Last Updated on October 29, 2023 by maximosecrets

This is the third of a series of articles to discover the capability of the new Maximo Mobile applications. The system I am using has Maximo Mobile 8.3 installed, this is the November 2021 release, in System Information it indicates IBM Maximo Application Framework 8.6.0.0 Build 20211012-1522 DB Build V7600-18. I am initially using a desktop browser; at some later date I will probably look to write some articles from a mobile phone or tablet perspective. 

The Maximo Mobile applications are currently found in the Work Order module and Role Based Applications sub-module. This article will review the Technician mobile application. This was an application in the first release, in February 2021 and it has been enhanced in the three subsequent ones (8.1, 8.2 and 8.3). There is a lot to cover, more than 30 pages, and I have split the article into 3 parts.

The first article in the series on the Maximo Mobile Service Request application can be found here – http://maximosecrets.com/2022/01/12/maximo-mobile-service-requests/

The second article in the series on the Maximo Mobile Work Approval application was split into two parts and they can be found here – http://maximosecrets.com/2022/01/19/maximo-mobile-work-approvals-1/ and here – http://maximosecrets.com/2022/01/19/maximo-mobile-work-approvals-2/

View Work Orders

When the Technician application opens, along the top and on the left is a query – Assigned work. There are two other queries PMs due this week, and Work created by me. It looks as if there are 3 records found in the Assigned work query. I am logged in as WILSON and if I go to the Work Order Tracking application and using the Advanced Search make a query on Assigned Labor =WILSON (ASSIGNMENT.LABORCODE), then this gives the same three work orders. The query is also excluding work orders at Waiting to be Approved status (WAPPR).

It had occurred to me after writing the second article on Work Approvals, what if the logged in user has access to multiple sites? I just changed my default insert site from BEDFORD to MCLEAN and logged back-in to the Technician app and I didn’t get any records on the three queries. In the Work Order Tracking application, I created a new work order against the MCLEAN site and after using the Check for updates button in the Technician application it appeared in the query – Work created by me. Conclusion is that the Technician application is only showing the work orders for your current Default Insert SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More, the one shown in your Profile – Default Information. 

On the top right are two buttons which do not seem to function on the desktop version of this application, they may be more applicable to tablet or phone. They look as if they return the user to the list of work orders or find work orders based on a map. I do not have mapping set up yet on my VM and will return to this when I have it configured.

When you first log in to the Technician application there is a blue banner across the top which says Get materials & tools, we’ll go there first and then return to this page and work down through the other elements that you can see.

Get Materials and Tools

This is a list of the planned materials and tools for the three work orders which are part of the assigned work query. You can also see the required materials and tools for the query PMs due this week. 

To the left is the item number concatenated with its description with the storeroom below this, you would get a hyphen if it was a Direct Issue item or a Material line type. There seems to be an issue with deriving the storeroom, it isn’t always the storeroom that is on the WPMATERIAL record, it should have said Central Storeroom for all four records.

In the middle is the work order description, which would benefit from being preceded with the work order number as you can have multiple work orders with the same description especially when a Route has been used. If there are not enough material in a storeroom then you might want to check which work orders you could complete where there are the required materials.

The number on the right-hand side is the quantity required. 

I’ve added some materials and tools to the other test work order which was created by my colleague Jan-Willem Steur (JWS) who has been demonstrating the Maximo Mobile applications from almost the day they were first released in February 2021, he has the maps working in his demo environment.

The Required Tools appear as a second section with the tool item concatenated with the tool description on the left and the storeroom and required hours below this. The garden hose does not have a storeroom reservation, the hydraulic lift does, but it does not show the 4 tool hours required. 

The checkbox on the right is for checking off the materials and tools as they are issued, collected, or when you verify that you have them. This is not saved to the database and if you leave the application and log back-in no material or tool will be marked.

Using the All materials or All tools check boxes will select all the materials or tools respectively. These are toggles, deselecting will deselect all associated records. Using the blue Done button will return you to the view of work orders based on the Assigned work query.

Work Order Panel

Each work order in the query is displayed in its own panel which has three sections:

• Top section has the Description followed by the work type and work order number, and on the right the status, priority and a button (>) to open the work order.
• Middle section has the Asset number with below this the asset description and below this the location description but no reference to the location, only its description. On the right you may see the formatted address from the service address.
• Bottom section (left) has a series of buttons, those which are shown are dependent on the work order data. From left to right they are:
  • Planned materials and tools
  • A link to the map (if it is enabled)
  • Work log
  • Meters
• Bottom section (right) has the timer buttons for:
  • Start work
  • Pause work
  • Stop work

In the middle section for work orders that are overdue there is a message in red text “Overdue since: 10 months ago, March 17, 2021”. The date in the message is the scheduled finish. 

