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Step 2 – Planning/Scheduling Maturity – Assignments

Contents

Introduction

In the 12 Steps to Planning and Scheduling Maturity the first three steps are associated with assigning work.

At each step we have not planned the work, there is no mention of Job Plans or the Plans tab of the Work Order Tracking application, we could be making the assignments the day before the work order is assigned. Except for Graphical Resource View for creating and updating availability we have not mentioned the other applications of Maximo Scheduler where work assignment takes place, Graphical Work Week or Graphical Assignment, these rely much more on work planning.

This article is Step 2 – Assignments. In the Step 1 – Ownership article, I suggest some preliminary steps, defining a glossary, adding some additional work order statuses, reviewing your use of workflow on work orders. The Ownership step is using the Owner and Owner Group fields across the lifecycle of a work order so that everyone knows who is taking responsibility for the work order. https://maximosecrets.com/2025/04/23/step-1-planning-scheduling-maturity-ownership/

What is a Work Assignment?

Work Assignments is a child table of a work order, it allows multiple labor or crew to be assigned to the work order. Work assignments can be created from the Assignments Tab of the Work Order Tracking application. We will see that creating a work assignment does not require you to plan first. The default query in the Maximo Mobile Technician application, ‘Assigned work’, is based on work assignments. When you do eventually get to using Graphical Work Week or Graphical Assignment applications these are also based on work assignments.

Planning work by using a Job Plan or the Plans tab of the Work Order Tracking application makes work assignment easier because for each planned labor record Maximo automatically creates the work assignments for you.

Step 2 is focused on the use of the Assignments tab in the Work Order Tracking application to create the work assignment and assign a labor or crew. You should not skip this step because you are aiming to use Maximo Scheduler applications for assigning work, often you will find it is more effective using the functions available in Work Order Tracking rather than launching a different application to achieve the same goal.

Labor

Step 1 – Ownership is based on a Person or Person Group, Owner and Owner Group respectively. To make work assignments you will need to create Labor or Crew records first. We will only focus on Labor as most clients use Labor and far fewer Crews.

Labor is the subset of people, the technicians and engineers, who are assigned work. Labor records can also be created for other people who may be the owner of tickets and work orders, Service Desk agents, Planners, Schedulers and Supervisors, if you want to record their time.

A Person record must exist before you create a Labor record, and in MAS this is done by creating a user in the MAS Administration application. It is advisable to align the Person, User and Labor identifiers adopting any rules that may have been defined to avoid privacy issues. You must enter the associated Person, and the Labor record must be made ACTIVE.

There should be at least one craft associated with each labor record and the first record you create will be marked as the Default Craft for Labor. The craft is the work discipline performed, Mechanic, Electrician, Plumber, etc. A labor can have multiple craft records but only one craft association marked as the default.

In this case for Labor record WILSON, he has one craft ELECT – Electrician with a Skill Level of FIRSTCLASS, which is marked as the default. If WILSON could also perform some plumber activities, then secondary craft records can be associated with his labor record.

The reason for the Labor record in addition to the Person record is that there are unit cost rates for Labor, and currency and financial records are defined at the Organization level, hence Craft and Labor are also defined against an Organization. People are defined at the System level and will never have any associated costs. A Person who may work on work orders in sites that are in multiple Organizations will need to have multiple Labor records, one for each organization where they perform work.

Work Order Tracking – Assignments Tab

Simple Assignments – Emergency Work

Making a work assignment couldn’t be easier.

On the Assignments Tab I have used the New Row button and entered WILSON in the Labor field, everything else is defaulted, I haven’t saved yet.

We could adjust the Scheduled Start and Hours, the expected work hours of WILSON before we save. After save and if the work order has reached APPR status, the work assignment for work order 1624 will appear on WILSON’s mobile device if they are using Maximo Mobile Technician application.

This couldn’t be simpler, yet some Maximo clients have not made that step from Ownership to Assignment, and it is a barrier to further progress in planning and scheduling maturity.

This technique is the most effective one for Emergency work, you have raised a work order, notice the work order status in the screenshot is still at WAPPR and you want to record who you have asked to go and investigate the issue. No need to launch any other application other than the one where you raised the work order.

You can create work assignments at any status except those that are in history.

Incidentally, you can find the work orders where there are work assignments for a technician/engineer by using the Advanced Search field Assigned Labor, it is in the section called Plan Details.

Simple Assignments – Urgent Work

You can also make a work assignment for a future date without assigning the Labor. This might occur for urgent work that will need to be performed in the next week, but at this point we don’t know who will be assigned. This is a new work order, 1645, which is again at WAPPR state. Here we are scheduling when the work is to be performed without assigning the work.

