Inventory Receiving is a Maximo Mobile application which will also be found on the desktop in the Inventory module and Role Based Applications. There may be some differences between the two and I aim to uncover those differences. Maximo Mobile aims to be an offline solution, the Role Based Application performs the same functions, but it may have additional capabilities which require to be online.

This is the article on the Role-Based Application – Inventory Receiving and the screenshots have been taken with an iPad in landscape mode. The article will cover more details than the Maximo Mobile article for Shipment Receiving which will be focused on an end-user, for example, this article will also review the Object Structures and Queries that support the applications.

I had originally aimed to write about the whole of Inventory Receiving (RBA) but it really has two parts. This article is the second part, the Shipment Receiving option which in desktop Maximo has the same name and is found in the Inventory or Purchasing modules. Shipment Receiving is the receiving aspect of items that exist on an Inventory Usage record of type Transfer. In Inventory Usage you can move the status to SHIPPED and then you receive the shipment in the Shipment Receiving application. It is the receiving end of an inter-storeroom transfer, a transfer between two storerooms. 

The environment I am using is MAS 8.11.0 and Maximo Manage 8.7.0. 

When you launch the Inventory Receiving Role Based Application there are two options, Inventory receiving and Shipment receiving. In both cases you might get a message like “No storeroom configured for this user” or an informational message with a blue background “Please set default storeroom for the login user in Maximo.” The user needs to have configured a storeroom in the field Default Storeroom for Self-Service Requisitions which will be found in the user’s Profile – Default Information. 

I have set the user WILSON to the GARAGE storeroom of the BEDFORD site. This is because many of the items and balances in a MAXDEMO database are in the CENTRAL-BEDFORD storeroom, so we need to transfer them to another storeroom for Shipment Receiving.

Open Shipments

The Shipment Receiving option shows the result of a default query but it doesn’t look as if it supports multiple queries, there is no query name displayed. The query is made against the storeroom marked as the Default Storeroom for Self-Service Requisitions; in my case it is the Inventory Usage records at SHIPPED status where there is one Inventory Usage line which references the To Storeroom of GARAGE-BEDFORD.

The default query shows 2 records, ordered by Shipment Number. This is a query that could be made in the desktop Shipment Receiving application if you filter by the To Storeroom. The query also restricts to shipments where the Receipts Status is NONE or PARTIAL, it does not show shipments where the Receipt Status is COMPLETE.

On the top line of each record is the Shipment Number followed by the Packing Slip Number. Then, on the right-hand side the Receipt Status is shown NONE or PARTIAL. If you had reviewed the Inventory Receiving (RBA) article you’ll start to see some differences because in that application the descriptions were used, No Parts Received (NONE), or Some Parts Received (PARTIAL).

Below this is the Shipment Date (SHIPMENT.SHIPDATE), then on the next line the From SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More, but surprisingly not the From Storeroom which would be more useful, and below this the number of shipment lines. The next column shows the Ship To Attention (INVUSE.SHIPTOATTN) and below this the person who moved the Inventory Usage record to SHIPPED status, Shiped By (with an unfortunate spelling mistake). There is no reference to the Inventory Usage record which would have been more useful than the Shipped by field (SHIPMENT.ENTERBY). I have registered these observations with IBM Support.

There is a button to Check for updates, and next to it a button to perform a search on any of the visible fields for each record. Without the Inventory Usage number or the From Storeroom I doubt whether this would be useful. There is a scanning function which would be useful if the hardcopy packing slip number was barcoded.

Below this is a series of buttons which are from left to right Receive, Inspect, Create Assets, Return, Receipts and Void. Here is the second difference to Inventory Receiving in that the Void button is not shown in this application. Many of these buttons will remain disabled until there is the context to enable them.

We will focus on Shipment record 1004 with 7 lines. I created the Inventory Usage record (1013) to include a Lot item, Condition Enabled Item, Rotating Item, and there is even a Tool Item.

At the right-hand side is a chevron button (>) which takes the user to a status page.

For Shipment 1004 the Status page shows the same set of buttons with an indicator of the number of records that are valid at each state. I haven’t started receiving yet so all 7 shipment lines are showing they can be Received. The purpose of this page is that it provides navigation from one step in the receiving process to the next without having to return to the Open Shipments query page.

