The most critical thing to do is validate the PIDs and enter your VIN into the Scan tool. Once the PIDs are logged, they wont have the red x through them on the left hand side of the PID selection window.
Using the latest software and firmware helps out a bunch, little bug fixes and new features are always being implemented. The upside to this is there is ongoing development continuously and improvements, downside is the tutorials can become outdated within a shorter time period.
I wish the software would automatically retrieve the VIN from the controller when the logging commenced, that would be nice when going between different cars (I just copy/paste from the tune tool now).