Last Updated on August 15, 2024 by maximosecrets
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The best way to describe a Work Queue is that it is a query that will produce a result set against which one or more actions can be applied. The Work Queue Manager application will be found in the Administration module. It was new to MAS 8.11 (September 2023) which is the current release at the time of writing.
The Operational Dashboard is the modernized equivalent of the Start Center. One of the Cards (similar to a Start Center portlet) that can be added to the Operational Dashboard is a Work Queue, and when rendered this will display the work queue records and from each of these you can then see the details in a tabular form. It is these details which are equivalent to the Start Center Result Set. It is one extra click, but you only need one card to show the results of many queries instead of one Result Set portlet for each query. It should be quicker to render compared with a Start Center with several result sets portlets, and it will take up far less space as the query results open in a full-sized screen, the screen can also contain more columns than were practical in the Result Set portlet.
Modifying an existing Work Queue
When you enter the Work Queue Manager it shows the work queues previously created, in my case just the one called NEWSR – New Service Requests which is at Active status. This is the WORKQUEUE object defined at the System level.
On the right-hand side there is the Edit work queue button, but you need to scroll over the record to see it.
The Count is the number of records that would be retrieved by the work queue query. The State is a YORN field, Active (1) Inactive (0).
If you use the Edit work queue button, you are presented with a screen designed as a wizard with three steps the first being – Define work queue.
There are just three fields displayed:
- Name – The unique name of the work queue (Upper 25)
- Description (ALN 100)
- Priority – This is the priority of this work queue relative to other work queues. It is an Integer field with a numeric domain called WORKQUEUEPRIORITY, where 1 = Urgent, 2 = High, 3 = Medium and 4 = Low.
You use the blue Next button to go to the second step in the wizard.
The second step in the wizard is Define query. This is based on an Object Structure which cannot be modified, the same applies to the third field the Launch application which is defined as WOTRACK. This may be because we are modifying an existing work queue, instead of creating a new work queue, but we’ll see later when I create a new work queue. When the results of the work queue query are displayed, you can launch to the application, in this case Work Order Tracking, to see the details of the record. I’ll explain the Query field in the second half of this article.
At the bottom left you see the fields which are defined by the Object Structure, and you can select using the check box on the left the fields that you wish to see when the Work Queue is launched. There are currently four Selected fields – wonum, description, owner and ownergroup. I have filtered for all the fields with ‘prior’ in their names and I am about to add the wopriority attribute as a selected field.
You might have noticed that while the title is NEWSR – New Service Requests, the object structure doesn’t look at service requests, but work orders. Yes, this threw me as well, confusing I agree.
When you select a field in the Available fields panel it is automatically added to the Selected fields panel. You can use the button to the left to drag it to reposition it, or the button to the right to deselect the field. The order of the Selected fields from top to bottom will be the order of the fields displayed left to right when the work queue shows the results of the query.
I will follow the blue Next button to get to the third step – Add actions. But notice that the Back button is enabled, and you can cancel the creation/update of the work queue.
The third and final step in the wizard is optional, Add actions. There is already one action added WO APPR which has an action type of Change Status and will change status to APPR. These are the actions defined in the Actions application for the parent object in the object structure, in this case WORKORDER.
As I updated this work queue by adding the wopriority attribute I’ll use the blue Update button.
Reviewing the work queue on the Operational Dashboard
The Operational Dashboard is the modernized equivalent to the Start Center for Maximo, I’ll be writing an article on this next. There is a vertical scroll bar on the right.
At the bottom of the Operational Dashboard in the centre section is a card defined to show the active Work Queues. It shows the one Work Queue NEWSR – New Service Requests. There is a link on the Queue Name.
When you open the work queue from the operational dashboard it displays the results of performing the query, in this case showing the five selected fields as columns, wonum, description, owner, ownergroup and the additional field wopriority. The column titles come from the Title attribute defined in Database Configuration for the objects.
You can filter, and open a filter record below the column titles, you can also sort by a column. I will filter for all my test records.
