Info engine based Reports/customization

Hi Preeti,

I've redently begun using IE and I find it to be useful. It takes a bit of trial and error to learn how it is intended to work, but once you're over the learning curve, I've found it an easy way to access some of the basic tasks within Windchill. You can also use the IE API to extend it's capabilities. It provides a nice way to access the data within the CMS.

Depending on how many reports you have, I don't think it would take more than one person to maintain your reports. Someone with a mix of SQL and JSP/web experience would probably be a good fit.

Hi Preeti,

We're using Info*Engine for many of our integrations, some are lightweight just pulling information and others are heavier allowing creation of data. I find it very useful and not very difficult to use or understand. The toughest part we have with it is there isnt really a debugging tool, so there is alot of old-school debugging techniques to be used with it when developing.

You can mix InfoEngine and java in the same task, switching between the two.

We're using it more and more for streamlining business actions. For example, a simple webpage to trigger the task allows our user to create a Change Notice within 5 clicks (instead of 40 using Windchill 8 native). The InfoEngine tasks can be accessed by url also, or registered for SOAP. (we tend to access by url for most of these lightweight apps).

Hope that helps,

Rivan

While usingInfo*Engine for reports, the only problem you might face is you will be getting xml format output, and you will have to work on it to make it more user friendly. That said I*E tasks are much easier to use because of their predefined format, easier than APIs, and so retrieving data will not be a big task.

Club Form output with I*E and you get good UI along witheasy data retrieval.

Hope this helps.

-Nitin