been added into the Tutorial and User Guide PDF documents. The Analytica wiki is the only place to find this material until the final release of 4.0

As a beta tester, you also are invited to contribute to the documentation! Since it's on a wiki (using Mediawiki software, just like Wikipedia), you can add or edit any content. And others can edit or improve your additions. If you find text that is unclear or downright errors, feel free to fix them yourself. Or add comments, asking someone else to. If you find stubs or missing information, feel free to fill them in yourself, or add requests. Or if you come up with tips or interesting examples on how to use a feature, those also will be welcome.

This is a new experiment in the community development of user documentation. At Lumina, we know how important it is to have good User Guides and other documentation. But our resources are limited. We know that there are many highly knowledgeable Analytica users who may know more than us about ways to use particular features. And people seeing new features for the first time are better able to see holes or unclarities than we are. Together the community of users should be able to create better documentation than any single documentation writer. We look forward to your contributions!

How to sign up to be a beta tester

If you would like to be an early tester, please email us (support@lumina.com). We will send you a beta license code.