Agile 9.3 made significant improvements in the web client interface, created a wider set of events, improved notifications, and opened up access through web-services. Of interest to us was the introduction of Groovy scripting which makes it easier to write process extension within the Agile environment and made it optional to use the traditional 9.2 Java API using the SDK.
Groovy is quick to implement as a scripting language that allows access the same object model of Agile that the Java API does. Since you write the script within the admin client, it’s saved in the database within the Agile environment. This makes it portable, making it a less of a concern during upgrades, since there are no Java .jar files to move. It can be effectively used for building quick test cases during implementation.
Groovy does its job quite well but comes with a few differences. It suffers from the breadth of libraries available in the Java which can be used to solve more complex problems. The code is readily available as text in the Agile system without any source control or limits on the admin limited from seeing it or changing it, therefore Groovy is not suited for third party developers. If you need quick process extensions that are easy to manage of moderate complexity within the Agile environment, Groovy is for you.