Making this type of work assignment couldn’t be easier.

On the Assignments Tab I have used the New Row button and have selected ELECT-FIRSTCLASS in the Craft field, I’ve adjusted the Scheduled Start to next Monday at 10:00 and I’ve estimated 2:00 work hours. I haven’t saved yet.

The work order won’t appear on the Maximo Mobile Technician application until we assign a Labor, which we will do at the standup meeting on Monday morning. This simple case has been achieved without using another application.

If you used the work plan or applied a job plan that had the same craft and regular hours, it would achieve a similar result but without a Scheduled Start to the work assignment and there would be no Scheduled Start and Finish on the work order. Therefore, the easiest way to schedule urgent work for next week or within the next few days is to create a work assignment and then later assign the Labor to it.

Note. Assignments which are longer than the hours in a shift will not split, you should instead create multiple assignments. For example, if you need 12 hours to complete a work order and a shift is 8 hours long, then create one assignment for 8 hours and another for 4 hours.

Task based Assignments

You can also create work assignments against tasks. I’ve created three tasks 10, 20, 30 for an inspection against three fire extinguishers, assets 1004, 1006 and 1007. I’ve added an Inspection Form 1005 against each task.

For Task 10 I’ve made two work assignments for WILSON and WINSTON, WILSON will show his apprentice how to make the inspection, then WINSTON will go and perform the fire extinguisher inspection on the other two assets in tasks 20 and 30.

Apart from creating the tasks, there has been no resource planning, labor, materials, services or tools, only task-based work assignments have been created. The tasks can be created after work order approval from the Actuals tab.

Incidentally, it is not shown in the screenshot but if you scrolled upwards the Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish on the work order are blank. The reason for this is that the Scheduled Start and Hours are not updating the work order, but the scheduled dates on the work order task.

Logged in as WILSON and in the Technician Role Based Application (RBA), the Assigned Work query shows one work assignment for work order 1647 and task 10, notice it references 1647-10. This is showing the task record, and not the work order, the task is against asset 1004, the work order doesn’t reference an asset, only location OFFICE. This is a feature of the Technician application to show task-based assignments in the same manner as work order-based assignments.

Notice the work assignment Accept and Reject buttons. If you Reject a work assignment a dialog will appear to provide a reason for the rejection, this has a list of values, and it will also create a record in the work log.

Logged in as WINSTON there are the three task-based work assignments for work order 1647, tasks 10, 20 and 30.

There is no Accept and Reject buttons, because WINSTON belongs to a different set of Security Groups and to enable these buttons there needs to be an Object Structure Authorization on MXAPIWODETAIL and the option for Enable Assignment Flow set.

Still logged in as WINSTON I have gone to the Inspections (RBA) application and it shows the three Assigned Inspections. The reason for showing this is because recently I’ve been asked a couple of times how to assign an inspection to a technician and it is achieved by making a work assignment either one against a work order or one against a work order task as this illustration shows.

This allows an inspection of a large complex asset to be carried out by multiple persons under a single work order, the subassemblies of the asset are referenced on different tasks of the work order with their inspections, the work assignments are made against the tasks.

Multiple Work Assignments

I’ve returned to work order 1645 for the next illustration, it has one work assignment at 4/28/25 10:00 AM for 2:00 hours. No task is referenced, therefore the work order Scheduled Start is set as 4/28/25 10:00 AM and the Scheduled Finish is 4/28/25 12:00 PM, two hours later. The Scheduled Start/Finish is being derived from the work assignments.

I’ve added a second work assignment for two hours of a MECH-FIRSTCLASS starting today 4/28/25 at 3:00 PM. The Scheduled Finish on the work order has been changed to 4/28/25 5:00 PM.

The Scheduled Start on the work order is derived from the earliest Scheduled Start on its work assignments if those work assignments do not reference a task. The Scheduled Finish on the work order is derived from the latest Scheduled Finish of its work assignments that do not reference a task, but only if this is later than the work order’s Scheduled Finish.

If when entering a new work assignment, the Scheduled Start will be derived from the current date/time. It may look sometimes as if the Scheduled Start/Finish on the work order have not been calculated correctly. The Scheduled Start and Finish on the work order are not changed if the work assignments Scheduled Start and its derived Scheduled Finish is within the work order’s Scheduled Start and Finish.

Available Labor

The Select Labor field on the work assignment shows all labor filtered by the craft and skill level. There are 42 labor records for Craft MECH and Skill Level FIRSTCLASS.

