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 Need Suggestions to find root cause of Time -Zone issues affecting: PM Target Start Time, Report Time, and actual hours on Maximo Mobile

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April Rudge's profile image
April Rudge posted 04-29-2022 17:14
Hoping this group has some detectives or additional ideas to pinpoint and correct time zone issues in our Maximo system. 
I'm not sure IF or how these are related, but I am including all the time-zone related items.  

1) Since our Maximo SaaS Flex Implementation, the PM Target Start Time field PM.TARGSTARTTIME on the Frequency Tab for the PM record does not work as expected. When a work order is generated from that PM, the Target Start Time field  is always 7 (in Summer) or 8 (in Winter) hours earlier than expected (consistent with UTC time, NOT the local time). 

2) an APAR about the PM Lookup & Start time exists, we applied an LA Fix, that seemed to last only 1 DAY (maybe there is a Database/server daily action canceling the fix?).

3) The Report writer mentioned that the report time is not Los Angeles/Pacific, but he was unable to change it (so, for auto-generated scheduled reports, the time on the file is currently 7 hours ahead.  (Even though the report emails at the correct local time.) 

4) We are configuring Maximo Mobile for EAM and it appears that there is a time zone issue (Error: cannot apply labor in the future)when trying to apply actual labor using the Start/Stop button on the APP.

Other information: 
  • The instance has 1 ORG, 1 SITE and should have just 1 Time Zone (Los Angeles/Pacific) All users are using the system in the Los Angeles/Pacific time zone.
  • The Server is located in Washington DC (Hosted by IBM CDS) & we've been told the Database time is set to Los Angeles/Pacific time Zone. 
  • Maximo 7.6.1.2
  • MAximo Mobile for EAM
  • Spatial Installed recently, but not yet configured
Any detectives out there?  Ideas for things to check?  Thank you!
Steven Shull's profile image
Steven Shull posted 05-02-2022 09:20
SaaS Flex only supports UTC for the database time. Maximo has support for manipulating dates in most scenarios so we take that database date/time and try to transform it based on the time zone defined on the user record. The goal is for it to be as transparent to the users as possible but there are scenarios where the database server time matters.

PM is one of the scenarios where we take initially a time only field (target start time) and turn it into a date/time field. This causes it to be reflective of the database server time. It's a larger topic than I cover in this post but there is the concept of time zone rules in this scenario to adjust the date time. In the organizations application you associate a time zone to the sites of Los Angeles/Pacific. Then in the Time Zone Rules application you insert a rule for the PMWOGEN process and choose the appropriate process rule. There's not a great one when you always want it to be a single time zone (you may need to associate time zones to all your assets/locations). 

Reports is another area to be careful when writing because if you utilize standard date functionality of the database you can get the incorrect data to be returned.

Maximo Mobile for EAM we just had IFIX 02 released on Friday and addressed a time zone issue with the timer. I would ask if they can get you to this IFIX to see if it resolves your issue.
April Rudge's profile image
April Rudge posted 05-02-2022 17:15
Thank you, Steven.  That gives me a little more insight into the background of the issues.  

We requested the newest iFix for Maximo Mobile for EAM. Hopefully, that helps with the immediate mobile need.

For the PM example you mentioned, I tried associating a time zone to the asset & generating a PM. The Target Start Time was still off by -7 hours.  I'll do a little more testing since the associated asset location did not have a specific time zone.  

If you have the background on what to check on the reporting side in terms of time zone consistency, I would appreciate the info when you get a chance. 
Thank you again.
Bruno Portaluri's profile image
Bruno Portaluri posted 06-09-2022 02:47
We came across a similar issue one of our clients.
To correctly generate PM work orders with dates in the right timezone you must do two things.
  1. Set the time zone for the asset/location/site/org. No need to set for all the object though. In our case we defined the timezone only at org/site level because all our assets are in the same time zone.
  2. Define rules in the Time Zone Rules application.
I think you are missing this step in your configuration.
Here is our rule. However you must configure it based on your situation.

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