Receive Lot Item

If you enter the Receive page, you will be presented with all 7 shipment lines to be received. You can see on the right-hand side that there are + and – buttons to increment/decrement the quantity being received. There is also a useful field title below each field value. Both are differences with the user interface found on the Inventory Receiving Role Based Application, a pity that they are not consistent.

On the right-hand side is a Chevon button (>) that opens the panel on the left. Item 11453 – Seal, Mechanical, Self Aligning- 1 In ID is a lot item. It shows the From Lot, To Lot, and the To Bin. You can change the Received Quantity in this side panel. This side panel is sometimes known as the sliding drawer.

Receive Condition Enabled Item

The second shipment line is for Item LN7023 – Alternator, this is a condition-enabled item, and the condition code REBUILT is shown. All the fields in the side panel are read-only except the Received Quantity. It is not possible to change the Condition Code.

The third line on the shipment was also a condition enabled item, with a condition code of NEW. In this case I had not provided a To Bin on the Inventory Usage record, and there is no option to change it. Then again, there is no option to change it as part of the Shipment Receiving desktop application.

Receive Rotating Assets

The fourth shipment line has a quantity of 1 for a rotating item, FIRE-100 Fire Extinguisher, you can just see it on the right, the bottom line, the record where I initially thought there was a redundant 1 in the user interface. When you transfer rotating items in the Inventory Usage application the row is split so that you transfer with as many lines as the quantity you are transferring, this is because you are transferring individual assets. Therefore, if you were transferring a quantity of two there would be two lines. 

The Quantity Shipped for a rotating item is always 1. Notice there is no – or + buttons in the record. The figure 1 you see is the Quantity Received as a displayed field without the ability to modify it. 

In the Item Details there is no field that references the asset, or its serial number being received. I think this must be an omission and I have raised it with IBM Support. If you were supposed to have received a quantity of 5 and only 4 were received, how could you determine the assets that were received, and hence the one that went missing in transit? As you don’t have the ability to say the quantity received only to select the assets received, you must be able to see the asset number and serial number. Notice in the Item Details on the left that the Received Quantity is set to 1 and cannot be changed. 

Receive Item with a Hazard

The fifth shipment line was Item 10112 – Fire Extinguisher Fluid – Ansulex where I had entered a hazard in the Item-Organization Details in Item Master application and the item has a MSDS reference. I wasn’t surprised to see no reference to either field, this might be something that you configure if you have referenced hazards with material items in your implementation. When you receive items with a hazard you should know how to handle them safely. I’ve registered an Idea (Request for Enhancement) for this with IBM. There are a couple of ideas I’ve raised, and you can find them and their links at the bottom of this article.

Receive Screen

The bottom of the Receive screen shows the last four items including the fourth shipment line for the FIRE-100 rotating item. In this screenshot it is a little easier to see that there is no – or + buttons and the strange positioning of the Received Quantity. A great piece of screen real-estate which could be used to show instead the asset number and its serial number.

We have two more shipment lines to discuss, a tool item and an item where there is a receipt tolerance.

Receive Tool Item

The sixth shipment line to receive is item PUMP – Farval Grease Pump, this is a tool item, it is a non-rotating tool so you can receive a quantity greater than one. It illustrates that tool items can also be transferred between storerooms using this role-based application.

Receive Item with a Receipt Tolerance

The seventh and last shipment line is for item 560-00 – Tubing, Copper-1 In ID X.030 In Wall. In the Item Master application this item has a receipt tolerance of 5% and with a quantity shipped of 20 I was wondering whether a quantity of 21 would be accepted. You can adjust the quantities in the Receive screen without having to use the Item Details. I entered 22 and received the error message ‘Exceed the quantity shipped’ in red text. I then used the + and – buttons to test those and settled with 21 and I had the same error message.

Receipt Tolerances are not supported with transfers between storerooms, so the result here was not unexpected. I have found out that Receipt Tolerances on the Inventory Receiving part of this role-based application is not yet supported, this is the receiving against a purchase order where receipt tolerances do work on the Maximo desktop.

The Item Details for this shipment line is the same as we have seen previously. I settled on a Received Quantity of 10 rather than 20. Notice I selected this item to be received.

Saving the Receipts

Up to now nothing has been saved. You need to select the items where you wish to save the received quantities. You do this from the box on the right-hand side, but at the top there is a box to select all. You then use the blue Save button.