There are two table window actions Available Labor and Available Crew which show the availability of labor or crew on a particular date, I have selected tomorrow 4/29/25, it only shows 6 of the 42 labor records.

The reason for the difference is that Available Labor only shows records where the labor has a calendar and shift and where the craft and skill level is marked as their default. It will only show records where there is availability. As it happens only the DAY calendar and DAY shift has been extended to add availability past today, the NIGHT and EVENING calendars/shifts have not been extended and hence did not show labor with those calendars/shifts.

As soon as I extended the NIGHT/NIGHT calendar/shift past today then labor with a default craft/skill level of MECH/FIRSTCLASS now appeared. You can see that SNYDER and COLEMAN could start the work assignment tonight at 11:00 PM when their shift starts. Time now is 4/28/25 16:00.

Availability is the third step in the 12 Steps to Planning and Scheduling Maturity, so I will be returning to this subject. But if you had not set up calendars/shifts and wondered why the Available Labor was showing no records, you now have your answer, they must be available as defined by calendar, shifts, work periods and modified availability.

Incidentally the Available Hours is the number of hours remaining in the shift less any assignments which are later than time now. If you make no assignments, then the Available Hours will gradually get less until it reaches 0:00 at the end of the shift and the available Start Time will shift to the following work period of that Labor’s calendar/shift.

Complete Assignment

I’ve assigned Labor AJE to the first assignment of work order 1645 requiring an ELECT – FIRSTCLASS. The work order is still at WAPPR status.

There is another action on the Assignments table window – Complete Assignment. When using this I received the error message – BMXAT0244E – You cannot complete an assignment on a work order that has not been approved. We’ll find that this is because Maximo is trying to create an Actual Labor Transaction, it is trying to book time for the assigned Labor.

After changing status to Approved (APPR) it was now possible to use the Complete Assignment action, it changes the work assignment status to COMPLETE.

An Actual Labor record has been recorded with a Start Date/Time the same as the Schedule Start and End Date/Time 2 hours later, the work assignment was for 2 hours. It is assuming that the hours were as scheduled.

When you are dispatching work assignments in real-time, if a technician reports that they have completed their assignment earlier than you had estimated then you will receive the error – BMXAA2641E – You cannot enter actual labor with future dates and times.

Work order 1648 is a new work order just created with one work assignment for 2 hours starting at 4/28/25 4:30, this was 25 minutes ago. The work order was approved and is now at status APPR. The work assignment was assigned to Labor AJE, and the status becomes ASSIGNED.

If you want to use the Complete Assignment action, then you need to reduce the Hours, reducing it to 0:30 will still receive the same error message, time now is 16:58. If I wait two minutes, I should be able to use the Complete Assignment action without receiving a message.

It is now 17:01 and the Complete Assignment action has changed the work assignment status to COMPLETE, a labor transaction record was created for 30 minutes between 4:30PM and 5:00PM for Labor AJE.

Notice, as this was the only work assignment Maximo has completed the work order, its status is COMP. You will also find that the Actual Start is 4/28/25 4:30 PM and the Actual Finish is 4/28/25 5:00 PM.

If you are using Work Assignments to ask a technician/engineer to investigate a work order, then if you do not aim to complete the work order but to make another work assignment, then create this new work assignment first before using the Complete Assignment action. If you are following this sort of scenario I would create two work assignments, with the descriptions of Investigate Issue, and another for Resolve Issue, then you’ll be able to use Complete Assignment on the Investigate Issue work assignment without the work order being completed.

Work Zone based Assignments

Work Zones

When we consider Work Zone based assignments we naturally think of a utility or service management organizations with a distributed work force where teams are working from depots and working specific geographic areas. Work Zones can be used within a single site to filter the work assignments.

I’ve updated the WORKZONETYPE domain and added a Work Zone Type of FACTORY and created three work zones:

There are three teams of technicians/engineers, one for each of these work zones. It is possible for an electrician or mechanic (craft) to work in another team. The Production Area is a 15-minute cycle from the Packing and Distribution area. The Facilities Team is one team, but some members work only with Production while others work only with Packing and Distribution, some jump between the two and work in the offices, they effectively work across the whole site.

Assets

Assets and Locations have a Work Zone tab where one or more work zones can be associated, often this would be just one work zone. You can only have multiple records when there are multiple Work Zone Types. The Associate Work Zone action is available from the List tab of the Assets and Locations application; therefore, it can be quick to set up.

