During our last Webinar, where Lacey did an amazing demo going through real use cases and showing how to complete in of many of the Scheduler Applications, we had hundreds of questions and promised to post them here. We will continue to answer new questions here, so feel free to post new questions.
Maximo Scheduler Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
General
Q: Which Version combined Scheduler and Scheduler Plus?
A: Maximo Scheduler 7.6.8 delivered with Maximo 7.6.1.2
Q: Does scheduler allow you to hide tasks but still show child work orders?
A: In Work Order Tracking there is a flag at task level "Include in Schedule" which is respected in all Scheduler application views
Q: Can we customize the top left view?
A: Each user can customize their view, show/hide columns adjust the order, size and sorting. Customers can also add fields not available by default even if they are custom fields.
Q: Can you sort based on more than 2 fields?
A: Yes, hold down the shift key to select the secondary column for sort, limited to 3 out of the box but sys prop skd.max.sort.columns can be changed to allow more
Q: What about the time to start and finish, is it editable here?
A: The start and end date that become the Schedule Start and End dates when committed back to Work Order tracking have always been editable. Caution changing the end date will change the duration of the work. Also, inline editing in the last release also allows the user to change the Start no Earlier and Finish no later than date fields.
Q: Is it mandatory to have the Duration in the Work order for us to schedule or can we just schedule based on the Target Start date and Target End Date?
A: Work without duration will appear on the Gantt as a diamond (milestone), in order to properly schedule you do need the duration, we use the target date plus duration for our display.
Q: Is the Graphical View specific for Planner/scheduler/supervisor? and based on what? Location?
A: The Graphical Scheduling application is designed for the Planner/Scheduler, Graphical Assignment is for the Supervisor/Dispatcher and finally the Graphical Work Week is designed for Scheduler/Supervisor. The work included in each application can be based on any criteria, queries can be easily reused or created based on Advanced search from Work Order Tracking, Assets or Locations. Asset and Location types allows the user to select the top-level record only and all work on child asset or location will also be brought into schedule.
Q: Is the duration based on planned labor?
A: Graphical Scheduling, the duration is based on the Work Order / Task duration not the planned Labor. Graphical Assignment and Graphical Work Week, the duration is based on the assignment record that are created from Planned Labor.
Q: Is there a best practice for defining Shifts? Should they coincide with pay period start day?
A: Typically, yes. Really depends upon how your company breaks up shifts, we do require that the pattern days should be divisible by 7 (days in a week).
Q: Can I schedule work in different time zone than me?
A: Yes, you will need to change your user's time zone to the same as the time zone where the work will be completed. Maximo will always display dates in the time zone of the user and since Calendars are time zone agnostic, we require that you schedule and assign work in the same time zone that the work will be completed.
Q: Why is the duration of the WO that has tasks or child work orders not the value from the work order record.
A: Parent work orders will always be a summary of the child work orders or tasks and so the start and end times will always be the first start and last end time of its children. The duration will show the value from the work order until the user makes changes to the work order or children, at that point it will be the difference between the start and end date/time.
Q: Can more than one person work within a schedule at the same time?
A: Yes. Manage Commit Access allows multiple users or users of the same person group to commit/publish the schedule back to the work records.
Q: Can we CREATE and COMPARE multiple scenarios for a schedule to see how different parameters and constraints effects the completion of work?
A: Yes, you can create as many scenarios as you like and compare any 2 scenarios at one time.
Q: Which applications allow to build scenarios?
A: Graphical Scheduling, Graphical Scheduling Large Projects and Graphical Assignment.
Q: In the top left view, is it possible to make changes and add/remove columns? Columns could be from work order object or any related custom object referenced to specific work order.
A: Yes, there is an icon in the tool bar that will allow you to show hide columns and you can also define other columns that we don't have out of the box using the Configure Gantt View Properties dialog.
Q: Does it have ability to group projects or is there only filtering capabilities?
A: No, for now only sorting and filtering are available, Grouping is in our road map.
Q: Does it support qualifications set on the job plan to execute the work...and flag if qualification not met by resource assigned?
A: Currently that is not available in core Maximo, only from Transportation and Aviation, an RFE exists to move this functionality to core and respect in Scheduler applications.
Q: I have used the Scheduler application without Assignment, but is it possible (practical) to use the Assignment application without the Scheduler?
A: Many customers only schedule or only assign work - that is perfectly fine. Many don't realize, but when you assign work you are also scheduling the work. The Start Time and Hours of an Assignment are reflected in the Work Order Schedule Start and Finish dates. There is a system property, mxe.skd.syncwodates, that you can set to 1 to keep the Work Order and Assignment dates in synch.
Q: Can we Export the Work views? To Excel, Word, PDF?
