Customization

Customer Specific Changes to the Product

The software can be customized in two ways:

  • by adding customer specific data and views
  • by removing (hiding) software functionality

Adding Customer Specific Data and Views

This can be done by using:

  • Notes categories
  • User Defined Attributes
  • User Views

Notes Categories (available in all extension stages of IQ-Software)

Notes can be added to every object of the data model. As the notes are based on HTML, rich text as well as links to other documents (including pictures, sound files, videos) can be part of the notes. Notes can, of course, also be translated to other document languages.

In addition, the user can define notes categories. Using these, notes which are only for internal use and which are not visible for certain user groups can be added to the data.

The owner of the documents controls the notes category to be used when the document is opened (and printed or exported to HTML).

Figure 1: Notes category

User Defined Attributes (available in all extension stages of IQ-Software)

The data model of APIS IQ-Software is very sophisticated and supports a huge number of complex filters. However, not all information aspects which are relevant for a specific company can be anticipated by the model. These aspects can be introduced into the data model via user defined attributes.

Every object of the data model can be attributed with an unlimited number of these user defined attributes. The attributes can be displayed (and therefore also printed) in the various editors of the software and they can be part of the search filters (queries) of the IQ-Explorer. Using user defined attributes can be compared to tagging web sites in a browser to add user generated contents.

The following figures show two "tagged" actions plus an auto filter that uses these tags.

Figure 2: Action with "User Defined Attribute"

Figure 3: Auto filter for "User Defined Attribute"

Figure 4: Result of auto filter

User Views (available in all extension stages of IQ-Software)

User Views let the user create forms that display the data of the model in ways which are not envisioned by standardized forms (e.g. the FMEA forms according to AIAG).

The following figure displays a view which shows the failures per structure and the actions defined for the failures.

Figure 5: User defined view

As the standard forms know nothing about structures and always show three levels of the failure net, such a view has to be specifically defined. The following figures show how this is done.

1. Define the focus objects ("failures" in this case).

Figure 6: "User Defined View": Focused column

2. Define the columns to include in the form.

Figure 7: "User Defined View": Columns

3. Select the attributes to be displayed and their layout (horizontal or vertical).

Figure 8: "User Defined View": Attributes

How to Hide Software Features

There is no feature in the software which was not at one time required by one or more customers. Due to the large customer base of APIS IQ-Software, a lot of features have been added during the last 16 years. Although vitally important for the requestor, not every feature is meaningful for every user of IQ. Therefore we provided two ways to exclude of unwanted program components:

  • the Customization Manager
  • the Customized Tools

Customization Manager (available in all extension stages of IQ-Software)

The Customization Manager lets you define different configurations of the software by specifying the editors that are included in the configuration as well as the commands that the editor is to support in the configuration.

Customized Tools (available in all extension stages of IQ-Software)

Customized Tools (CT) are standalone applications developed and maintained by APIS. CT are targeted for specific user groups and often allow these groups only access to a limited set of objects of the underlying data model and a limited set of operations that can be performed.

The following customized tools are available:

  • CT Form:
    Provides a form sheet editor similar to EXCEL but with improved user friendliness as well as an integrated statistics.
    Figure 9 - CT Form
  • CT Analysis Desktop:
    Similar to CT Form with additional reports for tracking the project's progress. This CT is targeted at members of management.
    Figure 10 - Task list
    Figure 11 - Status actions work off
    Figure 12 - Status trend
  • CT Action:
    Shows the status of actions and allows only changes in action status; targeted at persons in charge of actions