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  • 1.  Workorder Status changing unexpectedly

    Posted 10-13-2021 22:01

    We have an alias status for the workorder CLOSE status called CLOSEWNC. The problem we are having is sometimes when users switch the workorder status to CLOSE, it automatically changes the status to CLOSEWNC. This occurs vice versa as well. When we change the workorder status to CLOSEWNC, it automatically changes the status to CLOSE. When I take a look at the status history, it changes from CLOSE to CLOSEWNC or CLOSEWNC to CLOSE, within seconds. 

    This doesn't happen all the time, it only occurs once in a while. It occurs to when a user closes out multiple workorders or a single workorder. We don't have any sort of workflow or trigger set up that does this. It has been occurring since 2013, but we just caught the issue now.

    I am wondering if anyone had any issues similar to this, where a status is unexpectedly changing to an alias status or vice versa. Maybe this is a bug? We are still using Maximo 7.1.1. Any information is appreciated, as we have looked everywhere to solve this problem.

    Thanks.


    #Administration
    #EverythingMaximo

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    Kevin Jo
    USSUPI
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  • 2.  RE: Workorder Status changing unexpectedly

    Posted 10-24-2021 19:32
    I'm assuming the user is the same making the status change and it's always a few seconds apart?

    I've unfortunately never seen this and don't have a way to run 7.1 environments anymore to try and recreate it. It's strange to me that it only occurs sometimes and occurs during bulk and individual status changes. It can't be an Automation Script (since that was added in 7.5) and I can't think of a way that could be done outside of custom Java or a database trigger. I would look at the java classes referenced in Database Configuration for WORKORDER/WOSTATUS/WOCHANGESTATUS and see if any of those look to be custom. 

    The other thing I would review is the configuration of the WOSTATUS domain to see if there's anything about the configuration. I believe 7.1 supported conditions on the domains for example which might be causing issues. Also if one is flagged at a SITE/ORG level and the other isn't it might be causing some weird outcome. And definitely check to make sure that only 1 is flagged as the default status. I've seen scenarios in the past where a customer has two of the same internal value flagged as DEFAULT and I could see that being a problem.

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    Steven Shull
    IBM
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  • 3.  RE: Workorder Status changing unexpectedly

    Posted 10-25-2021 19:33
    That was what we were thinking as well initially and it could be a possibility, but we asked one user that it was occurring to, who changes workorder statuses very frequently, and he says he rarely ever uses the alias status 'CLOSEWNC'. Once we mentioned this issue to the users, we told them to double check to make sure that they aren't incorrectly choosing the wrong status, and it has occurred one more time since then. 

    I also looked into database triggers and escalations as that could very well be changing the status, but I did not find one, nor do I remember having one that does this action. 

    In regard of custom Java classes, we do have some custom classes that were applied by an outside contractor for the workorder, wostatus, and some other classes. I am going to take a look there.

    I did take a look at the WOSTATUS domain as well, but I did not know about the SITE/ORG flagging. I am going to double check to see that only one is flagged as default as well.

    I have been trying to recreate this issue in our TEST environment, but I have yet to do so. There does not seem to be a condition that triggers it. I do know that the users use the "Change work order status in back ground?" checkbox (WOCHANGESTATUS.ASYNC), when closing out multiple workorders. Sometimes they close out many workorders, (around 50), at a time. Do you think these could cause an issue? Also, any possibility that this could be a bug in Maximo? Since it has been occurring since ever since we started using Maximo 7.1 (based on the workorder records), and we are on an outdated version and we haven't upgraded/updated Maximo in a while.

    Thank you for such a detailed response.

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    Kevin Jo
    USSUPI
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  • 4.  RE: Workorder Status changing unexpectedly

    Posted 10-26-2021 10:46
    It's definitely possible that it was a bug. I tried to find an APAR and couldn't find anything, but that doesn't mean it wasn't an issue on that version.

    Changing in the background alone I don't think would be an issue but might be an issue if it's done twice. IE if I choose to change WO 1001 to CLOSE and did it on the list tab and sent it to the background it gets executed as by an async cron task that looks for work every 30 seconds. It's possible I could queue up two async jobs that would impact the same WO and perhaps it would switch from CLOSE to the synonym or vice versa in that scenario.

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    Steven Shull
    IBM
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  • 5.  RE: Workorder Status changing unexpectedly

    Posted 10-26-2021 10:56
    Hi Kevin
    We had a similar issue where changes were made "out of process" and were struggling to find out how it was done as we use workflow to control all status changes.
    When I logged in as one of the users it became apparent that the settings for one of their security groups was allowing them to make changes outside of workflow.  Once identified, and permissioned "trimmed", only those statuses we wanted to use could be used.

    I appreciate its not the same issue, but does show the benefits that driving behaviours through workflow can have!

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    Brian Williams
    Ineos FPS
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