We use Informer mainly as a reporting tool for Colleague by Ellucian which is a Unidata environment. Unidata does not lend itself to reporting friendliness. There is no way to join files together other than manual means. With Informer, we don't have to import files into a separate environment. The software connects to our live data. Once the file structure, not data, has been recognized by Informer, then we can join files together in Informer. So starting in one file and then selecting on data or using column data from other files is very simple. Without writing custom programs for each report, this functionality is just not available in Unidata. We use Informer with our Unidata environment along with a small bit of SQL. Once the files and tables are set up in Informer they are completely environment agnostic. They all look and operate the same and can be used together.

We use this product to pull queries from our very old and clunky database/CRM. If you do everything right it can be very useful. One feature I appreciate is that you can your own personal view (output) of a query without altering the original query itself (input), which is especially helpful if multiple people are using the same one.

The best thing about Informer is the ease of use.