From the Maximo Support Desk - Notes on Obsolete and Pending Item Status

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There is a common misconception surrounding the OBSOLETE status value for Maximo Inventory/Item Master records.  Some Users have been under the impression that they can update an item's status from OBSOLETE to ACTIVE status and then continue creating POs and Invoices for that item.  This is not true.
 

• Once the status of an item is OBSOLETE, its status cannot be further updated. 
• If an item's status is PENDING, it can be updated back to ACTIVE status.
• If an item's status is Pending Obsolescence, it can be updated back to ACTIVE status, but cannot be updated back to Planning status.

Notes:
There is a PLANNING status.  This is generally the status of an item that has not yet been implemented and is not yet available for inventory transactions*.  This status can be updated to ACTIVE.  Pending items are not displayed in item lookups. Pending and Planning status can have different usages in different client/business scenarios, but are similar in functionality.

*Inventory transactions are:
Material Use Transactions (MATUSETRANS)
Material Receipts Transactions (MATRECTRANS)
Inventory Transactions (INVTRANS) except for Insert Item (INSERTITEM)

Pending status can be used in the same manner as "Planning" items, and are not available Issue, Transfer, or Receipt transactions.

Pending Obsolescence items can be issued, but cannot be reordered.  This is the only status that can be updated to Obsolete.  Items in Pending Obsolete cannot be updated to Planning

Obsolete items cannot be used in any issue, transfer, or receipt transactions, but can be used to generate invoices and for historical purposes. Items that are in Obsolete status are not visible from any item lookups.

Tom Richardson is an IBM Maximo Support Engineer and frequent contributor to the Asset Management Blog community.  For a complete index of links to his articles, visit
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