A: Yes, export to excel and print to pdf are available
Q: How are the hours calculated for the work order? Is it the duration or the planned labour hours in the job plan?
A: Durations control the bar size and planned labor determines the load. Parent work order duration is determined by the children.
Q: Are the other options controlled by sigoptions on the security roles?
A: Scheduler applications will respect the security roles of the user.
Q: My organisation is currently not using scheduler. What data preparation is required to use scheduler?
A: All Scheduling tools require some specific data in order to work, our community has a page describing Best Practices, also with the last release we have a new application Scheduler Data Manager that will help find and fix problem data. https://community.ibm.com/community/user/iot/viewdocument/best-practices-preparing-your-max?CommunityKey=60718772-c63c-4d74-bdad-56d8beac4ba3&tab=librarydocuments&LibraryFolderKey=1e045be6-5ef7-40e0-a0f3-8c35b12e346d&DefaultView=folder
Q: Why does my labor not get reassigned when using the function "Reschedule/Unassign Assignments" with the "Reschedule the assignments" on?
A: If Fred is assigned to the WO on June 3rd at 8am, and you reschedule and keep the assignment to June 8th, but Fred is off for Vacation that day, we cannot reassign if there is no availability so it unassigns instead.
Q: Why are some work descriptions in my schedule/work list displayed as blue, italic and have a * in front?
A: This indicates that the work record has been modified and when you commit/save/publish the record will be saved back to Work Order Tracking.
Q: Why are some work orders marked as modified when I first create/refresh my schedule/work list?
A: If Scheduler must create the start or end date because the work order either doesn't have any dates or missing one of of them or duration doesn't match end date we mark it as modified so that it can be corrected on the next commit/save. There is a system property that will not mark these records as modified ... mxe.skd.setactivitymodified (Set modified flag when schedule dates are set by the system)
Scheduling
Q: What about scheduling a multi-step item with dependencies?
A: Of course, predecessors can be set up in Work Order Tracking (FF, FS, SF SS with lead/lag time) or created in the graphical view. Graphical Scheduling will show the dependencies, indicated with red lines if broken and Critical Path functionality is available to ensure dependencies are not broken. With 7.6.8 release you are not limited to dependencies at the same level but can create between unrelated work items.
Q: Can you create a custom sort, i.e. list status of WO in a particular order?
A: User state will save your sorts and filters
Q: In the top quadrant, in addition to the work type, can you sort by workgroup?
A: Yes, multiple column sort is available on all visible columns. (hold down the shift key)
Q: Can you quickly identify the WO that make up the over scheduled work to reschedule it?
A: Yes, use the "Filter Work Orders based on Selected Resources" icon and adjust the load to different days with availability.
Q: Can I update the planned labor in Graphical Scheduling, and can I add a second resource of the same craft or different craft?
A: To Change the planned resources you need to go back to Work Order Tracking application.
Q: Can we add a task from the GANTT view?
A: Yes, you can right click on any task or work order, select Split work action and it will allow you to change any of the values in the dialog which includes resources.
Q: Are there any limitations to the number of tasks you can schedule at a time?
A: for Graphical Scheduling application we recommend staying under the 3-5,000 record limit, for more than that we recommend using the Graphical Scheduling Large Projects application that handles the greater number of records by paging on the server side.
Q: Will view item availability show availability for all planned items?
A: Yes, this is a Work Order Tracking action made available in the graphical view.
Q: If the work requires several carpenters to perform the assignment is there a field that you can pull from that shows your carpenters?
A: The Graphical Scheduling app we will show the load for the duration times the planned labor's qty and the Resource field shows the qty in brackets and in Graphical Assignment application we will show multiple assignments to be made based on qty.
Q: If the work order needs 2 resources (1 mechanic and 1 electrician), how is this scheduled?
A: we will show load in both crafts on the same day(s), if the duration is different for the 2 crafts the shorter duration load will be front loaded out of the box. There is a system property that will spread the load of a resource over the duration if that works for your use case. (skd.laborHours.spreadAcrossTask)
Q: How can we define PM frequencies using Graphical Scheduling?
A: Frequency and the forecast are created/updated in the PM application, Graphical Scheduling will commit the "New Date" back to the forecast and allow the user to reforecast subsequent dates.
Q: Can you log your actual hours through the use of the schedule?
A: Actual labor hours are recorded directly on the work order, not through the schedule. You can right click on a work order in the schedule and Go To Work Order Tracking to make updates to work order actuals. You can also use the right click action in a schedule to change a single or multiple work order statuses to Complete. We do have the concept of Percent Complete with 3 different methodologies of calculation. If you choose the Physical methodology, you can use inline editing to update percent complete of each work order or task directly in the schedule.
