From the Maximo Support Desk - Schedule a PM Work Order for a Specific Day That Varies Each Month

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I recently spoke to a Maximo client that was trying to figure out how to "hit a moving target" with the scheduling of one of their PM Work Orders.  This particular client has a business requirement to generate a Work Order on the first working day (Monday) of each month.  It was not clear to the client as to how the scheduling on the Frequency tab would be able to identify the first Monday in each month, since it is a different date each month...

 

Problem:  A PM must generate a Work Order on the first working day (Monday) of each month; the date will be different for most months.

Solution: The Frequency/Time Based Frequency tab and the Seasonal Dates/Active Days and Active Dates tab settings can accomodate this.

Here are the configuration details to make this happen...

 

1. On the Frequency tab make sure the checkbox is checked for "Use Last Work Order's Start Date to Calculate Next Due Date?"

 

2. On the Time Based Frequency tab | Frequency field, enter 21; this is an arbitrary number - it covers scenarios such as generating the Work Orders in a timely manner during February in a leap year, for example.  Also, set the

Estimated Next Due Date for the date on which the first Work Order should generate, such as the first Monday of next month:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. On the Seasonal Dates tab | Active Days section, uncheck every day except for Monday

 

4  In the Active Dates section | click the New Row button and enter values in the fields:
 Start Month: JANUARY
 End Month: JANUARY
 Start Day: 1
 End Day: 7 
*the reason for these values is that the first Monday of any month will be a date between 1 and 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Repeat the previous step until you have one row in the Active Dates table for each month:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Save the record, and change the status to ACTIVE

If you generate PM Work Orders via the PMWoGen Cron Task, you will begin to see these PM Work Orders on the first

Monday of the month.  If you wish to generate the Work Orders manually from this PM, you could use 360 Days as the

frequency, and you will see 12 Work Orders get generated; each Work Order will have the first Monday of one of the

next 12 months as the value in the Target Start field.

 

Hopefully this example can be used as a guide or template for other similar PM/Work Order Generation scenarios.

 

This is probably a good time to mention that there's a slight disclaimer to be aware of... if there is a Monday holiday, the Work Order will still generate; but for most business cases, that's okay - we're just scheduling and

generating Work Orders here.  One thing I've observed over the years is that Maximo User community is full of the best and brightest people in their respective fields and at their workplaces... there's probably someone out there who already has a workaround for this.  I will update this article as soon as I become aware of it.

 

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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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