Maximo Secrets

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Maximo Work Centers

What are Work Centers and why do we need them?

The Work Centers started out on their journey in June 2016 with the release of Maximo 7.6.0.5. They are a reimagining of the Maximo user interface to make it as simple as possible to use. They are role based and adapt to the action being performed by the user at the time. The user interface responds to the device being used: desktop, tablet or smartphone.

The reasoning behind why the Work Centers came about, is because there was a need to minimize the training needs for users getting started with Maximo. There was a need for users who work both out in the field and at a desk to have the same user interface, and not different ones. The user interface needed an uplift to make it more acceptable to new users used to other web applications and there was a need to remove the visual complexity and focus on getting work done.

I am sometimes asked whether Work Centers will replace the “classic” user interface of Maximo, I don’t think so, and I don’t think there is a need to do so. There is deep functionality in Maximo and the Industry Solutions and Add-on products, if this was converted to Work Centers then you wouldn’t end-up with something simple to use, not without hiding a large part of it. It is a personal opinion but I think IBM should focus on the roles where there is a need to use a Work Center in the field away from a desktop and to provide the capability to configure much in the way we are used to with the “classic” user interface.

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5 responses to “Maximo Work Centers”

  1. Jan-Willem Steur avatar
    Jan-Willem Steur

    Hi Andrew, great article!!

    In Maximo 7.6.1.1 it is also possible to enter meter readings and downtime. Similar to Work Supervision, the Work Execution provides a map feature (same left handed navigation pane), but only support MX spatial maps.

    Reply
  2. George avatar
    George

    Is there a way to open tasks on the Plans tab of Work Execution? The task description cuts off at 41 characters and has no long description. No sure if this is supposed to open when you select it.

    Reply
    1. maximosecrets avatar
      maximosecrets

      Hi George – In Work Execution Work Center on Plans tab you will have a card for each task, the description can be longer than 41 characters, I saw one of at least 50 that was not truncated, and there is a Long Description button, that looks like an eye. This is grey when there is no long description and blue when there is. This was on 7.6.1.2. The tasks long description shows rich text formatting.

      Reply
      1. George avatar
        George

        Thanks Andrew. I’m looking at a number of tasks that are being cut off in Work Execution. All of them display the first 40 characters of the task description, followed by 3 periods. Since the task description field is set to 100 characters OOB, the long description field will be blank unless there is a description that goes over that. The only solution I see would be to copy and paste every task description to the LD field so they can be accessible from Work Execution.

      2. maximosecrets avatar
        maximosecrets

        Hi George, not exactly 40 characters of the task description before the … it is variable. It hasn’t truncated the description, use the hover over to see the full description of the task. I wouldn’t copy and paste into Long Description and I would test first with a mobile device or tablet as the behavior may be different depending on device. If this is still a problem, hover over for example wouldn’t work on a mobile device, then in first instance create a case with Support – saying that you can’t see full task description. It may be that they treat this is a bug rather than an RFE, I think it should be the former – there shouldn’t be any reason why in Work Centers you can’t see the full task description no matter what device is used. regards – Andrew

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