Last Updated on October 29, 2023 by maximosecrets

The Crafts application defines the maintenance disciplines and competency levels, referred to as Skill Levels in Maximo. Qualifications define the specialist skills and certifications that a person possesses that may help to decide between one Labor record or another when assigning work. A qualification can also be a requirement to use a tool or a requirement for a crew position.

In this article we will look at the definition of a qualification and its relationship with Labor and Tools, qualifications on crews will be discussed in articles on Crew Type and Crews.

In the article on Graphical Resource View we had added a craft of Functional Consultant (FC) with skill levels of FIRSTCLASS, SENIOR or JUNIOR. When we assign consultants (Labor) to proposals or projects (Work Orders) we need to review the specialist skills acquired for Maximo Industry Solutions and Add-ons.

In this first example I have added a qualification called MAXHSE – Maximo Health, Safety & Environment Manager, with a Qualification Type of IT (ALN Domain QUALTYPE) and we have suggested that this might be associated with the Craft/Skill Level of FC/FIRSTCLASS.

We’ll also do the same for:

• MAXSCH – Maximo Scheduler
• MAXSP – Maximo for Service Providers

I did this using the Duplicate Qualification action as that copies the records in the Required Craft and Skill Levels table window. The default status is ACTIVE. The other status in the Synonym Domain QUALSTATUS is INACTIVE.

On the Associated Labor tab you can then select the Labor that has the Qualification. The Select Value on Labor is filtering for Labor records that have the Craft and Skill Level. I’ll select Andrew Jeffery (AJE).

Unfortunately, in Maximo 7.6.1.2 where I am performing the test you cannot save the record because you get the error “BMXAA4195E – A value is required for the Effective Date field on the LABORCERTHIST object.” The error is issued irrespective of whether or not you have entered a Required Craft and Skill Level. This all works fine on Maximo 7.6.1.1, the issue has been reported to IBM.

If the Qualification has:

• No required Craft and Skill Level record then any Labor of the same organization can be associated with it.
• A Craft without a Skill Level then any Labor of the same organization with that Craft can be associated with it, the labor may or may not be associated with a skill level of the craft.
• A Craft with a Skill Level then only Labor of the same organization that has the same craft and skill level can be associated with it.
• Multiple required Craft and Skill Levels, then only one of these needs to be a match with the craft and skill levels of the Labor record. A Labor does not need to match with all of the Required Craft and Skill Level records, only one of these.

The Qualification must be at ACTIVE status for it to be associated with a Labor record. Once the associated record is saved it cannot be deleted you will receive the error “BMXAA2520E – A qualification that has already been saved on a labor record cannot be deleted.”

The labor association with a qualification record is written to the table LABORQUAL with a unique index based on ORGID, LABORCODE, QUALIFICATIONID. The labor cannot have the same qualification multiple times.

When some qualifications are gained a certification is issued. In this case the Certificate Required field is checked and the details entered in the Certificate Information section. I have entered a duration of 5 years because it is roughly after this time when a Maximo functional consultant should look to recertify. In this case, they would not recertify with the same qualification because by then one would expect some sort of certification on Maximo 8, or later.

The Required Use Length and Required Use Period are used when certification is only valid if the qualification gained is used in practise. For example, a welding certificate might be valid for 2 years but requires the employer to provide evidence of welds tested every 6 months.

In this particular example I have said that the qualification is one that can be gained by all functional consultants (craft = FC), not ones with any particular skill level, all of our Junior functional consultants are asked to gain this certification.

When the qualification is associated with a Labor, a Certificate # must be entered, even if one was not provided by the Issuing Authority. And, in case you were wondering, yes, I did pass my certificate on 1^st July this year. The Certificate # field becomes mandatory when the Certificate Required field is checked on the main Qualification tab.

You need to enter both an effective date and a validation date. The Effective Date sets the Expiration Date based on the Duration and Duration Period entered on the main Qualification tab, in this case 5 Years. If there is no Duration and Duration Period on the Qualification record, then the Expiration Date will be null. The Effective Date can be a date in the past or future.

The Validation Date is the date in which validation of the certification was made and cannot be a future date. When entering a certificate number, you would normally also enter the person who validated the certificate, it does not need to be a person registered in Maximo and can be an organisation as it is in the case shown.

The Evaluation Method and Issuing Authority are copied from the Qualification record. The read-only “Current” checkbox will be set when the labor qualification is both at ACTIVE status and today is between the effective date and the expiration date. It is a non-persistent field.

When the Qualification has a Required Craft and Skill Level, then the Labor records that can be associated with the qualification are those with the specified craft and/or skill level, but it does not need to be the default craft/skill level of the Labor. Raf Van Camp (RCA) is a Technical Consultant – Level I, but he also has FC (Functional Consultant) as a secondary craft.

