PTC Windchill RV&S (formerly Integrity Lifecycle Manager of the Integrity suite) is an MBSE (model-based systems engineering) suite. The former Integrity suite contains an Asset Library which supports systems-of-systems approach to design (i.e. linking models into higher-level models that subsume them), a Process Director which is designed to articulate, manage and improve the design process, and a Modeler for visualizing and controlling the product design process. The Integrity suite is…
Buzilla is easy to use and provides basic functionality to use as a bug tracking tool. If big size attachments are allowed it would have been great. Also with Bugzilla home->Test management area is improved by allowing multiple sections it would be awesome!
PTC Integrity is an excellent source code management and version control tool, and I would suggest anyone to use it for that purpose. We can even define our workflows using individual forms for implementing Change Management, Defect Management and Access management requests. If properly used, this tool is great for managing our code for very long periods, considering my 4-5 years of usage. Though the UI could be better, and integration with some application servers could be better implemented, this tool is a good tool.
Open source! No license fee involved, no limit to the number of licenses.
Easy to install and maintain. Installation is very easy and hardly needs any maintenance efforts, except when migrating from one version to other. Each project can have its own group of users.
Includes all the core features/fields that are needed to log a software bug/issue.
Multiple attachments are possible, supports various formats.
Good for reporting. Filtering mechanism lets you query bugs by various parameters.
Cloud Based. I'd like to see bugzilla be cloud based. The company I currently work with made a final decision to change db's for this specific reason. Due to the frequency of travel in this company, they need access to bugzilla from differing national / international locations.
Larger File Attachments. I believe the limit of a bugzilla content upload is 4 megabytes. For many of our video'd issues, this file size is simply impractical without the additional effort exertion on video compressor applications.
It can be overwhelming with the number of tabs, functions and ways to achieve the same result. The average user may struggle with learning the tool.
The text editing in Integrity is weak and does not provide many options. Because of this, many user decide to use MS word instead, to document requirements.
For future projects I will look at something that is hosted in the cloud that I don't have to manage. I would also like something that has a more modern feel to allow my customers to use it as well as my employees.
I do not make decisions on what tool my company uses. I am just the user of the tool and such decisions are not handled by me. If I were to make such decisions, I would definitely renew MKS, considering the amount of data we have stored in MKS and the current number of users who are familiar with the system
This is a pretty straightforward system. You put in the bug details, a ticket is created, the team is notified. The user interface reflects this very simple and straightforward flow. It's certainly much easier than trying to track bugs with using Excel and email.
PTC Integrity comparatively could be considered a nice Source code management, Version controlling tool and could be compared with tools like StarTeam. If the integration to move/migrate code could be integrated into this tool, it would become an extremely powerful tool.
Since it is open source, it doesn't have customer service. However, the amount of information on forums is vast. If you can wade through it, you'll get what you need
PTC Integrity administration can be somewhat daunting. They have been able to help with every question that I have submitted. Their support website is very easy to understand and submit questions and their phone support is wonderful
Implementation was pretty simple. Particularly because the product cannot be customized so there is not much to do apart from getting it up and running.
We migrated away from the whole suite of Rational tools because of their massive complexity around administration and inflexibility regarding workflows. In addition, the suite was insanely expensive, and users hated the usability of the tools. We evaluated, and liked JIRA, but because the organization was looking for cost savings, we ended up going with Bugzilla and it's FOSS model so as to avoid ongoing costs.
I think the reason that PTC Integrity was initially chosen is that it was the best product available in the mix at the time. This coupled with the PTC deal on multiple products was a no brainer based on the size and scope of potential users.
It has made the SDLC process more efficient. Bugs were logged and tracked in emails or in Excel sheets leading to slow communication and at time version issues with multiple files. Being an online tool, Bugzilla solved those issues, improved communication, instant status updates and improved efficiency.
We have used Bugzilla with a lot of federal goverment agencies (DHS, CMS, SAMHSA, CDC, HHS etc). Project Directors adn Principle Investigators were at times given access to Bugzilla which provided a snapshot of open vs closed issues.
Some groups would resist using Bugzilla with the email reminders being the main reason. Turning off or reminding them of features where we can 'control' email notification helped a lot.
MKS Integrity has proved to be particularly useful in the software development process by increasing employee effieciency
MKS integrity has also made software development a very efficient process and makes feature releases and bug fixing a lot easier
In addition to the above, our organization has been able to support manufacturing easily by reverting to a previous software version in case of an emergency.
It has also led to faster time to market for new products.