Search Bar

At the top of the screen is a Search button which opens a search bar that spans the width of the application. This allows you to search by description, asset number, asset description or location description, work type or status, for example you can search either In Progress or INPRG. I searched by feed water Pump and got 2 records returned, both of which had Pump somewhere in the text shown.

There must be a way of finding only feed water Pump, not any pump, or description with feed, or water in it. Using square brackets worked [feed water pump]. An asterisk (*) and curly brackets {} also worked. But with some more experimentation on “water pump” it only worked as “water pump]” or “water pump*” (without double-quotes), i.e., only with some form of delimiter at the end of the search bar, but not at the front. I guess in time, I’ll find out the search rules.

It looks also as if the search bar allows you to make a search by scanning on the location or asset. The (X) button next to the search bar, clears the search. 

Change Status

I searched on 1363 and found the work order, this was at Approved status. I then clicked this button, and the Change Status dialog opens in the left-hand pane with the statuses that you could modify the work order to, this is displayed as radio buttons. I selected Waiting to be scheduled (WSCH), you can enter a status memo at the bottom of this dialog.

To save and to close the change status dialog you use the blue tick button.

Note, not all work order statuses will be shown, if there are actuals you cannot cancel, and this will not be shown.

Materials and Tools

The first button on the left of the work order panel is the Materials and Tools button. The dialog that opens shows two sections for the planned materials and planned tools. All records are read-only.

The materials section shows the item concatenated with its description, the storeroom and on the right the quantity required. The second line had a line type of Material which just requires a description and would be direct issue without a storeroom. “A Material line type record” was the description I entered.

The tools section shows the tool item concatenated with its description, the tool hours and storeroom (if applicable), and on the right the quantity of the tool. You might have noticed for the second tool that it found the tool hours; it didn’t show this in the Get Materials & Tools dialog. 

You close the dialog using the (X) at the top of the side panel.

Work Log

The Work Log button opens the side bar that shows any existing work log records and allows the logged in user to create a work log record. In this case I wrote “The thermostat is obsolete, the planners need to source a compatible alternative and adjust the work plan.”. You use the arrow button to the right to save the work log record.

The message is saved to the work log with a type of CLIENTNOTE and appears at the top of the side bar, with the log note date and name of the person who raised the message – Mike Wilson in this case. Notice that while the message is saved to the short description if it is longer than the length of the short description (100 characters) the remaining text will be added to the long description, in this case “plan.” were the remaining characters after 100 characters.

In the Work Order Tracking application logged on as AJE – Andrew Jeffery, a reply was entered, “Acknowledge” is the short description and “Hi Mike, I will reassign the work order to the planners, it will no longer be in your work queue tomorrow. Regards – Andrew” was the long description text. You get the button to view the long description full screen if it does not fit in the space allowed.

Notice, there is no need to repeat the date/time for messages created on the same day, only to distinguish the people who created each message. The time the log note was created is not shown.

Meter Readings

Although two of the three work orders in the Assigned work query have the meter button, neither the assets or the locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More on the work orders have a meter and in the Work Order Tracking application when using the Enter Meter Readings action you would receive the error message “BMXAA4710E – The asset and location do not have any active meters associated with them.”. The button should not be displayed unless there are meters.

I’ve modified work order 1363 to add the same location and asset used in the Work Approval article, so that we have a variety of meters to show:

• Asset TEST01 with a description of “Meter Group”, has 4 meters associated with it.
• Location TEST10 with a description of “Test of a meter group for a location” has 2 meters associated with it.

When you use the Meter Readings button the meters for the asset and location are displayed, along with unit of measure, and the last reading or measurement and the date of the meter reading. For the asset TEST01 the top three are continuous meters and the fourth OILCOLOR is a characteristic meter. For location TEST10 both meters are of type gauge.

If we look at the top continuous meter for the asset, the meter name is ODOM-M, unit of measure is MILES, date of last reading 01/18/2022 9:17AM and the meter reading was 1,225.

The Update button can be used to enter meter readings, but once you have entered each one and moved on to the next meter you can no longer change the value for continuous and gauge type meters, the symbol of a pencil with a line through it indicates that it is no longer editable. 

I entered values for each of the asset meters, using the domain lookup for the characteristic meter to select LBROWN.

It seems that when you have entered the meter reading and you get the symbol of a pencil with a line through it, then you cannot back out of this using the (<) button at the top of the side panel, the new meter reading record has been saved at the point the symbol of a pencil with a line through it is displayed. Therefore, using the blue tick at the top of the side panel only submits characteristic meters. This might behave differently on a tablet or phone. 

Review a Work Order

Following the blue button, you will navigate into the work order details. The screenshot is showing work order 1006 – Feedwater Pump Service, with a work type of CM. It is at In progress (INPRG) state and work priority is 7. To the right of the priority is a button that allows you to edit the work order (see later).

