Last Updated on September 8, 2022 by maximosecrets

The music is called Busy City from a group called TrackTribe.

Hello, and welcome back to Maximo Bite Size. A series of videos on the functional aspects of Maximo Manage. 

Title

This is the tenth episode in the series on Asset Management. I’m Andrew Jeffery and today we’ll take a closer look at Asset Moves and Asset Swaps which we briefly discussed in the last video on Location and Asset Associations.

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Learning Objectives

We will be in the Assets application for this video and there are two actions that we will be reviewing. Move/Modify Asset is quite a large dialog with four tabs, and we will split this into two aspects, Move, which is the first tab, and Modify, the remaining three tabs.

Finally, we’ll review the Swap Assets action which replaces one asset with another in one action, rather than performing two separate moves.

Incidentally, in the Work Order Tracking application there is an action called Move/Swap/Modify which covers similar ground but there are enough differences for this to warrant its own video.

So, let’s get started.

Move/Modify Assets (Move)

We are in the Assets application and the Move/Modify Assets action. There are four tabs, and it is the Assets tab which allows you to move one or more assets. By default, if you are on an asset record then it loads this asset to the Assets table window, but you can use the Select More Assets button to select additional assets. If you are on the List tab and you use the Move/Modify action it will load the whole selected set into the Assets table window, which is probably not what you want, therefore select the assets before you use this action.

The most likely reasons for using the Move aspect of the Move/Modify Assets action are when you move an asset to a repair location or another operating location. The Select Value on the To Location field allows you to select all types of locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More for the current site. If the asset is a rotating asset, then you can additionally move it to a storeroom and at the same time you can reference the To Bin where the asset will be placed in the storeroom. You cannot move an asset to a decommissioned location, and you cannot use this action to move assets out of storerooms or move assets to another bin within a storeroom, for these actions you need to be using the Inventory or Inventory Usage applications. 

When you move a rotating asset to another operating location, if that operating location also references a rotating item but it has a different reference, then you will receive an error message like ‘BMXAA0139E – Asset item PUMP100 does not match location item MOT10 and is not an alternate item.’ By adding a rotating item to a location, you are saying that this operating location is expecting a rotating asset of this type or an alternate to it. The other message you may receive is ‘BMXAA0137E – Location BR451 is currently occupied by asset.’. An operating location that references a rotating item can only have one asset at that operating location, you will need to move that asset first or use the Swap Assets action.

You can move an asset to a location on a different site that is in the same organization or a site in a different organization. You need to change the To SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More field and use its adjacent Apply button, then select the To Location you are moving the asset to. When the asset is moved to another site it creates a new asset record unless it has previously existed in the destination site when the asset record will be changed to NOT READY status. The asset record at the source site will be changed to a status of DECOMMISSIONED and the Moved attribute will be set. In this example there would be two records with the same asset number but different sites, but they both have the same value for the ASSETID attribute, which is how Maximo knows it is referring to the same physical asset. When you move the asset to a different site and the asset number is already being used at that site, then you will receive an error like ‘BMXAA0159E – Asset 2183 already exists in the MCLEAN site.’ In the Assets table window and details area you will need to change the value in the field New Asset Number.

The next most likely movement is a move of the asset to a new parent asset. For this you need to provide a value in the To Parent field. This will cause a change of the asset’s location to the same location as the parent, you may change that, but it would be rare to do so.

When you move an asset, you can choose to move its descendent assets by using the Maintain Hierarchy attribute. This can only be set if the asset has no parent asset. The descendent assets will be moved to the same location where the asset has been moved. If an asset has the Maintain Hierarchy attribute set and you try to move it you will receive an error something like ‘BMXAA0074E – Asset 12700 in site BEDFORD is part of a hierarchy and cannot be moved or swapped; only the asset at the top of the hierarchy can be moved or swapped.’

All these transactions can be seen by using the action View Asset Move History, this shows the history of movements that the asset has made since the asset was created. The table window is based on the object ASSETTRANS. When you move a rotating asset to a storeroom there is a second transaction, a material receipt, which is recorded in the MATRECTRANS object against the rotating item. Both objects are also creating financial transactions, but we’ll cover that in another video when we discuss finance in Maximo.

You can use the Assets tab for making changes to the GL Account including for a mass change of several assets. Note. The GL Account field no longer exists in the Assets application, it was hidden a few versions ago, but it can be easily configured back onto the application. The sixth field in the Mass Move section is the To Loop Location which is used by the Calibration module. 

The Apply buttons in the Mass Move section are used to make the change on the assets in the Assets table window. If you are moving several assets and those assets have descendent assets, then you might consider running this as a background task and providing an email address for Maximo to notify you when the process is complete and all transaction records have been created.

Move/Modify Assets (Modify)

Users and Custodians

In this section we will review the other three tabs in the Move/Modify Assets dialog. They all have a similar layout with a table window of assets at the top , these are the same assets that will be found on the Assets tab. Therefore, if you wish to add more assets, then go back to the Assets tab and use the Select More Assets button. 

You wouldn’t be using any of these three tabs to modify just one asset, as you can do that just as well from other Asset actions like Users and Custodians or by modifying the Assets application direct. Having just said that if the asset is condition enabled then the only place you can modify the condition code is from the Assets table window in the Move/Modify Assets dialog.

We will see that on each tab there are two sub tabs Modify Selected and Modify All. Modify Selected is modifying the current asset record in the Assets table window. In the screenshot we only have one asset 11430 and WINSTON is the custodian of this asset, perhaps Winston is the Reliability Engineer for this pump. If there were multiple assets, you would then select the next asset to modify. You can add a new user and/or custodian to asset 11430 and make this new person the Primary for the asset. You can also delete a user and custodian record by using the trash can button . We will look at the Modify All tab on the next slide.

