Another Webix user has kindly agreed to share his experience and his feedback with us. We are talking to Igor Fabo. He represents the Hungarian company called Fornetti. You’d better visit their site after already having a meal, as the company is a pastry manufacturer.
Let’s find out their experience!
Hi Igor. We are excited to get to know you. Tell us, please, about your role in the company.
We are a very big company. The main holding company called Aryzta is making pastry all over the world. Fornetti is a smaller group in Hungary. We are a part of it. We produce pastry and sell it to Kaufland, Tesco, Lidl, etc.
There is an IT department with 7 members. I am the director of this department. Mainly we make programs and modules to help the automatization processes at the factory and reporting systems. We have a huge amount of data from warehouses, factories, and sales.
What is the project you are working on?
6 years ago we made a small BI software similar to the Webix Report Manager. It could change the fields, apply filters, see the charts update. We decided to rewrite it, as it was very old, though used by many people in the company including directors. The code needed updating. We tested various platforms and we chose Webix.
Currently, we are using data tables from Webix, as well as the windowing system, and combo boxes. I can load data files in the CSV format right from the database. The project is similar to BI software. It is not finished yet. We want to implement deep learning and AI to predict numbers from sales, for example. A third party like Highcharts is necessary so that we can integrate with Webix. Webix charting is not enough for us. We need very configurable and customizable charts.
Which other libraries do you use apart from Webix?
Highcharts, jsPlumb, CodeMirror.
What were the difficulties with Webix?
As I say, configuring data tables was hard. It took two or three months just to fine-tune them. But it’s ok now. We don’t use buttons, so we added a context menu with available options.
We found some bugs.
You can tell our technical support about all the issues, they will be happy to assist you with that.
Okay, thank you. We have been using Webix for two years already. Our system is similar to Webix Report Manager but much more complex. We use and manage huge data sets with billions of rows. The system is made in PHP with MariaDB and Webix data tables. Every data table we use is connected with Ajax to the server. Sometimes a request is duplicated to the server as I scroll. It’s not a huge bug, just an example.
How did you learn about Webix?
We found Webix on Google after checking many JS libraries. We needed the library with numerous solutions and modules. Besides, we didn’t want to integrate many third-party libraries, as there may be updating and licensing issues. If anything breaks in a big company system, it will be very hard to change it, as all people have already learned to use the system. So we needed a strong product. Webix was a little bigger and stronger than others. Long-term support is very important for us.
Which complex Webix widgets do you use?
Query and File Manager.
What do you love about Webix?
First of all, the modular structure and how I can give the parameters and configure the modules. It is very simple and everyone can learn it if they know JS. We can develop very fast. And also, the outlook is very modern and minimalistic. So I think module usage is the main reason. Data tables have many features like multi-column sorting and filtering. I know there are many data tables on the market but Webix is better.
What would you recommend Webix to improve?
You have the widget called Pivot. Two years ago we found it and we wanted to build the system upon it. Unfortunately, Pivot couldn’t provide something we needed, because we didn’t need the tree outlook and we couldn’t change it. So, we decided to use data tables instead.
So, was it easier for you to create your solution with Webix from scratch than to use the Report Manager and build upon it?
Yes, as the Report Manager is for small companies or ad-hoc fast reporting. But we needed a more complex and configurable system, with a predictive deep learning system. That is our goal.
Thank you Igor for your time and feedback, we appreciate that.
If you feel like sharing your experience with us, do not hesitate to tell us. We will contact you and arrange a convenient time for the meeting.
