Blog
Maximo List Archive
In the old days there was no blog on the internet and there was no IBM community to discuss Maximo technical and functional topics. All these LinkedIn communities and webinars were not available to learn and share. Few heroes were trying to learn from each other on a closed and moderated Yahoo forum. Yahoo decided to shutdown their Groups social platform in 2020 so all the content is not available anymore. Luckily enough, the community owner Christopher Wanko sent me a backup of the community content asking me to make it publicly available.
January 31, 2021
Uploading and downloading files with MxLoader
One of the new features of MxLoader 7.2 (NextGen) is the capability to upload and download files from Maximo. Any text field can be exported to a file by simply prepending the attribute name with FileTxt: prefix. In this example, all the long descriptions of assets will be exported to text files under the Assets subfolder. In a similar way, it is possible to upload large text from a file with a similar syntax. Note that in this case you don’t need the FileTxt: prefix in the header.
December 3, 2020
Why I hate automation script variables binding
There are two approaches when dealing with Maximo automation scripts input and output variables. Using launch point variables - This method is described in the product’s knowledge center and allows to get/set values from/to the database specifying how to bind the script variables to specific database fields. Using getter/setter methods - This approach uses Maximo MBO application layer (businessobjects) methods to get and set values. These methods are described in my Maximo Automation Scripts Quick Reference document. Launch point variables are also called ‘bound variables’ here is how they look like.
September 27, 2020
How to resend failed emails
Some Maximo implementations massively rely on email communications to notify users about important events like new tickets or assigned tasks. Sometimes outbound emails are also used to implement integration or notify external parties about relevant events. In such environments, it is important to avoid that a planner or unplanned email server downtime results in a bunch of emails not being sent. Maximo relies on Communication Templates to send emails. There is an important field in the Communication Templates application called Track Failed Messages. This flag allows to specify if failed email messages should be logged in the COMMLOG table.
September 24, 2020
Automatically calculate Job Plan duration from Tasks
A small customization I have been recently asked for is to automatically calculate Job Plan duration from Tasks. This can be easily achieved with an automation script on the JOBTASK object. Open the Automation Scripts application and create the following Script with Object Launch Point Launch Point: MXDJPDURATION - Automatically calculates Job Plan Duration from Tasks Event: Save Add,Insert,Delete - Before Save Script: MXDJPDURATION - Automatically calculates Job Plan Duration from Tasks Language: Python Script
August 17, 2020
MxLoader NextGen Beta available now!
MxLoader NextGen Beta is now over and starting from MxLoader 7.1 all the NextGen features are now available in the official version. Refer to MxLoader main web page for download. MxLoader NextGen advantages are: Support for Maximo NextGen REST APIs Improved performance File download/upload capabilities Detailed results dialog Individual response codes for bulk updates There are some important changes due to the new APIs: Supports Maximo releases starting with version 7.6.0.2 The connection url is no longer http://[MXSERVER]/meaweb/os/ but http://[MXSERVER]/ Available actions are now: Query, AddChange, Delete The where clause syntax for Query action is no longer SQL. Refer to official documentation. For AddChange and Delete actions, each synced object will report the result in a reserved column [RESULT] Child objects can now be accessed through database relationship without customizing integration Object Structures MxLoader is still free but requires a registration key to unlock all the features
June 9, 2020
The importance of 'sameas' in Database Configuration
An often misused feature of Maximo Database Configuration is the ‘Same as Object’ and ‘Same as Attribute’ fields when defining custom database attributes. To understand how this works lets consider the ASSET.LOCATION attribute. As you can see from the screenshot below, the LOCATION column of the ASSET table is defined ‘same as’ LOCATIONS.LOCATION’ field. The direct effect of this is that if you change the size of the LOCATIONS.LOCATION field it will affect all the ‘sameas’ fields defined in other tables.
April 20, 2020
How to set NULL values with MxLoader
A frequent question from people using MxLoader is how to clear the value of a field. For example, if asset 11230 has the serial number field set to a certain value and we want to blank it out, the following MxLoader sheet will not do the job. This is because MxLoader skips all the blank cells and does not pass the blank value to Maximo. To achieve what we want, we can enter NULL to actually clear the value of the SERIALNUM field.
April 19, 2020
Attribute validation not triggered immediately
Have you ever experienced a delay when entering data on a field and validation is triggered after several seconds? The asyncronous data validation has been introduced in Maximo 7.5 to improve responsiveness of the user interface. However there are some situations where this is really annoying. For example, if you have developed your own scripts triggered by Validation or Run Action launch points, you want your script to be executed immediately just after the user entered data.
April 18, 2020
Route Workflow error in cloned applications
Maximo Everyplace is the quick way-to-go to provide access to mobile devices for IBM Maximo. It is basically a slightly changed look and feel of the standard web interface with a dedicated start center that is automatically displayed when logging from a mobile web browser. Obviously it works only in online mode but is straightforward to configure and supports Maximo workflow. When using workflows with Maximo Everyplace you may encounter some errors like these:
April 13, 2020