Logging and the Software Exception Main Success Scenario Use Case

Logging: not the wooden kind, the software kind.

When things go wrong they should not only go wrong gracefully but in a manner friendly to the software user.

Logging can help with this - a lot. The better the logging solution in place, the less important it becomes to flash up terse techical messages to the user of the software, burdening them with the job of conveying this to support teams.

Safe in the knowledge that the system has logged the problem:
- Which part of the software the problem occurred
- What it was doing at the time
- The nature of the problem
- Which application and user was involved

The software can focus on the practical action the user should take. For example an instruction to call the support desk giving their user and the application being used.

The support desk should have ready access to the application data logs, they should be able to filter these logs by application / user / time, they are then in a better position to advise action / delegate the problem to a specialist team.