I tried to post this on the Asset Management blog, but it kept rejecting my post as spam, so here we go again...

 I found a wiki from 2013, but am searching for more recent info.  I have a Site which has 24 result sets in their Start Center.  How much is this impacting performance?  What is the recommended number of result sets?  I know Work Centers is available, but we are not ready to introduce them, would this be a solution for a managers work center?

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Kevin, you are right that Resultsets do influence performance, especially if larger user groups are utilizing them on a high interval (e.g. helpdesk type users) So you got to think carefully about the SQL used. This is not something you can ask a normal end user, but as an Admin, you could review saved Queries used, and try to optimize them to remove any wildcard searching. As soon as a wildcard is in a query, any indexes won't be used anymore. So if its a large table, this will impact your performance. Discuss your queries with your DBA if in doubt for optimal performance.

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Thank you for the response.  Yes I understand the need for optimization of queries, and am reviewing all which are being used across the enterprise.

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We struggle with users "overloading" the start center also. Our experience is that at some point, they just sit and wait for portlets to resolve in order to login. I encourage users to minimize the number of portlets on the start center. Focus on emergency work that needs immediate attention - using the portlets like an alert. Also make sure that all results are "temporal" and will drop off the list when the status has changed or requirement met. A query returning more records everyday is a bad candidate.

Most people cannot multi-task well enough to do 24 things at once - therefore these users can't interact with that many portlets at once. I reinforce the idea that all portlets are saved queries by default and can be executed at any time when a user is actually ready to do something with the results.

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I do see regularly that people want too much on a single screen. Give a user multiple startcenter tabs. The first and foremost should be the tasks at hand in their top priority. Use the secondary tabs for resultsets they like to see, but do not really  need to see every 10 seconds.. This way you can delegate some of the queries to secondary screens, and only execute when navigated to that alternate page.

 

One suggestion about managing Queries for the Administrator: Add a few fields to the QUERY table (e.g. comments (text), verified(YORN), Verified By, Verify Date. Also make the Query table a 'main table'. Once DB Config is complete you can now create a new custom app with the QUERY table as its base. As an Admin you cannot modify queries you don't own (out of the box) but at least you can keep track of all queries your users have made, and tick off those you reviewed. This way you can help your users keeping queries clean as possible. You can also then build your own resultset of those queries not signed off by you and put on your own start center....

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Really good discussion.  Thanks to Julia, Jason, and Louis for your insight.  But, shouldn't IBM be updating their own "Best Practices" document, so users don't have to beg, barrow, and steal from others.  I hope others have gained some insight into Start Center management and will continue to share their experiences with the group.

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as far as IBM Best Practices document goes... Maximo is such a big topic and often it's not IBM who are the owners of the "best" practices but the Consultants and Business Partners that particularly specialize in Maximo. There lots of google opportunities and some great user groups that can help with the Functional and Technical alike. Check out MaxTech, certainly a favorite for those needing a more technical answer.

As others on here have said... 4-6 max Results Sets - also remember that they generally only see up to 10 records at a time, use Saved Queries at well. Good Idea to create a Query Manager app - there's blogs out there to show you how to do this yourself.
Make sure the queries have been optimized for those heavy used portlets.

BTW - Work Centers aren't as adaptable as Start Centers... yet

------------------------------
Simon Barnes
Consultant
BPD Zenith
Carlisle
07702 638616
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Original Message:
Sent: Wed May 16, 2018 04:56 AM
From: Kevin Hutson
Subject: Maximo Start Center Best Practices

Really good discussion.  Thanks to Julia, Jason, and Louis for your insight.  But, shouldn't IBM be updating their own "Best Practices" document, so users don't have to beg, barrow, and steal from others.  I hope others have gained some insight into Start Center management and will continue to share their experiences with the group.

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#AssetandFacilitiesManagement

In this app, you can hook an action to an autoscript to clear the readonly flag on the where clause, and only grant that option to those who would do query verification.

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Blessings,
Jason Uppenborn
Sr. Technical Maximo Consultant
Ontracks Consulting
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Original Message:
Sent: Wed May 16, 2018 12:15 AM
From: Louis Stoop
Subject: Maximo Start Center Best Practices

I do see regularly that people want too much on a single screen. Give a user multiple startcenter tabs. The first and foremost should be the tasks at hand in their top priority. Use the secondary tabs for resultsets they like to see, but do not really  need to see every 10 seconds.. This way you can delegate some of the queries to secondary screens, and only execute when navigated to that alternate page.

 

One suggestion about managing Queries for the Administrator: Add a few fields to the QUERY table (e.g. comments (text), verified(YORN), Verified By, Verify Date. Also make the Query table a 'main table'. Once DB Config is complete you can now create a new custom app with the QUERY table as its base. As an Admin you cannot modify queries you don't own (out of the box) but at least you can keep track of all queries your users have made, and tick off those you reviewed. This way you can help your users keeping queries clean as possible. You can also then build your own resultset of those queries not signed off by you and put on your own start center....

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#AssetandFacilitiesManagement

In my experience, 4 Result Sets on a default Start Center is a good rule to follow. This is because the user probably isn't going to be interested in reviewing more data than that the majority of visits to their default start center. You can have other portlets on top of that, but just 4 Result Sets. And that will mean that the database isn't being hit with dozens of queries, and the user isn't twiddling their thumbs waiting while those queries bog down the whole system for everyone, when that user is going to ignore 80% of the result sets (which they would have to scroll to see) on most visits to their start center.

 

Blessings,

Jason Uppenborn
Maximo Consultant
Ontracks Consulting Ltd
Certifications | LinkedIn

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Especially after going to 7.6, we have been trying to keep our Start Center templates to between 4 and 6 portlet queries, and had to go through a few iterations of tweaking the actual queries to keep the Start Center load times to 10 seconds or less.  Most of our roles have just one Start Center, but our Operations Supervisors have 2 tabs each with about 6 portlets to reduce their login time.

Thanks,

Wayde J. Prejean

Kinder Morgan

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Hi Kevin and all,

I have also been mindful of the time delay which overloaded start centres with non optimised queries has on users.

Another way to design a start centre is to consider the main sets of data a person in a position/role need to fill their primary tasks and only render those records. Start centers default to displaying 10 records - this can be extended but if the result shows way too many records, something else need to be thought about as you now steal usable real estate on an S/C page.

Secondly they can also open an application and run the less frequent queries from Saved queries stored there.

Thirdly - ask about user behaviour. My users used to launch a single record from the start centre portlet and then return to the portlet to find and launch the next record. Each time they had to wait for the portlet to refresh. If they use the "Open result set in the Application" button - they can then poll through the result set much faster.

PS - do you/admin control the start centre layout or let the users add to the "standard" layout which the admin would have created for the user group?

Cheers

Geoff

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Thanks Wayde and Geoff,

We are currently prepping for a re-deployment of Maximo 7.6.0.9 with a new ERP.  We supply each user 2 start centers, one for their security role, which they cannot modify, and one for their specific site, which they can and are encouraged to modify, although now we are seeing the need to take back control of the content.  Thanks for the feedback.

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Geoff - I couldn't agree more. User behavior is the key. That's very hard to discern when your users are all new. They will do exactly what they are taught. With more experienced users, you can often find behaviors that can be amended for greater impact than enhancing start centers.

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