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I am back with another blog within the Maximo Mobile 9.0- What’s New series . We will learn about New Features in Technician module within Maximo Mobile 9.0 App.
Introduction
Maximo Mobile Technician offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to enhance field productivity of technician and field workers, including:
Access to multiple work views
Change status of work orders (WO)
Check off issued materials and tools, issue materials and tools
Confirm assets on work orders via barcode or QR code scan
Create and edit work , Create follow-up work
Enter meter readings
Launch inspections
Report failures, times, material and tools
Submit material requests
Handle multi-asset/location tasks
Start, stop, or pause timer
View and complete tasks
View planned materials and tools
View attachments and add photos
Log work activities
Capture physical signatures
View asset and location work history
Report downtime
View task assignments
Additionally, it includes advanced functionalities such as:
Support for flow control
Safety plans, hazards, and precautions
Enhanced security options
Redesigned meter entry
Add meter readings when using routes with tasks
With the release of version 9.0, we have introduced even more enhancements and new features like enforced asset scanning ,assignment updates, Linear Asset details.
New Features
Accept/Reject Assignment
With Maximo Mobile 9.0, we introduced a significant enhancement: Field Service Management (FSM). The key feature of FSM is enabling technicians to communicate their work order assignment status to dispatchers. In previous versions, there was no option for technicians to accept or reject assignment work orders. This left a gap where technicians, for reasons such as the customer's absence, couldn't inform dispatchers of their inability to start the work.
With the new feature, once the workorder is assigned to the technician, the technician can accept or reject the assignment. Sometimes, technician might get last minute emergency work due to which he may have to reject the assignment of currently assigned workorder or there could be other reasons like insufficient Information, parts unavailability etc. This new functionality ensures that the technician provides the correct assignment status. If technican start the work, by Accepting, he acknowledges the workorder . If technican cannot start the work, by rejecting and providing the right reason code, he allows dispatcher to take the next action accordingly. For eg- if the reason for rejection is – unavailability of technician then dispatcher can reassign the work to another technician. If the reason for rejection is – unavailability of the parts, dispatcher can ensure to work with the warehouse/supply chain managers to get the material and then do the assignment. Afterall , it is all about getting the right technician at the right time with the right tools and materials.
Here is the screenshot of the Accept /reject assignment-
If technician selects reject, he/she will get to select the Reason Code for rejection.
If the technican accepts the assignment, the symbol for starting work will be visible.
Enforce Asset Scanning
Prior to Maximo Mobile 9.0, technicians could scan the barcode or QR code of an asset to ensure they were working on the correct asset. However, this functionality wasn't integrated into the mobile workflow. With Maximo Mobile 9.0, we've addressed this gap by introducing the ability to enforce asset scanning before starting work. Now, when a technician clicks "Start Work," and if enforced scanning is configured, they will be required to verify the asset by scanning it first.
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After successful asset scan, the workorder status is changed to Inporgress.
You might be wondering -How to configure Enforce Asset Scanning?
There's a security setting on mxapiwodetail to enable the scanning option, so you can define which security groups must scan before start, or others that can ignore it. Here are the steps for the same.
-> Go to Security Group application
->Select the Security group for which you want to enable the asset scanning option mandatory.
->Go to Object Structures tab
->Select MXAPIWODETAIL Object Structure
->Grant Access to the option – Enforce Asset Scan
Linear Asset details
In previous versions, technicians could not view or edit 'Linear details' for work orders associated with linear assets in Maximo Mobile. Starting from version 9.0, this limitation has been addressed, enabling access to linear work details directly within Maximo Mobile. Let's explore this new feature further.
Consider a scenario where Emergency workorder is created against a linear asset- Interstate 95 Northbound. This is how workorder screen looks like with Linear Segment details in Manage-
Once the workorder is approved and assigned to the technician, the technician can accept the assignment in the Maximo Mobile and view the Linear Segment details.
With above information technician understands that the work has to be done for the segment with starting point as Mile Post 10 and ending point as Mile Post 20.
Technician can also see the details like Direction and Milepoint in the asset section.
We can also create a new Linear Asset directly from Mobile .
The details like Direction, LRM, Start measure, end measure can be provided-
Conclusion
These new updates will enhance technician productivity even more and increase first time fix rates. To achieve similar results, we have also intriduced quick reporting module to create emergency work easily from mobile. I will be covering the details in my next blog.
Thank you Houcem. FYI, regarding the Asset Lookup, the AssetTag attribute is natively included as a search criteria. Good to know !