Users and custodians were discussed in a previous video called Location and User Associations, it was the first section of this video. In case you missed it, users and custodians are used for any reason that you might want to associate a person with an asset, you can also do the same for locations. It is up to your organisation to decide what meaning you place on the term user or custodian, but each record must have one or the other, or both, and one and only one record must be marked as the primary .

Groups

The Groups tab allows you to associate one or more Person Groups with the set of assets you have in the Assets table window. There is the Modify Selected and Modify All sub tabs and the screenshot on the right is showing Modify All.

This is most often used to associate maintenance or operations teams with a set of assets, perhaps assets of a certain asset type. It might be used for security reasons, or to build a saved query so that when users come into the Assets application the assets that they are most interested in have already been selected for them.

You can add new Person Groups or Delete a Person Group from the set of assets. The Modify All is making the change to all selected assets when you use the Apply button , and not just for the current asset highlighted. If you look closely when the Modify All tab is made active there is already one record , you do not need to use the New Row button, this will just create a second row in the table window. Also, if you are going to delete a Person Group from all the assets you need to know which Person Group, and then use the Select Value to select it and then toggle the Delete field rather than using the trash can button. I have pointed this out because it is a different way of working to how you delete records in a table window across the rest of Maximo.

The Modify Selected tab would allow you to make modifications to each asset record in turn. Adding new Person Groups, deleting a Person Group, or changing which one is marked as Primary.

Attributes

The fourth tab in the Move/Modify Assets dialog is Attributes. We are in the Modify Selected sub tab , and we see the attributes for asset 11430. This is showing a similar layout as the Specifications tab, but it is missing the new Date Value column. A new Date data type has been added to the attributes of a classification in Maximo Application Suite 8.8 and it is available in the objects for the specifications of items, assets, and locations.

The Modify Selected tab is allowing you to make changes to the highlighted asset in the Assets table window, something you could do equally well from the Specifications tab. It is in the Move/Modify Assets dialog because in some circumstances you may be moving and modifying the same set of assets. Think of a rollout of laptops to a set of new graduates, you may be changing the user/custodian records and updating some specification attributes at the same time, you can do this from the same dialog.

The Modify All tab would allow you to modify the value for a specific attribute across the set of assets. In the screenshot on the bottom left I am about to update the Stage attribute with an Alphanumeric Value of 4 . I would then use the Apply button to make that change. You cannot use the Modify All to add a new attribute or delete an existing attribute from the set of assets, only for modifying the attribute values. If you compare it to the last slide notice there is no Delete field to toggle. 

A little word of warning regarding using the Move/Modify Assets dialog and the Attributes tab on rotating assets. You would have learnt in the video on Rotating Assets that the Specification attribute values are being mastered on the associated Item Master record, but you can override this. When you use the Attributes tab on the Move/Modify dialog you are setting values for the asset, but you are not overriding them, they can still be updated from changes on the Item Master application. If you had made the change from the Specification tab a hidden field called ‘Item Specification Value Changed’ would have been set, and it would no longer be updated from changes made to the Rotating Item.

Swap Assets

The Swap Assets action can be used on the current record or from the List tab against a selected set of assets. Once the dialog opens you can use the Select More Assets button to add more assets to the table window.

The assets listed are the assets that will be swapped out and you should be specifying a To Location for each. In the Replacing Asset column , you should also be specifying the asset that will be moved to the current operating location of the asset. A good example is assets that need regular maintenance in a repair shop, these may be sent to a location of type REPAIR and swapped with an asset from that location that has just been repaired.

I would recommend filling out the To Location and Replacing Asset for every row. If one asset has been added by mistake you can remove it by using the Open Filter button and removing it from the filter field of the Asset. What you shouldn’t do, in the example shown on the right, is set the To Location and Replacing Asset for asset 11430 and then press the OK button having made no changes for asset CS11430.

Can you guess what would happen?

If you opened the details for the table window record for asset CS11430 you would find that there is a To Parent field (4) which will be null. What will happen is that asset CS11430 will be decoupled from its parent asset CS11400. It is setting the parent field to null. The same applies if the asset has a location and you forget to add a To Location, after the swap the asset will no longer exist in a location. You can see this for yourself by using the action View Asset Move History.

It is safer when you use the Swap Assets dialog to fill out the fields for all records. You might find while you are getting used to using the action Swap Assets that you remove the ability to use Swap Assets from the List tab. 

You can move an asset to a storeroom and bin, but you cannot swap an asset coming from the same storeroom, it must be issued first, then you’ll be able to select it. When you issue a rotating item, I think it best to issue to a location, as this can provide the General Ledger account for the issue transaction from a storeroom. You will have to figure out what sort of location you want to issue to. If you are using the same rotating item for the operating location where the current asset exists, then you cannot issue to this location because a location that references a rotating item cannot contain two assets at the same time. You can do two individual move/modify assets transactions, first one to move the current asset to another location and then you can issue the current item from the storeroom to the vacant operating location. But then that is not a swap, but two consecutive asset moves.

This may sound as if the Swap Assets action is more difficult than two consecutive asset moves. It isn’t, Asset Swaps work great when both assets exist outside of a storeroom. When the asset is in a storeroom, you just need to answer the question where I put it before I use the Asset Swap action, and when I do issue the rotating item and its asset, how do I handle the financial transaction.

Thank You for watching

I hope you have enjoyed this episode on Asset Moves and Asset Swaps and thank you for watching. Next up in this series on Asset Management we’ll be reviewing Asset Downtime. You can receive notifications if you subscribe to this channel, which of course we hope you will do. If you enjoyed this video, please also give it a thumbs up.

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Until another time, Goodbye.