If you select a record, work order 1339 in my case, the action to approve (WO APPR) appears. There is also a button on the right-hand side which launches the associated application. If you hover over the record, it says View Record. In my case it launched the Work Order Tracking application with work order 1339 selected, with the breadcrumb at the top-left which provides navigation back to the Operational Dashboard, there is also the Return button. Unfortunately, in both cases when you return any filtering, sorting, or paging has been lost. I’ve raised an IBM Support Case regarding this.
Incidentally, the filtering, sorting, or paging is not lost if you perform the action WO APPR. When I used the action the work order was approved, and a status history record was created. I also did a test where I selected multiple work orders at WAPPR state, and they were both approved.
Creating a new Work Queue
I’ve used the button Create Work Queue and created a new work query called MYSR – Service Request where I am the assigned Owner. I’ve made it Priority 1 – Urgent.
I’ll use the blue Next button to go to the Define Query step.
Unfortunately, it looks as if the Object Structure and Launch application are currently hard-coded and cannot be changed. I noticed in the Database Configuration application that there is a default value of MXAPIWODETAIL for the attribute WORKQUEUE.INTOBJECTNAME, so I tried removing this and after performing the database configuration, it made no difference. I’ve raised a new case with IBM Support for the hard coded attributes.
I’m having another go; this time the new work queue name is MYWO – Work Orders where I am the assigned Owner. I’ve given this a Priority of 1.
When you move to the second step and Define query, the queries are either those defined on the Object Structure in the action Query Definition or those that are defined against the Launch application, in which case they are preceded with the application name, for example WOTRACK: I’m going to select the query WOTRACK:MYWO which is one I created earlier.
I’ve selected 6 attributes, wonum, description, status, wopriority, owner, and assignedownergroup. The attributes you can select from in the Available fields panel in the bottom-left of the screen are only those that exist from the parent Object Structure. This means that if you had an object structure on WORKORDER with a child object of ASSETS then you would not be able to show the description of the asset. I’ve raised an IBM Support case for this, it will probably end-up as an IBM Idea (request for enhancement).
On the third step to creating a new work queue I did not associate an action; I just used the blue Create button.
The Work Queues card now shows two work queues with the recently created one MYWO appearing at the top, presumably because it is a higher priority. The count shows 8 records.
Launching the work queue shows the eight work orders where the Owner is WILSON, I was logged in as WILSON when I created the query in the Work Order Tracking application. All the work order records have an Owner of WILSON. Notice that there are no actions, apart from the default one Clear Selections, which clears any filter you may have added.
That’s it really. A bit disappointing that the two fields were hard-coded, and that you can’t use a relationship as you can with a Start Center Result Set, for example you would not be able to show the description of the work order’s asset. There is also no ability to visualise the same data graphically as there is in the Result Set portlet on the Start Center. However, the Work Queue Manager reviewed was a first release and perhaps new features are planned for later this year (2024).
What is useful when comparing to the Start Center is that you see in one card which queries would retrieve records. In Start Centers you would need to review multiple Result Set portlets where the information has already been fetched from the database. Sometimes those queries on large databases are not immediate, and it can often lead to performance issues, a count of records should be faster.
There are other features of a Start Center result set portlet which are not available yet. There is no display of the data graphically, and there is no ability to launch the application with the result set, only launch one record at a time.
You can vote for these two enhancements by using the links below.
Operational Dashboard – Work Queue card to have a Chart View option similar to Result Set portlet on a Start Center.
There should be the ability to display the Work Queue card in both a List View (as it does today) and a Chart View which is available on the Result Set portlet in the Start Center.
https://ideas.ibm.com/ideas/MASM-I-1056
Operational Dashboard – Work Queue card should be able to launch the application with the result set from the query.
There should be the ability to navigate to the launch application and perform the same query so that it fetches the same result set of records. This would give the same result as the button Open Result Set in the toolbar of a result set portlet on the Start Center.
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