Maximo Application Suite 9.0 was released on 25^th June 2024, and I have started my initial review. This article will focus on some of the enhancements in Maximo Manage that will be of most interest to existing clients, changes to Routes, Job Plans and Work Order Tracking and enhancements to the new applications introduced in MAS 8.x like the Operational Dashboard, Work Queues, and Work Orders. 

You might find this is a bit of a random selection, but I’ve chosen these enhancements because I know I will need to update existing Maximo Secrets articles.

Routes

Routes has a new status field with options for DRAFT, ACTIVE and INACTIVE. There are actions for Change Status and View History. You cannot select on a PM or work order a route in Draft or Inactive state and you cannot make a route inactive if it is referenced on an active PM.

Job Plans

New field Qualifications has been added to the Job Plan header which allows multiple qualifications to be associated with a job plan (object JPQUALREQ). The qualification has an Exception Type of ERROR, WARNING or SILENT, unfortunately the EXCPTTYPE synonym domain is missing from the domain field in Database Configuration. This has been reported to IBM Support.

• ERROR – Prevent assignment, planning, or recording of actual work where the qualification requirement is not met
• WARNING – Display a message when a user tries to assign, plan, or record actual work where the qualification requirement is not met
• SILENT – Allow assignment, planning, or recording of actual work where the qualification requirement is not met

A Qualifications field is also on the Job Plan Task and the Job Plan Labor. When you create a new Job Plan Labor record the qualifications are defaulted from the job plan header, if you reference a task, the tasks qualifications are also inherited, but you can delete the ones that are not needed for each job plan labor record. There is a Qualifications Required field on the header of the Job Plan which is set if a Task requires a qualification.

The Job Plan header has a field – Is Milestone, and this is also on the Job Task.

Work Order Tracking

The Qualifications and Qualifications Required fields are copied from the Job Plan to the Scheduling Information section. On the Plans tab the Tasks also has a Qualifications section with the Qualifications field and below it are fields for Met on Actual Labor, Met on Assignments, and Met on Planned Labor. 

There is a Qualifications field on the Work Plan Labor which are the qualifications copied from the Job Plan Labor record, but they can be manually entered. There is a Qualifications Met field on the Work Plan Labor, Work Order Assignments, and Actual Labor tables.

When assigning labor or recording labor actuals the three fields on the task will indicate whether the qualifications have been met or not (WOQUALFLG.LABTRANSMET). The Synonym Domain QUALMET indicates one of the following values are possible:

• FULLY – Qualification requirements are fully met
• PARTIAL – Qualification requirements are partially met
• NONE – Qualification requirements are not met
• N/A – Not Applicable

Again, the domain has not been attached to either of the three fields in object WOQUALFLG. An IBM Support case has been raised.

The qualification status is dependent on the schedule dates because the qualification may be met one week, but not the next if the assignee’s qualification certificate has expired. There is a View Requirements Qualification History button at the end of the Assignments table window. There are also warnings when changing the work assignment if the labor assigned does not have the required qualifications.

As this enhancement has come from the Scheduler team, I expected there to be some indicators on Graphical Assignment and Graphical Work Week, but with a quick glance I couldn’t find anything. I’m also uncertain of the impact on Maximo Transportation and Maximo HSE/O&G which also have qualification functionality on work order assignments. I’ll need to dive deeper on this topic.

There is an Is Milestone field on both the work order header and the tasks.

The work order assignment status now has options for ACCEPTED and REJECTED, which are set by the Maximo Mobile Technician application.

Operational Dashboard

The Operational Dashboard now supports multiple tabs, and public/private dashboards. You’ll need to grant security access in Security Groups for the options Create Private Dashboard, Create Public Dashboard, Delete Public Dashboard and Hide Public Dashboard. After logging back in there will be a 3-dot menu with the options to Create Dashboard and Manage Dashboard Actions.

The Create Dashboard dialog requires you to provide a Name, Description, I entered Planners, and two check boxes whether it should be the Default dashboard and whether it is to be made Public. By deselecting, it will be marked as Private and only the logged in user will be able to access it.

In the Manage Dashboards I used the drag and drop feature and quickly lost the Public Dashboard, which is provided as standard, it has no identifier. Fortunately, I never log in as MAXADMIN, only as WILSON and so I can still see it exists, but I haven’t worked out yet how to get it back. In the Manage Dashboards dialog you can Delete, Hide and Manage Dashboard Settings.

Security Groups has an Operational Dashboard tab for associating which dashboards are relevant to each set of users. Although I changed the dashboard name to MAXDEMO with a description of – This is the default – I still was not successful in displaying it. The Select Dashboards Views allows for a multi-select, but it is only the public views that can be selected.

When you edit the dashboard using the pencil icon, shown in the previous screenshot, you can Cancel, Save and Save As. The Save As is duplicating a dashboard, but it also seemed to resurrect the one I thought I had lost – phew! 

There is a new tile called External Content with options to Clone and Delete. This allows you to provide a URL, I tried https://maximosecrets.com and after save, it provides a smaller window which you can expand to full screen (or nearly – see the darker border), and now you are navigating within the website of the URL provided – cool!

This might be the way you can embed Cognos Analytics into the operational dashboard.

Work Queues

The two big changes to work queues is that they can be created against other objects, previously it was only work orders, and you can associate multiple Person Groups with a work queue, which restricts the work queue to the members of the specified person groups.

When you come to the second step in the wizard – Define Query – you can select the Object Structure, Query and Launch Application. The Query must be defined first in Object Structures and action Query Definition, the query type is osclause. If you choose a query that doesn’t exist for the object structure, then you will receive an error when launching the Work Queue Manager application, and Maximo will not launch any Work Queue, making it difficult to correct the work queue incorrectly defined. I’ve raised a case with IBM Support.

A work queue can be used to launch to the new Work Orders role based application. The person who creates the work queue sets the initial set of fields to display, when the work queue is used by a user they can change the fields for their own personal use. 

Work queues are used on the Operational Dashboard, each work queue replaces a result set on a Start Center, when the set of records is displayed you can perform actions on one or more rows. There were two enhancements associated with actions, which did not make the final code cut for EGA, the ability to customize the action label and the ability to associate a condition to the action, hopefully we’ll see those in MAS 9.1.

Work Orders

The Work Orders application has the addition of the Plans tab on the left with two tabs for Work Order Resources and Tasks. In the Tasks if you click the Description highlighted in blue text it will take you to a full page of detail and then you can navigate back using the breadcrumb at the top left. This feels like opening the Activities and Tasks application but is so much better, it is instant there is no loading of a new application. There are tables for the Responsibility, Craft and Crew Type, and Assignments associated with the task.

When creating a task there are four tabs of fields, Basics, Job Details, Responsibility and Labor, and Scheduling. This isn’t just the minimal set of fields needed for a work order, the Scheduling tab includes the constraint dates, appointment required, interruptible shift and the ability to enter predecessors.

The Work Order Resources tab has three tables which you need to open with extra clicks, which I think will become annoying. Responsibility is a table for owner, supervisor, lead, etc. There are also tables for Craft and Crew Type and another for Assignments.

The Work Orders application also uses AI when entering a Problem Code, but I can’t review that yet because we need to set up an API key in System Property mxe.int.aibrokerapikey and for that we need a WatsonX Essentials license.