The Labor Qualification record (LABORQUAL object) has a status of ACTIVE or INACTIVE, with the default of ACTIVE, this comes from a synonym domain called QUALSTAT. The traffic light button at the end of the Labor table window will change status for the Labor Qualification allowing you to enter a memo. I’ll change the status for RCA – Raf Van Camp to INACTIVE and add a memo.

The third button on the Labor Qualification table window is the View Qualification Status History. There are two status history tables the top one is the Labor Qualification Status History, object LABORQUALSTATUS. It shows the current status for this qualification and for labor RCA a status of INACTIVE and memo – Wrong Certification Selected.

The second table window is the Certification Status History.

The second button on the Labor Qualification table window is Extend/Renew Certification. Some certifications can be extended or renewed, rather than just expiring and being replaced with another type of certification entirely. In the dialog that opens you are entering new values for the Validation Date and Effective Date, I entered today’s date in both cases. The Expiration Date is set for expiring in 5 years (minus one day).

When the OK button is pressed you can see a second Certification Status History record but note that while the certificate is now valid into the future there has been no change to the Labor Qualification Status, this record it is still set to INACTIVE. There is no automatic change to set the status of the Labor Qualification to ACTIVE it has to be set manually through the traffic light button. I’ve now done this for Raf, his certification is again active.

Some Qualifications or Certifications may be based on your current location. For example, a Labor record may be a Fire Marshall for a particular office. A new Qualification has been entered for FIREMAR – Fire Marshall, with a FAC (Facility) Qualification Type. This qualification is based on a certification as it can be extended and renewed. It is initially 2 years in duration and is valid as long as there is attendance every 6 months on one of the refresher team training, normally an hour at lunch time.

When entering the Labor Qualification, in this example for Nicole Bex (NBE) one of our junior Maximo team, her Work SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More and LocationA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More on her Labor record is copied onto the Labor Qualification record. Note also the Use Required Every field is just a concatenation of the two fields Required Use Length and Required Use Period taken from the Qualification record.

The other two fields not covered in the discussion to date are:

• Original Year – the year when the Labor first acquired the qualification, it cannot be a future year.
• Last Reported Use – is the date when the qualification was last reported to have been used. There is no function in standard Maximo for this but there is in the Maximo for Transportation industry solution.

In our final example we will create a new qualification “FIRSTAID – First Aid at Work” with Certification Required. There are no specific Required Craft and Skill Levels. This is a 3-day course with certification from the Red Cross, and it is valid for 3 years with a requalifying course allowing you to extend the certification.

In the “Tools That Require This Certification” we have entered an AED – Automated External Defibrillator. The AED devices which are seen around the offices require training for their effective use and this comes as part of the “FIRSTAID – First Aid at Work” course. These tools can be rotating or non-rotating.

Maximo does not restrict the issue of the tool to those Labor that are qualified to use it. There is functionality in Crews to support the qualifications needed by the crew. When you define a tool as being required on a crew or crew type then any qualifications required to use that tool are also included as requirements for the crew. We will see that in action in the article on Crews.

The industry solution Maximo for Transportation also makes greater use of the qualifications functionality, than is available in the core Maximo or Scheduler products. There is no ability in core Maximo to say that this job requires specific qualifications and then enforcing this rule when assigning Labor or enforcing the use of a tool that requires a specific qualification.

NBE – Nicole Bex attended the 3-day course and gained the qualification; it will expire in 3 years on 30-Sep-2023. The Associated Labor records added in the Qualifications application are also visible from the Qualifications tab on the Labor application, this may be the application where the labor qualification is entered. The same buttons to Change the Qualification Status, Extend/Renew Qualification, or View Qualification Status History are all available from the Labor application.

Deleting Qualifications

Qualifications cannot be deleted if the qualification has been associated with either a Labor or a Tool. Basically, once you start associating the qualification with Labor the qualification record cannot be deleted because you cannot delete the labor association with this qualification.

You can make the qualification INACTIVE by using the Change Status action, but you do need to set the Labor Qualifications to INACTIVE status first otherwise you will receive the error message “BMXAA2537E – This qualification is active on a labor.” and you will need to delete any Tool Qualification records otherwise you will receive the error message “BMXAA3453E – Cannot change status to Inactive because there are tools that require this qualification.”.

Qualifications – Entity Diagram

As we saw in the earlier part of this article a Qualification may have one or more Required Craft and Skill Levels (QUALCRAFTSKILL), and there may be one or more Tools That Require This Qualification (TOOLQUAL). A qualification has a status history (QUALSTATUS) although there is no action which allows you to see these records.

A qualification has an Associated Labor (LABORQUAL) and this record also has a status and a status history (LABORQUALSTATUS) which is the top table window in the dialog View Qualification Status History. The bottom table window in this dialog is the Certification Status History (LABORCERTHIST) which is created when you use the Extend/Renew Certification action.