You will receive one or two messages. The first says the number of shipment lines received with a green background, ‘7 material(s) received’. The second message with a blue background indicates what is needed to complete the receipt of this shipment. In this case there are three shipment lines to be inspected and the ‘3 material(s) are required to inspect’ message is displayed.

Shipment Status Page

The Shipment Status page now shows one item left to be received, this is the remaining quantity of 10 of shipment line 7 for item 560-00, the copper tubing.

There are three lines to be inspected, four lines that could be returned, and if you look closely the Receipts and Void options are now enabled.

Receipts

The Receipts page has a search function, so you could find all the items waiting to be inspected or all the transactions for a particular item. There are fields for the Item and its Description, the Issue Type, Quantity Received, Quantity Inspected, the Actual Date of the transaction and the Inspection Status (WINSP, WASSET or COMP). The transactions have been written to the MATRECTRANS object. 

If there are multiple lines for the same item it is not possible to distinguish between them, for example the two condition enabled items LN7023, one is with a Condition Code of REBUILT and the other is NEW. Ideally the Shipment Line Number would be shown with a # prefix so that you could find all the transactions associated with a particular shipment line.

There is a box at the end of each line for selecting the record which cannot perform a function as this is a read-only screen. This has been reported to IBM Support.

Inspect – Materials

The Inspect screen is split into two tabs the Material List and the Asset List. We’ll start with the Material List. There is a search function, but not so many fields you could search on, the Item and its Description. There are two quantity fields that you can enter, the quantity to Accept and the quantity to Reject.

If you are going to reject a quantity, you must reduce the quantity you are going to accept first as otherwise you will receive the error message ‘The sum of the accepted quantity and the rejected quantity is greater than the quantity to be inspected.’.

If you do reject a quantity as I have done for Item 11453, then a red edit button is enabled. Item 11453 is a lot item and there is no reference to the lot being rejected. I’ve reported this to IBM Support.

When the edit button is used the left-hand panel for Reject Item is shown with two fields for the Reject Quantity and Reject Code. There is no domain lookup for the Reject Code in standard Maximo, a pity. It is defined as UPPER 6 in Maximo (MATRECTRANS.REJECTCODE) and when you reject an item, you normally enter a comment (MATRECTRANS.REMARK) but there is no field for the comment, another difference to the Inventory Receiving application which does have a field to provide the reason for rejecting the item. I have raised an issue with IBM Support about this.

The up-arrow button on each row hides the Accept and Reject quantity fields as I have done for item 11453, and the button turns into a down-arrow.

To complete the inspection, you need to select the records that you have inspected from the box on the right-hand side, alternatively use the Select All box at the top as I have done, and then use the blue Save button.

A green background message is displayed after save, ‘2 item(s) inspected’.

Inspect – Assets

The Asset List tab in the Inspect page shows the Item Number followed by the Asset Number in parenthesis, in our example FIRE-100 / (2112). Below it is the Item’s description and not the Asset’s description. As the quantity is always one, we get a radio button for Accept and Reject instead of having to decrease the accepted quantity before incrementing the rejected quantity. Unfortunately for me I couldn’t activate the Reject radio button, and I have raised an IBM Support case for this.

Looking at the code, it does look as if the intention is to open the Reject Item dialog the same as we saw for the Materials List.

You will need to select the asset using the box on the right if you are going to accept it after inspection before using the blue Save button.

After saving you will receive the green background message ‘1 item(s) inspected’.

Return Items

The Return screen show all the receipts made so far against shipment 1004 which have the potential to be returned. Each record shows the Item, its Description, the quantity to be returned, which is modifiable, and the Actual Date of the original receipt transaction.

I am selecting just the one receipt to be returned for item 560-00, the copper tubing, and a quantity of 10 to be returned. You then use the blue Save button.

Notice item LN7023 is a condition enabled item. If you were wanting to return one of these, you would not be able to determine which row represents the NEW condition code and which represents the REBUILT condition code as the condition code is not displayed. I’ve reported this to IBM Support as well.

After returning the one item you receive the message with a green background ‘ 1 material(s) returned’. The remaining four items with the potential to be returned are still visible.

Receipts (2)

The number of receipt transactions is increasing there are now 11 records with the latest being the copper tubing, item 560-00 just returned. The issue type is SHIPRETURN in this case. 