Q: Can you delete task right from graphical scheduling?
A: No, you cannot delete a task from the schedule. You are able to cancel a task or Remove from Schedule though. If you remove the task from the schedule, the checkbox on the task "Include Task in Schedule" is simply being unchecked. If you ever want to include the task in the schedule again, you need to check this checkbox on the task.
Q: Is there any documentation on how start, end dates & duration are recalculated, when we move around work order & tasks in GS (ex: interruptible vs non-interruptible hours, move work from Friday to Monday)
A: Sure, please take a look at this link
Q: Does the critical path action modify WO / tasks start dates based on predecessors?
A: Yes, all FF, FS, SS, SF and lead lag times are adhered to.
Q: Are you able to look back at a past weekly schedule and see what the actual execution looked like vs what you had scheduled?
A: That is part of the compliance feature available in Graphical Scheduling and Graphical Scheduling Large Project.
Q: Is there a way to have the adjusted dates from the parent work order to filter down to the children?
A: In our graphical view if you move the parent work order it will move the children inline and on commit, they children will also get the new dates.
Q: Can Schedules be shared between people or person groups? Does everyone has access to everything?
A: Schedules can be made public and then all can see them, however they cannot commit them unless they are added to the Manage Commit access list which is person or person group based.
Q: Is it possible to identify PMs need to be scheduled for planned maintenance/downtime?
A: On Job Plans you can specify if the asset/location required down time or a maintenance window. These fields can be displayed in our apps, and if your query in GS is based on asset/location we will show the maintenance and operation times. Optimization will work with these constraints once it is a work order, but we don't optimize PM Forecasts.
Assigning
Q: Can we see individual employees' schedules?
A: Yes, available in Graphical Work Week and Graphical Assignment
Q: What version did the Graphical Work Week application start in?
A: Scheduler 7.6.8 / Maximo 7.6.1.2
Q: How is a long duration interruptible task handled in Graphical Work Week?
A: All work that is longer than the time available on a shift will be split based on shift available hours across multiple days until it is complete. The user is presented with a dialog to approve prior to assignment.
Q: Is there any feature auto assign high priority work that comes after regular shifts?
A: Yes, we have Dynamic Scheduling feature in Graphical Assignment, however we do not assign outside of available hours, you must add extra hours to the labor/crew you want assigned.
Q: The calendar downloads into an outlook file?
A: The Calendar export available in Graphical Assignment and Graphical Work Week is an .ics file that all major mail software will be able to import.
Q: There is a 17-hour task that was shown as interruptible in graphical scheduling. In Graphical Work Week it shows as a continuous 17-hour block. How can the user of GWW know that it scheduled out to Friday morning and how does the user manage assignment?
A: GWW will show the load beside the craft for the hours in the day and when assigned it will split over multiple days based on the hours of the shift.
Q: Can I assign my work and have the schedule date change to match the assignments without having to change both the assignment date and schedule date?
A: System Property mxe.skd.syncwodates (Synchronize Work Order Schedule Start and Finish dates with earliest/latest assignment dates)
Dispatching
Q: Are the extents for the map automatically set by the bounds of the addresses?
A: Work is displayed on the map based on the work order. The work order can pull the service address from the Asset or if not the Location, or it can be filled in manually on the maps tab in work order tracking.
Q: How do we calculate travel time between two workorders? Is there any property or attribute which help us to do that calculation?
A: For Optimization the travel time matrix in Service Address for the Dispatch View the Map provider determines the travel time.
Q: Does the Dispatch/Mapping require Maximo Spatial to be installed or is available out of the box with Scheduler?
A: Google, Bing and Maximo Spatial (ESRI) maps are supported out of the box, the customer must subscribe to one of these.
Optimization
Q: Can we do automatic resource levelling? With several hundred work orders in the backlog, manual levelling is not feasible.
A: Yes, that is possible using Scheduler Optimization.
Q: Can you make distance between work orders a criteria for the optimization?
A: Yes, Graphical Assignment can take into account travel time.
Q: How is Travel time determined?
A: Travel time is determined by your map provider, we support Google, Bing and Maximo Spatial (ESRI) maps. Travel times can also be set up in the Service Address Application manually for optimization.
Q: When creating scenarios via optimization, and it fails, will the system provide details of the failure? for instance the list of work order number(s) and/or the reason why failed?
A: A new Report Dialog that will offer information around what happen, missing resource, missing calendar, and other causes.
Q: The optimization piece requires the additional licensing and infrastructure?
A: Yes, the Scheduler Optimization is a new product that Scheduler consumes as part of Optimization Framework. It is a container base solution so it can run on the same Maximo Infrastructure or additional one.
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Lori Pilgrim
Maximo Design/Architect IBM
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