Maximo Anywhere now available on Google Play!

Body

Back in the summer we released the Maximo Anywhere application to the Apple app store with plans to release the applications to Google Play.  The wait is now over,  at the beginning of the year all 9 core Maximo Anywhere applications were released to the Google Play store.  The requirements and restrictions are very similar to those for the App Store release,  please see below for more details.

What's Supported. 

The following features are supported:

• Camera
• GPS
• Online maps
• Bar code scanners
• RFID scanners
• Attachments
• Offline mode
• Electronic signature
• Real Signature
• Voice to Text
• UX enhancements
  • UX resources (view, dialog contents)
  • Data resource (update, deletion, creation of attributes and resources)
  • Messages
  • Javascript enhancements

The following features are not supported:

• Offline maps
• Push notification
• Native UX extension
• Cordova extension
• Deletion of provided javascript classes
• MobileFirst server upgrades and fix packs

If you are looking for any of the features listed under the not supported section you can still build your applications using the traditional build process to create the APK files

What's Required

Releasing the application to the Google Play store eliminates the APK build process\Distribution, however your Middleware and Anywhere installations are still required.  The reccomended versions are below. 

• MoileFirst 7.1.0.00-20171101-1704

• The MobileFirst 7.1 server must still be configured to interact between the device and Maximo

• Maximo Anywhere 7.6.2.X

• Releases of Maximo Anywhere prior to 7.6.2 will not have their applications released to the Google Play store,  any users with 7.6.1 and earlier will still continue with the traditional build process. 

• Android 5.0, 5,1, 6.0, 7.0 (7.0. requires your MobileFirst Interim Fix be at the required level) 

How it Works?

Much like the releases of Maximo Anywhere that are available on the App Store,  the Google Play apps have the connection settings enabled.  You download the pre-built application and point it to your MobileFirst server which uses the deployed adapter to connect to Maximo. If there are any updates to the application on the server side (MobileFirst) those updates will be pushed out to the device automatically, without the user having to re-download the application from the Google Play Store or update the APK via the Application Center or other MDM. 

The pre-built apps still require you to build the Maximo Anywhere run time and deploy it to MobileFirst as well as the OSLC adapter.  Starting in Maximo Anywhere 7.6.2 there is also a new build command which only builds the artifacts and run time components. 

'build mobilefirst'

After running the above build successfully and your MobileFirst components are updated,  search the Google Play store for Maximo Anywhere, you should see the following application (I searched for Work Execution) select it. 

You will be brought to the details page regarding the application you selected,  click install to download and install the application.

This will place an icon on your device called 'WorkExecute',  select this icon and then click on the Connection settings option as seen below. 

On the WorkLight Settings page click the box beside 'Server Address'  then click on 'Server URL'

Change the current address to the location of your MobileFirst MaximoAnywhere runtime,  for example   https://maximoanywhere.ibm.com/MaximoAnywhere . Now when you launch the application it will connect to the address specified,  if there are application updates it will pull them down from the server and you can log in and begin doing your work.    

For more information on specific requirements please go to the following wiki:  Google Play Instructions

If you have any questions, comments or concerns please post below.