Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.

Hi Willie,

Calendars/Shifts are used to define a pattern of working time for multiple labor, crews or assets. When you need to modify this for an individual use the Modified Availability on the Person or Crew. Easiest tool is Graphical Resource View.

Maximo Calendars are designed to be shared, if you use them for individuals this is, I'm afraid, wrong. The Scheduler applications only allow you to reference one calendar, so you do need to make sure the calendar is being shared by multiple labor, otherwise you might find you only have one labor in the graphical applications.

A person/crew can only reference one shift of a calendar, which as you discovered means that while you can change their shift it will effect all time periods, past, current and future. Therefore best to change their individual availability, although this does mean that filtering by shift will mean that you won't capture the person who is working the new shift for the week.

Regards - Andrew

Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.

Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.

This does not exist in Maximo out of the box - I think what we need is the capability to track the ShiftID that is assigned to each laborcode in a calendar object similar to workperiod.

Then provide the actions to perform a temporary shift change e.g. between 2 dates OR permanent change of shift from a specified date forward.

I think the temporary change would like you suggest need the MODAVAIL records updating based on these changes.

However for the permanent shift change you would also want the shift on the labor record updating on the given action date for consistency in the data. 

There is an Idea already in the Aha portal - ref: MASSCHDULR-I-176 which you could vote for to try and add some traction as this is currently flagged as a future consideration and states the following:

Ability to associate multiple shifts and use this show availability in GS/GA

Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.

Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.

Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.

You could consider a minor configuration and and escalation.

Add a Child Table Object to Labor - LaborScheduleChange
Alter the Labor Application to view this table as a grid and ensure you can add new rows.
Have the table include fields like laborcode, orgid, effectivedate, newcalendar, new shift and a completed checkbox.
The date field should be a date, not a datetime.
The newcalendar and newshiftnum fields should be tabledomain lookups of active calendar and shift data.

You can then add rows per labor, describing your change plan

Next, create an escalation running daily at say 00:05, looking for laborschedulechage records that have completed=false and effectivedate<sysdate
The escalation would have an action group that does this:

Set LABOR.CALENDAR to LaborScheduleChange.NewCalendar
Set LABOR.SHIFTNUM to LaborScheduleChange.NewShiftNum
Set LaborScheduleChange.Completed = True.

Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.

Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.

Hi Willie,

I read the feed and I can see 2 different scenarios:

1. Changing the shift from A to B across the entire calendar for a single labour. This would typically correspond to a complete change of the work pattern for the labour in question. In this case, go ahead and change the shift either in the labour application or any of the scheduling applications where labour resources are shown. The existing assignments in the future won't change.
2. One occasional swap between colleague labour. Create for each labour 2 "modify availability" records with different reason codes respectively PERS./EXTRA WORK for labour 1 and EXTRA WORK/PERS for labour 2.

Here is when it gets interesting for both cases.

Go to the Graphical assignment application and you should see your labour turning Yellow. This is an indication that the assignment is not planned within the shift or that he's simply not available anymore.

In conclusion, use the graphical resource view as recommended by Andrew for better view of the availability, and make use of Graphical assignment as a dashboard to fix the eventual conflicts which might have caused by the change.

Hello everyone,

We have a customer who recently started using Maximo Scheduler and is really trying to get everything possible out of the product.
They work with many rotating shifts, each consisting of five work periods. It's a complex setup, but it works very well.

However, they've now encountered the next problem/issue/challenge. I won't go into their full shift structure, but I'll simplify it to a basic example:

Let's say we have 3 shifts: morning, afternoon, and night. These rotate over a 3-week cycle. For example:

• Week/Shift pattern: 1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N, etc.

Now, on a Monday, a technician tells us that starting next week, he wants to switch to a different rotation.
Instead of continuing with the Afternoon shift, he wants to follow the shift that is scheduled for Night that week.
So the pattern would change from:
1M, 2A, 3N, 4M, 5A, 6N → 1M, 2N, 3M, 4A, 5N, 6M, etc.

If I change his shift today, it disrupts the current week's planning.
But if I wait and change it next Monday morning, I can't plan anything for the upcoming week yet.
How do we solve this?

Yes, this example only involves a single technician, so technically it could be adjusted manually.
But we need to scale this to at least 16 teams on a 112-day rotation.

My current idea is to move away from using Shift assignments entirely, and instead use MODAVAIL (Modify Availability), supported by a custom app to populate and update it. All other Maximo processes would continue to run normally.

Still, I would expect Maximo to offer a native way to change future shift assignments for multiple technicians without disrupting the current schedule.
Unfortunately, I haven't found such a method yet - which is why I'm reaching out for your help.