A Service Request, Incident or Problem can reference multiple assets, locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More and configuration items in a table called ‘Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs’. We’ll discuss how you can select records into this table and what options there are when you create a work order from the ticket.
Selecting Records into the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table
The underlying table MULTIASSETLOCCI is important because it is the source for searching for records by location, asset, or configuration item. If you are in the Advanced Search of the Service Requests or Work Order Tracking applications look at the fields being searched in the Asset or Location fields, they reference the field in the MULTIASSETLOCCI table. When you create a Service Request or Work Order and reference the Location or Asset Maximo writes a record to this table and sets the ISPRIMARY field to 1. This is why we sometimes call the asset and location that you see in the header of the applications the primary location or primary asset. The table window only displays the records where ISPRIMARY=0.
There are many scenarios where you wish to reference multiple assets or locations on a ticket or work order. For example, an incident affects multiple assets, a request to replace the whiteboards in multiple classrooms, etc. There are differences between tickets and work orders, the biggest being that with work orders this table is often used in conjunction with inspections. Therefore, we will cover this subject again as part of Work Management.
The Service Request table window has few fields, and most clients would use Location, Asset, a Sequence number to give order, and perhaps the Mark Progress and Comments fields for saying when the action associated with the asset or location is complete. If you select an asset, then the asset’s location will be populated. If you select a location and that location has one asset, then the asset field will be populated. There are warning messages if you subsequently change these fields. It is worth noting that on a Ticket you can select assets, and locations that belong to different sites, including sites in different organizations. Configuration Items exist at the System level.
Apart from the New Row button the Select button has multiple options. The three menu items Select Assets, Select Locations and Select CIs each have three options a Select Value, a Classification Search, and an Attribute Search. The Select Value will be the one most likely to be used and this provides the ability to search as well as select multiple records found by the search. The Classification Search allows you to search for assets by the classification hierarchy and then refine the search with attribute values. The Attribute Search allows you to search for assets by the value of a specification attribute with no reference to a classification. The same applies to locations and configuration items and multiple records can be selected back into the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table.
The Select From Routes button allows you to select multiple locations and assets from different Routes or a specific Route. Configuration Items do not exist on a Route. The Sequence field on the Route Stops is not copied to the Sequence field on the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table.
The Select From Collections button is similar to the Select From Routes dialog but a Collection does support Configuration Items and the records of a Collection, the Collection Details may exist in multiple sites or organizations. This is the action that you are most likely to use if you are picking locations or assets from multiple sites. For example, you ask the site owners of multiple schools to add to the same Collection the whiteboard assets which need updating or cleaning. Then you load the result into a Service Request.
The final option is Select From Relationships which has nothing to do with Asset Relationships but the related records to the current ticket. The dialog has two table windows the top one shows related tickets and work orders, and the bottom table window shows the records of the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table of these related records and the two table windows are linked. The bottom table window does not show the primary location or primary asset.
The Clear All button will delete all entries, including after the records have been saved, you will be asked to confirm.
Create WO Options
The Create WO Options is a field on the Service Request, at the bottom right of the Service Request Details section, which determines what happens when the Service Request has multiple assets, locations and configuration items and you create a follow-on work order using the action Create Work Order.
There are five options:
- NONE – No records from the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table are copied.
- MULTI – All the records from the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table are copied. This is the default setting.
- TASK – The records of the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table become tasks of a new work order.
- CHILD – The records of the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table become child work orders of a new work order.
- TOPLEVEL – The records of the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table become new work orders. A work order is also created for the primary location/asset. All of the work orders will be found in the Related Records tab with a relationship type of FOLLOWUP.
If the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table has records from multiple sites then you should use the TOPLEVEL action. A work order belongs to a site, and any child work orders or tasks can only belong to the same site. If you use one of the options TASK, or CHILD then you may end up with work orders or tasks with no location or asset. The option MULTI will copy locations and assets belonging to different sites, but this may have limited use in practise and you would only be able to charge for work done to the main work order and not the individual assets or locations in the table window.
If you create an Incident from a Service Request then the records of the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table are copied but not the Progress or Comments fields.
Leave a Reply