InTouch rant!

Paullys50

Lifetime Supporting Member
Join Date
Jan 2006
Location
WI
Posts
2,188
I've been developing a lot in InTouch the past few years as it's the company preferred SCADA package as we have a lot of development efforts put into it over the years, so naturally it's about getting some ROI. I think we deliver a good product, but InTouch is so archaic I want to gouge my eyes out.

Cost
I see people gripe about Rockwell, but Wonderware is just as bad. I did a project with InBatch and InTouch requiring server and client licensing. I got hit with required support at 18% of the total license cost. Come to find out later that it was only required for InBatch, but they applied it to each licenses. Then I get hassled a year later about getting the end user to renew the support contract at 12K/year. Ah, no. They don't have anyone capable of supporting InBatch or InTouch, they need something they are calling my company. You have their contact info, make that outrageous sale on your own!

InTouch Tag Editor
Or really lack-there-of. I recently had to delete over 2000 tags from a project one-by-one. You can't do any group select/delete. What a hassle! This was a smaller version of a previous project so I just tried to cut down the tag counts (I hate bloated applications). Sure I could have started a new project, did a DBDump/Load after I edited the CSV files, re-imported everything but what a time waster either way! GRRR!!!

Limited Export/Import
We use a lot of scripting, and yes it would be great if I could auto-generate scripts into a native file type (.csv) and simply import what I needed, so I could make a library of scripts. But nope, can't do that. GRRR!!!

Oh, it's a PITA to delete scripts too, again trying to reduce the size of a project I had to delete each script one-by-one.

Bindlists
I guess I can just edit the .DEF file in notepad, again so much for building a library of components. GRRR!

How is it that Notepad is the tool to make things efficient??? :cry:

Resolution
YAY they finally gave an option to lock the application resolution!!!!! Still a poor effort.

Graphics
Still can't animate the color of a button. Really?? I understand the ways around this, but still a hassle. Come'on man! Oh, and when I double-click on a graphic, and my mouse makes a microscopic movement, it does not mean I want to move the graphic!!! Filter that out a bit please!

Wonderware's answer:
SYSTEM PLATFORM, IT'S THE CAT'S ***! IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND!

Um, take your SCADA 101 reactor demo and shove it where the sun don't shine. Show me an application demo of a system capable of the complex requirments of a $250K control system. "Oh it's so easy to convert your exiting InTouch symbols to System Platform see, I'll demonstrate a SLIDER object" -- Mind.Blown?? Not quite.

What about my scripts that go with my complicated symbols? See they reference my custom QuickFunctions to populate my various device pop-up boxes with proper text and such (other features as well). Sure the symbol converts to a System Platform object, but all my scripts are broken and I have to re-write them in .NET! I have yet to see a native .NET script editor in the IDE (granted I am new to the IDE so I just may be overlooking it). Re-development time!!

SYSTEM PLATFORM IS COST EFFECTIVE, PAYS FOR ITSELF AFTER 2 CLINETS
Um....no, it does not.

WONDERWARE OFFERS CONSULTING SERVICES TO HELP MIGRATE YOUR INTOUCH APP TO SYSTEM PLATFORM....@$xxx.xx/hr.
Um....no, I will not pay you to implement your product.

Wonderware WDN
Credit for having online tech-support knowledge base of sorts, however the content is lacking and when I do find a reference to a problem with an answer, it's usually a vague 1-liner. At least with Rockwell I can count on a paragraph or two containing something I can chew on.

Licensing

WooooHoooo license files are EASY!

Think I can end there.

/rant

I know I'm not an expert at Wonderware InTouch, I can admit my ignorance if anyone can negate any of my comments. But man I want to try another solution but I know I'm not in a position to force a change.
 
I know I'm not an expert at Wonderware InTouch, I can admit my ignorance if anyone can negate any of my comments. But man I want to try another solution but I know I'm not in a position to force a change.


I feel your pain. I dont expect it to get any better with the recent acquisition. Id say to start pushing ignition and what you can do with it to the decision makers. its really amazing what you can accomplish with the right people doing the design.
 
I am still using Citect with success. The new TAB style pages are excellent and the Process Analyst (trends) is excellent too.
The machines function is also excellent.
The highest resolution for standard TAB style pages is WUXGA - looks fine on a Dell 30" monitor running @ 2550 x 1600.
Citect has inbuilt drivers for just about everything - sometimes another driver needs to be purchased but not very often.
You can open and save the databases (dbf) with an Excel add in that comes with Citect and it will save the dbf with the correct column widths etc.
Annual maintenance fees for a 5000 tag package are no where near $12k!
A grumble or two, V7.3 is slower than past versions.
The Excel add in will not save digital tags correctly if ending with '0' - it truncates the '0' - not a big issue if you are aware of it - the compiler will take you straight to the problem tags anyway.
Sometimes the add in does not save correctly as well.
I think the last two grumbles may have something to do with the fact that I am running Windows 7 x 64 bit but not sure.
I do not know where Citect will finish up as Schneider have a few SCADA packages and buying more. Schneider also have the habit of extracting good dollars for everything so that may change. If they do not continue development of Citect there would be the biggest hue and cry from their customers in Oz, apart from everywhere else, that they would not have time to come up for air so I expect Citect will continue being developed/improved.
Having a look @ Ignition - not bad so far but too busy to have a good look yet.
Wonderware is off my list totally, as are a few others.
As I need drivers for virtually everything the AB offering does not suit me.
I do not like OPC much as it is quite slow sometimes but often no choice these days.
 
I've looked at Ignition in the past, more for my curiosity than anything. With all the positive comments of it I will take another look into it. Unfortunately, I'm in what I'll call a "satellite" office. While I do have some influence in improving our standard, I don't think I carry enough weight to for a product change to be taken seriously. I would really have to spend time with cost justification and all of that to really try to sell it to management and co-workers.

But, at the end of the day we really need to improve our graphics at some point, I think our standard graphics are a bit dated and need a re-vamp within the next 5 years, one path is archestra graphics with InTouch or another is a new platform.

I've used GE Cimplicity in the past, my first job out of college actually. It was a pretty powerful platform I thought. I did not like it at first because of how versatile it was, made a newbie's brain go numb quickly but now I can better appreciate the platform.
 
I'd really love to use Ignition. I demo'ed it on my own to see what it was all about, very easy to set up and get going, and I liked their licensing model. I didn't delve too far into it, so I'm still unsure of what limitation is may have.

Unfortunately at my current job we are pretty my all AB with the occasional iFix, so there is no way they will be adopting a 3rd HMI solution anytime soon. It bother's me a little when companies back themselves into a corner as far as vendor selection goes. There are good reasons for it but it certainly is a double-edged sword.
 

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