The two fields displayed are different between items returned, where it references Quantity rejected and the Reject code, from a receipt where the two fields are Quantity received and Quantity accepted. In desktop Maximo the quantity field for items being rejected or items being returned is negative, but it is displayed as a positive number in this mobile application. This is not an issue as they correctly end-up as a negative quantity transactions back in Maximo.

Further down the page you see some of the earlier transactions. While sorting by actual date descending is a good sort order to investigate what has gone on with any one shipment line you need to use the filter.

The last receipt transaction shown for the FIRE-100 rotating item, the issue type is TRANSFER, but it does not reference the asset that was transferred. I’ve also raised a case for this with IBM Support.

Void Receipts

The option Void will show the transactions which have the potential to be voided. You use Void Receipts when there has been a mistake in the receiving process, it reverses the transaction that you previously made.

There are three items that could be voided, the two receipts of the condition-enabled item LN7023, but there is no reference to the condition code which would make it easier to decide which record need to be voided.

The Shipment Line is displayed but it would only be possible to filter to Shipment line 5 because for Shipment lines 2 and 3 both these digits also exist in the item number LN7023. This is why it should be prefixed with a # to make it filterable.

The chevron button (>) on the right opens the item details this time with the Remarks field that would have been nice when rejecting or returning an item. This is where the condition code or the lot item could have been displayed.

To void a previous receipt, you need to select it and use the blue Save button. I am voiding shipment line 5, the bottom record. You should receive a green background message, but I didn’t take a screenshot this time.

Receipts – Void transaction

When voiding a receipt, the Issue Type is VOIDSHIPRECEIPT and the two fields in the middle are Quantity ordered and Quantity void. A Void Shipment receipt in desktop Maximo shows as a negative quantity. In this mobile application a decision has been made to avoid showing negative quantities by inferring it may be a negative in the choice of field titles for the quantity fields, in this case Quantity Void, to me at least infers a negative quantity transaction. However, this again is a different approach to how Inventory Receiving handles a void receipt.

Receive – Search

If we go back to the Receive screen for our shipment, there are two records remaining to be received. On Shipment Line 5 a quantity of 1 for item 10112 – Fire Extinguisher Fluid – Ansulex, this is the item we just voided. Shipment Line 7 show the remaining quantity of 10 to be received for item 560-00 Tubing, Copper-1 In ID X .030 In Wall.

There is a search bar which searches for text found in the displayed record. You would be able to search for the item number or the item’s description, but you would not be successful with the Shipment Line number because if you searched for the character 5 you would also find the copper tubing and presumably any quantity where there was 5 shipped or 5 remaining to be received. The Shipment Line number should be prefixed with a # to allow it to be searchable.

Receive Assets across Sites

For the final test I wanted to see what happens when you ship assets, including a tool asset across sites. I’ve selected a quantity of three P-896 Rotary Pumps and one HAND IMPACTOR, which is a tool item, both from the BEDFORD-CENTRAL storeroom and I am shipping them to the NASHUA-CENTRAL storeroom.

I had to change my profile so that I was referring to the NASHUA site and CENTRAL storeroom. Then when entering the Shipment Receiving application, I saw shipment 1005 with the Packing Slip Number 2023-11-03-0021 besides this. There are 4 shipment lines coming from the BEDFORD site, and as mentioned previously no reference to the storeroom which originated the shipment. The Ship To Attention (ROGERS) and the person who created the shipment record (WILSON) are also referenced. With privacy rules as they are, it would have been better for these two fields to show the Display Name of the person rather than the Person ID which may be an anonymous number.

Only the Receive button, the first one, is enabled.

In the Receive screen there are no + or – buttons as this shipment is entirely of rotating assets and one tool which is also marked as rotating, the Hand Impactor. The positioning of the Received Quantity 1 looks to be positioned incorrectly and it would be better replaced with the asset number and serial number. 

In the Inventory Usage document, I transferred a quantity of three of item P-896 the Rotary Pump, but this was then split into multiple lines when selecting the assets to transfer, each asset is therefore on its own shipment line. The chevron (>) button at the end of each row opens the Item Details screen.

The Item Detail, where there is space for the Asset Number and Serial Number unfortunately doesn’t show this information. The screen for the tool asset had the same fields.

I selected all four assets and used the blue Save button and received the green background message ‘4 material(s) received’ and the blue background message ‘3 material(s) are required to inspect’. The Tool Item didn’t need inspecting but it showed as requiring the Create Asset stage, we’ll catch up with this one in a while.