In the Details section and on the left-hand side are:

• Work order Long Description

On the right-hand side are fields for:

• Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish
• Duration – 20 hours
• A Map button, which when clicked says “Map is not configured”. 
• The Formatted Address, the address set from the map when you associate a Service Address. There is no formatted address, hence a hyphen.

The five buttons below this are:

• Materials and Tools
• Work Log
• Inspections
• Tasks
• Report Work

In the Asset and location section and on the left-hand side are:

• A button showing the asset status – currently Up
• The Asset Number – 11450
• Asset Description – Centrifugal Pump 100GPM/60FT HD
• Location Description – Feed Water Pump- Centrifugal/100GPM/60FTHD. The location identifier is not shown.

On the right-hand side is a picture of the asset’s image. You can zoom in/out and pan around on this image. You use the Esc key to return out of zoom/pan mode.

There is a vertical scrollbar and below the Asset and location section are buttons for:

• Scanning the asset
• Reviewing meters
• Reviewing asset and location history
• Changing asset status and reporting downtime

The two big buttons below this are:

• Attachments – which show the number of attachments
• Follow-up work – which shows related records and allows you to create a follow-on work order

Right at the bottom of the page are three fields:

• Reported on (REPORTDATE)
• Reported by 
• Contact – a phone number

These fields are populated when there is a person associated with the Reported By field, in which case the Contact does not use the Phone field on the work order but the Primary Phone of the Reported By person. As Maximo allows the Reported By Name and Phone to be either freeform, or derived from the Reported By Person, I think this should be using the REPORTEDBY and PHONE fields on the work order record. This particular record was using the freeform method, hence only hyphens are shown.

Work Order Long Description

The button to the left of the long description shows the long description in full view. The long description as shown in the work order details is in a plain text format – “This is a test of a long description with rich text formatting.  We should be able to have coloured text, background colour and larger font sizes.  An embedded URL is useful. Maximo Secrets”.

If you use the button to expand the long description the display includes any rich text formatting. The Maximo Secrets hyperlink did launch www.MaximoSecrets.com.

Material Requests

The Materials and Tools button show the work plan materials and tools, we’ve seen this earlier, but there is the addition of a Shopping Cart button.

When the Shopping Cart button is used you are making a material request (MR), the equivalent Maximo application is the Desktop Requisition – Create Requisition. The Request details section are the details which are common to the whole MR. The Required Date (REQUIREDDATE), Priority (PRIORITY), and Drop to (DROPPOINT).

You use the (+) button in the Materials list to add items that you wish to reserve or purchase.

When you first press the (+) button the Add item dialog opens (see next screenshot) and you use the (>) button beside the Item field to enter the Select item dialog. This found 127 records, which are items that are referenced in a storeroom of the user’s default insert site that are at a synonym status of active or pending obsolescence – the full query is (itemtype in (‘ITEM’) and itemnum in (select itemnum from inventory where siteid=(select defsite from maxuser where userid =:USER) and status in (select value from synonymdomain where domainid =’ITEMSTATUS’ and maxvalue in (‘ACTIVE’, ‘PENDOBS’)))).

At the end of the combined article (Technician (3)), I’ll show where this query is defined.

You will probably use the search bar to find your items. Here, I have searched by “filter” and found 8 records. The (X) beside the search bar will clear the search. There is also a scanning button in the search bar and a greyed-out camera button, and I will need to be on a tablet or phone to test those two functions. I’ve selected the last item FLT908 – Filter, Air by using the button to its right.

This returns the Air filter to the Add Item dialog and immediately shows the storerooms that you can select from, I chose the CENTRAL storeroom. If the item exists in one storeroom it is selected for you. Non-stocked and special-order items can also be selected. 

The order unit, manufacturer and vendor are entered by Maximo when the item is selected and you then select the quantity required, if greater than one. This is not the primary vendor and manufacturer for the inventory item.

I picked a quantity of 1 item for both the air filter and oil filter, item LF777, and then used the blue Send button.

The result was a new section added to the Materials and Tools dialog showing the Requested material status:

• 1032 is the Requisition number (MRNUM)
• 01/25/2022 with a field title of Requested, this is the Required Date (REQUIREDDATE)
• Draft is the Requisition’s status (STATUS).

You can review the Material Requisition by following the (>) button to its right.

This opens the Material Request dialog showing the items ordered, with the ability to Delete request (the red trashcan), and this changes its status to CAN – Canceled. This is the only action you can perform from this screen, otherwise it is entirely read-only.

Here is a screenshot of the lower half of the requisition that was created (MR) with the two items FLT908 and LF777 against the CENTRAL storeroom. Work Order 1006 is referenced under the Charge Information section.

This concludes the first part of this article; you can continue to the second part which starts with the Tasks button and follows with the Report Work button.