Craft

If you are going to use Work Zones, then you need to associate the Work Zone Type with the Crafts and Crew Types records. For craft MECH it is now associated with the FACTORY Work Zone Type.

Labor

In the Labor applications there is a Work Zone tab. Multiple work zones can be associated with a Labor record, one should be marked as their Default, it is not set automatically.

Work Order Tracking – Assignments

On a work order which references asset 13140 which has a work zone of PACKING the Work Zone is copied onto the work assignment record after the Craft has been entered and the record saved.

When you use the Select Value on the Labor field, or use the action Available Labor, the records are now filtered by the labor which have the same Work Zone marked as their Default. If the Default field is not marked on the Work Zone tab of a Labor record they will not be displayed.

The filtering for labor using work zones will work after a craft has been entered and before saving the work assignment record, but the work zone will not be displayed on the assignment record until it is saved.

Reschedule/Unassign Assignments

There is one work assignment for BARRY starting tomorrow 5/1/25 at 07:00 for 2 hours. The Scheduled Start is 5/1/25 07:00AM and the Scheduled Finish is 5/1/25 09:00AM.

The Reschedule/Unassign Assignments action allows you to reschedule or remove for assignee from work assignments, this action works for a single work order, and multiple selected work orders from the List tab of the Work Order Tracking application.

When the dialog opens the Reschedule Date field is defaulted to time now and the ‘Reschedule the assignments?’ field is set. To Reschedule the work assignments just change the date/time – I’ve selected the following day 5/2/25 at 07:00AM.

This updates the Scheduled Start on the work assignments of the work order and maintains the assignee. The Scheduled Start of the work order is now 5/2/25 07:00AM and the Scheduled Finish is 5/2/25 09:00AM.

I’ve used the action again, and this time I’ve unchecked the field ‘Reschedule the assignments?’. This will remove BARRY from the Labor field and will blank the work assignments Scheduled Start. The assumption here is that most of the time when you make a work assignment you are setting both Scheduled Start and a Labor or Crew.

Notice the defaulted Reschedule Date is date/time now. The Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish will be set to this date/time. If you want to retain the same Scheduled Start on the work order, then you would need to set the Reschedule Date. The Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish on the work order will be set the same.

Appointments, Schedule Lock and Resource Lock

A work assignment has three check boxes:

If the work assignments were made against the task, then to unassign those assignments you need to query for the tasks. This is achieved by using the All Records query and then using the Advanced Search where you can filter for ‘Is Task?’.

These fields do not have anything to do with Appointment Book Assignments which is a table window seen at the bottom of the Assignments tab.

Unfortunately, the Reschedule/Unassign Assignments action ignores the Schedule Lock and Resource Lock fields, the Scheduled Start can still be modified through this action and the Labor field becomes enabled although the Resource Lock is still set. Further the same action can be used to remove the Labor assignee leaving the Resource Lock set and read-only. Now you cannot select a Labor from the Select Value you will receive the error message – BMXAA0019I – The Labor field is either read only or part of the primary key. You cannot edit this field. – I have raised an IBM Support case for this.

Conclusion

Anyone who assigns work should be using the Assignments tab of the Work Order Tracking application at least some of the time as it is often quicker to do so than launching another application like Assignment Manager, Graphical Work Week or Graphical Assignment.

While Step 1 in the 12 Steps to Planning and Scheduling Maturity assigned work via ownership, using work assignments provides greater flexibility in assigning multiple people to the same work order, whether at the work order or task level. The default query of the Maximo Mobile Technician application uses these work assignments and much of Maximo Scheduler is expecting work assignments to exist.

Some will be thinking, but I use Maximo Scheduler, and I never use the Assignments Tab of Work Order Tracking. That may be because Maximo is creating the work assignments automatically as you plan your work order, a planned labor with quantity one, and you will find there will be one associated work assignment record that has been created. If the planned labor had a quantity of two, then two work assignments would have been created.

While work assignments can be created simply the Assignments tab has functionality which requires other data to be entered, the actions Available Labor and Available Crew needs Calendars/Shifts and periods of Labor/Crew Availability to be defined, additional filtering of labor/crews is possible when work zones are being used. There is also functionality in the Graphical Assignment application for calculating travel time between the service addresses of different work orders or for checking that the labor/crew being assigned has the qualifications to perform the required work. While Availability will be discussed in Step 3, some of these other advanced topics will not feature until much later in the Planning and Scheduling Maturity roadmap.

I have written several articles on Work Assignments for Maximo Secrets, much of it is still relevant, although there are now some additional features. https://maximosecrets.com/deep-dives/work-assignments/