Inspect Assets shipped across Sites

The Inspect screen shows the three P-896 items with their asset numbers displayed besides, P-896 / (2087), the three assets shipped were 2087, 2088 and 2089. 

There is a radio button on each record to Accept or Reject. On a desktop it is easy to select the Reject button but previously on an iPad I couldn’t select it. This time I spent a few minutes prodding and double-clicking in different places, and eventually I found the spot which would change the radio button. It is a position between the button and the text but slightly below a central line through the circle. It did work and the red button appeared on the right which opened the Reject Item screen with the quantity to reject (set to one) and a field for the Reject Code but as referenced previously no reject reason field.

Leaving the three radio buttons as Accept and using the Select All box at the top I then used the blue Save button and received the green background message ‘3 item(s) inspected’. There was no blue background message to say that the assets now needed to be serialised.

Create Assets when shipped across Sites

As assets are defined at the site level when you ship an asset across sites you need to create the asset record at the destination site. For shipments between storerooms in the same site the Create Assets option will not be necessary.

All four assets including the tool item HAND IMPACTOR are shown with their Asset number and Serial number except I didn’t have any serial numbers. The button next to the Serial number says – This field cannot be edited, if you click or hover over it. The asset number field shows the same asset numbers from the originating site which I accepted and there was no error which I would hope you would get if a different asset at the receiving site (NASHUA in this case) had the same asset number.

I didn’t try it but it looks as if you could change the asset number in this screen.

There is no select box for selecting the assets you want to be created. After using the blue Save button you receive the message ‘4 asset(s) created’.

I did check the Receipts screen, there was nothing to indicate the asset numbers received. It was the same layout as you have seen previously in this article.

When I returned to the Shipment Receiving query screen there was the message ‘No shipment found’. This was because Shipment 1005 was now at COMPLETE status and the query excludes such records.

Enhancement Ideas

While writing this article it became apparent that some information that is useful during shipment receiving has not been included yet in the application, and I have raised some IBM Ideas for these:

Being alerted to a hazard with a material being received

In the Inventory Receiving and Shipment Receiving RBA/Mobile applications you should be made aware of an item with a Hazard or MSDS as this would alert you to a dangerous substance.

https://ideas.ibm.com/ideas/MASMOBILE-I-408

Display of Shipment Line Number in Receipts screen so that it can be searched.

Inventory Receiving (RBA) – Receipts screen in Inventory Receiving should show PO Line Number and in Shipment Receiving should show Shipment Line Number, both prefixed with # so that they can be searched.

https://ideas.ibm.com/ideas/MASMOBILE-I-407

Use the Display Name of people instead of the PERSONID

With growing privacy rules we should be showing references to people by their Display Name rather than the PERSONID which may be an anonymous number. An example would be in Inventory Receiving – Shipment Receiving – Query page where both the Attention To and Shiped By are displayed. It would be better to use the display name of the person.

https://ideas.ibm.com/ideas/MASMOBILE-I-410

Object Structures

This section explains the Object Structures and Queries that are being used in the Shipment Receiving part of the Inventory Receiving application.

The Shipment Receiving Object Structure is MXAPISHIPMENT and the query is IROPENSHIPMOBILE with a Query Clause of ‘siteid = (select defsite from maxuser where userid = :USER) and exists (select 1 from invuse where exists (select 1 from invuseline where invuse.invusenum=invuseline.invusenum and invuse.siteid=invuseline.siteid and invuseline.tostoreloc = (select defstoreroom from  maxuser where userid = :USER)) and invuse.invusenum=shipment.invusenum and invuse.siteid=shipment.fromsiteid and invuse.status in (select value from synonymdomain where domainid=’INVUSESTATUS’ and maxvalue=’SHIPPED’) and invuse.receipts in (select value from synonymdomain where domainid=’RECEIPTS’ and (maxvalue=’PARTIAL’ or maxvalue=’NONE’)))’

The records you see in the Open Shipment query are inventory usage records at SHIPPED status and where the receipt status is either NONE or PARTIAL (or their synonyms) and where there is one inventory usage line where the transfer to storeroom is the users default storeroom as defined in their Profile – Default Information and field called Default Storeroom for Self-Service Requisitions. 

When the Receipt Status has moved to COMPLETE the shipment will no longer be shown.

The default sort order is not explicitly defined but as shipments are autokeyed it is likely to be by SHIPMENTNUM.