Maximo Workflows – Basics: Part 1

Lot of organizations have set of processes defined to cater to their business. In bigger organizations these processes are generally automated by means of some tools/applications but in smaller organizations these could be completely manual. IBM Maximo has provided a very powerful application called “Workflow Designer” to design and automate such processes. Workflows can be very simple for smaller processes, but they can become quite complex depending upon the business scenarios. Simple or Complex, Maximo workflows has capabilities to handle all sorts of complexity levels and still make the workflows readable and configurable so that it can be maintained in future. In this series of blogs, we will discuss about what are the capabilities of this application, what components it has and how to configure it.

Workflow – High level:

Maximo workflows are used to set up the approval processes, send notifications, perform actions, display instructions to the users, re-assign your work etc. Workflows are easy to configure with drag and drop functionality. With a little technical knowledge, even business users can easily create simple workflows and tests. Maximo has lot of applications, and the workflows can be configured for each of them (like workorder, assets, locations etc.). Workflows are configured at application level.

Workflow has two major applications, “workflow designer” and “workflow administration”. Workflow designer is where we configure/update the workflows. Workflow administration is used to perform admin functions such as stop/start the workflow, change the existing assignment of the workflow. Every workflow has a set of nodes configured for a specific task. Workflow creates assignments for a single or multiple users on which users can take an action and complete their assignments.

There are two types of workflows in Maximo. A main workflow (which is always enabled and activated) or a sub-workflow (called as sub-process in Maximo which is always enabled ONLY and not activated). Sub-processes are part of the main workflow. Each application can have ONLY ONE main workflow but can have multiple sub-processes. Sub-processes are generally configured for situations like:

·       You want to have a separate workflow for a specific department/site/unit.

·       Main workflow is too complex, and you want to structure it properly based on certain conditions/parameters e.g. “if condition 1 is true follow sub-process 1 otherwise follow sub-process 2”.

 

Any change in business requirement may need a change to be made in the workflows (main or sub-process depending upon the requirement). This can be done easily by creating revisions of the workflows and then activating/enabling the latest revision. This way workflow versions are also maintained, and a history can be seen around the changes made in the various workflow versions. In a nut-shell workflows are very simple to develop, update, test and put into the system to accomplish any business tasks.

 

In the next blog we will discuss workflow designer application and its related technical details. 

Request all the readers to provide your comments/feedback and let me know what would you like to see in upcoming blogs :-)

Thanks,

Suhas