Last Updated on November 19, 2022 by maximosecrets

This is the second part in a deep dive of the Crew Assignment Status action which is found in the Crews application. This article focuses on the Required Qualifications table window.

Required Qualifications – Summary

Required Qualifications is based on object AMCREWQUAL and the Requirement Status has the following statuses:

• OK – Qualification Requirement Met
• NOT QUALIFIED – Not Qualified

Required Qualifications can be linked to a specific crew position, or generally a requirement for any labor assigned to the crew. Some required qualifications might have a quantity associated with it, meaning that at least this number of assigned labor must have this qualification. Some required qualifications might have been created due to this being a qualification required to use a tool that the crew requires. There is no special treatment of the required qualification when it is linked to the tool, you can consider it the same as any other required qualification.

A qualification may require a certification, or it may not. When it does require a certification then the effective date of the certification on a labor qualification record is mandatory. A labor qualification for a certification may also have an expiration date, and the labor qualification itself might be made inactive.

The Requirement Status shows OK when the qualification has an effective date and the effective date is earlier than the Date shown in the Crew Assignment Status dialog, the labor qualification is active and has not reached an expiration date. Unfortunately, on 7.6.1.2 IFIX008 issues will be found if the qualification does not require certification, and this has been reported to IBM Support.

Required Qualifications – Linked to a Position

The Requirement Status on the Required Qualifications table window is either set to OK or NOT QUALIFIED. At the moment all three required qualifications on our crew show as not qualified for the labor assigned. We’ll do some tests to see if we can get them to OK.

We’ll start with the Required Qualification HGV associated with the DRIVER position.

For our HGV qualification Bill Dudley has just passed through and gained his licence, he likes playing around with tanks. DUDLEY was first given the DRIVER craft with skill level FIRSTCLASS and then in Qualifications application was granted the qualification with Effective Date of 30^th April 2021. 

Bill Dudley is not the crew’s driver, although he is a member of the crew. As the HGV qualification is associated with the DRIVER position this is only a test on whether ALLEN – Rebecca Allen has the HGV licence. The Required Qualification currently shows a Requirement Status of NOT QUALIFIED, which is correct.

Back on the Qualifications application I couldn’t initially associate ALLEN with the HGV qualification because the Required Craft and Skill Levels only showed DRIVER craft and FIRSTCLASS skill level and ALLEN had a DRIVER craft without a skill level. Therefore, I have added a second Required Craft for just a DRIVER with no skill level.

ALLEN – Rebeca Allen now has the HGV qualification with an Effective Date of next Monday 17^th May 2021. She should be able to go out on a crew from next Monday.

In the Crew Assignment Status dialog when we advance the date from today the HGV qualification remains as NOT QUALIFIED, but when we get to 17/05/21 the Requirement Status registers OK.

In the Qualifications application and Associated Labor tab a qualification has an ACTIVE state by default, but you can make a qualification INACTIVE as I have done for Rebecca (ALLEN). Back in the Crews application, the Crew Assignment Status shows NOT QUALIFIED for the HGV qualification for all dates, which is to be expected for an INACTIVE qualification. 

In the Qualifications application I’ve changed the HGV qualification for ALLEN back to ACTIVE state and used the Renew/Extend Qualification button to add an Expiration Date of 23/05/21, I’m so sorry Rebecca for stealing away your qualification so soon.

Back in Crews application and the Crew Assignment Status dialog, as you advance the date from today the Requirement Status starts as NOT QUALIFIED becomes OK from 17/05/21 through to 22/05/21 but becomes NOT QUALIFIED again on or after 23/05/21, which coincides with the expiration date. Perhaps it should be from 24/05/21, but a qualification might expire at any time on a day, and so moving to NOT QUALIFIED on 23/05/21 is safer.

Required Qualifications – Qualification Quantity

We’ll now look at the third Required Qualification record, requiring any 2 assigned labor to have the FIRSTAID qualification. The Required Qualifications record has a quantity field which defaults to null, but if it is entered, which you would do if the qualification were needed for multiple persons, then a further test is performed.

As none of the four assigned labor have a FIRSTAID qualification the Requirement Status shows NOT QUALIFIED.

In the Qualifications application the FIRSTAID qualification does not require a certificate, the Certification Required field is unchecked.

I have associated the qualification with SMALL – Mike Small who is a member of our crew, and the labor qualification’s status is ACTIVE.

When I use the Crew Assignment Status action the Requirement Status still shows NOT QUALIFIED for the FIRSTAID Required Qualification, this is because the qualification requirement shows a Quantity of 2, at least 2 assigned labor need to have acquired the qualification.

I have gone back to the Qualifications application and assigned DUDLEY to the FIRSTAID qualification and on returning to the Crew Assignment Status it still shows as NOT QUALIFIED.

If I change the Date on the Crew Assignment Status dialog, I get an error “BMXAA4214E – An unknown error has occurred. Please contact your system administrator for assistance. Gather the logs from the <HOME> directory and determine where and why the error occurred.”, you certainly shouldn’t receive this error message, and hence an IBM Support case has been raised.

But I have a sneaky suspicion I know the reason for this. My guess is if the qualification required a certification and both quantities were within the effective date the Requirement Status on the Required Qualification would then show OK.

In Qualifications application I have set Certificate Required checkbox (=1) and then used the Extend/Renew Qualification for both DUDLEY and SMALL to provide an Effective Date of 17/05/21.

Back in Crews application and the Crew Assignment Status dialog, the Requirement Status shows as NOT QUALIFIED from today for each day until I reach 17/05/21 when it now shows as OK. It was as I suspected, this was an area where there had been a previous issue, which is now fixed, but looks as if the code will require tweaking to take into account when a certificate is not required.

I did some further tests in this area:

• When there are 3 persons with FIRSTAID qualification, i.e. the crew is more qualified than necessary, it shows NOT QUALIFIED. 
• When there are 2 persons with FIRSTAID qualification and ACTIVE status, but 1 person with FIRSTAID and INACTIVE status, it shows NOT QUALIFIED. 
• When there are 3 persons with FIRSTAID qualification, all ACTIVE, but 1 has expired, then a date after that expiry date shows NOT QUALIFIED.

In all those cases it should read OK. IBM Support has been notified.

Required Qualifications – No Quantity and No Position

We’ll now look at our final scenario which is when the qualification has no quantity and does not reference a crew position. 

The second Required Qualification record for qualification BTRUCK was added as a result of it being associated with the tool BOSBTRUCK. It will be set to OK if one of the assigned labor has that qualification, the labor qualification is ACTIVE and if it requires a certification or has an effective date, then the effective date is in the past, and the certification has not yet expired.

In Qualifications application the BTRUCK qualification does not require a certificate, but we know that we will receive an error in the Crew Assignment Status dialog if we advance the date field. For labor ALLEN, Rebecca Allen, I have therefore used the Extend/Renew qualification button to enter a Validation Date and an Effective Date of 17/05/21.

In the Crews application and in the Crew Assignment Status dialog the Requirement Status for the BTRUCK qualification remains at NOT QUALIFIED until the Date is set to 17/05/21 when it is set to OK. The Date has reached or exceeded the effective date of the labor qualification record and it has not reached the expiration date, or the expiration date is null.