CHAR length semantics are required for the AL32UTF8 character set.

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If the Oracle database instance used for Maximo has been created with the UTF8 character set, you must configure it to use CHAR for NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS before you execute the Maxinst utility to create the tables. The following command can be executed when logged in as SYSTEM to make this change:

alter system set NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS = CHAR scope = both;

This will immediately change the setting without requiring a restart, and will also make the change permanent in the parameter file.

If you have already created Maximo tables with Maxinst then you should drop the schema and recreate it.

If you have already populated tables with data and cannot drop the schema, you will need to ALTER the definition of every VARCHAR2 column from BYTE to CHAR length type, for example:

ALTER TABLE WORKORDER MODIFY (WONUM VARCHAR2(10 CHAR), DESCRIPTION VARCHAR2(80 CHAR), ... );


Note: if you are using a single byte character set, like English US7ASCII or WE8ISO then BYTE length semantics is equivalent to CHAR and the database can remain as BYTE. If you are using a double byte character set then you will need to use CHAR for NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS.