MaxAssist FAQ

TRM has offered productivity software products for Maximo for nearly fifteen years.  Starting with our ScreenBuilder and TRM RulesManager Studio, TRM has hundreds of customers and thousands of users getting additional productivity from their Maximo systems with TRM Software. TRM RulesManager won the most innovative product award from IBM in 2011.

MaxAssist is an integrated training solution designed to optimize the performance and training of your Maximo users – whether they are new, casual, or implementing new procedures, MaxAssist is the most affordable and efficient way to learn Maximo. It can be considered an “interactive replacement to paper cheat sheets.”

MaxAssist is built on the RulesManager Framework.  This is a limited version of RulesManager that allows users to create, develop and use MaxAssist Page Guides without having to extend any java or create any cumbersome auto scripts or conditional UIs.  Leveraging the RM Framework also provides a simple way of developing Page Guides on the fly without having to restart a Maximo instance and provides a simple way to migrate changes to other servers.

For the MaxAssist Developer, you will need:

• Eclipse 4.4 (Luna)
• Java JRE v 1.6.0 or higher
• 1 GB available RAM
• 1 GB available disk space

For the RulesManager Framework:

• Existing Maximo 7.5.03 (or above) Environment or SmartCloud Control Desk, SCCD 7.5.1 (or higher)

MaxAssist pricing is based on number of Maximo licenses. All types of licenses count as a user including Primary, Express, Industry Solutions, and Limited Use.  Requestor licenses do not count. You can find pricing details at www.max-assist.com/purchase.

If you find your organization needs the full capabilities of RulesManager Studio (and, many organizations do), we will apply the cost of your MaxAssist licenses to your new RulesManager Studio purchase price.

You lucky dog! You already have it! MaximoAssist is a new feature released to TRM RulesManager customers in August 2014. It’s in version RulesManager 5.0 and works with Maximo 7.5.0.3 and up. This was the birth of our new product, MaxAssist.

We know, right? These prices are Introductory Prices! and available until Februrary 22, 2015 for our lucky newest customers.

TRM guarantees your satisfaction and will refund the purchase price (minus processing fees) in the event that you are unhappy with MaxAssist.

We have demonstrations of MaxAssist on our YouTube channel (youtube.com/trmnet) and max-assist.com/video.  Pricing is available at max-assist.com/purchase.

Not currently.

User blocks for MaxAssist pricing are based on Primary, Limited and Express Maximo users.  Requestor licenses do not count towards pricing.

No, if you do not have RulesManager, you can still use MaxAssist.  If you already have RulesManager in Maximo 7.5, you already have MaxAssist as one of the new features.

Nope. It’s included. You just need be on Maximo version 7.5.0.3+ and RM 5.0.3+ to utilize the functionality.

MaxAssist is easy to install.  The installation takes about fifteen minutes.

When you need to upgrade Maximo, you simply turn off MaxAssist, upgrade and then reinstall.

MaxAssist is essentially reliant on a few components:

• The core RulesManager Framework for MaxAssist engine.  This is built into the maximo.ear file during installation.
• A record in the MAXSERVICE table.  This record is inserted during installation.
• The rm.home directory.  Created during installation and defined in the webserver as a post-installation task.
• MaxAssist XML and js files are created/updated when creating and modifying Page Guides in Eclipse and are written to the rm.home directory of the server when committed.  These files should never be modified manually as they are frequently overwritten by the MaxAssist Engine.

To install MaxAssist, you install our MaxAssist installer on your Maximo instance (approx 12 minutes). This is the only time you’ll build your Maximo Ear file and redeploy it for MaxAssist.

To install the editor, you download eclipse from eclipse.org and simply install our plugin.  We also provide a zipped version of this when you purchase MaxAssist to further simplify the process.

MaxAssist is very intuitive to develop and comes with full documentation.  If you need help beyond that, TRM would be happy to provide services.

Yes, TRM provides MaxAssist email and phone support. The phone number is 703-548-4285 and the email is support@trmnet.com.

We also provide an online support forum for MaxAssist customers that can be found at www.trmnet.com/support.

Our phone support hours are from 8am – 5pm Eastern.  We tend to answer emails after that well into the late hours of night.

Contact us at the support forum, phone number or email address. We’re always looking for great new ideas!

We will post some on the support forum which is available to any customer who has purchased the product – trmnet.com/support.

With MaxAssist we do not require fields, MaxAssist helps ensure the data is populated appropriately, and gives the business reasons why fields are important.

MaxAssist works with your customizations, whether customized via JAVA, Maximo configuration framework or via rules.

You can assign groups and users access to MaxAssist Page Guides, additionally you can assign page guides to open by default for both groups and users.

Yes, you can write a Page Guide and grant access to specific users.

Anyone who has eclipse installed with the MaxAssist plugin.

MaxAssist works with Maximo 7.5.0.3+ and Smart Cloud Control Desk SSCD 7.5.1.1+

There is no limit to the number of tasks in a task list.

A user can have as many task lists as they need.

When creating Page Guides in development mode, no. When in production mode, yes.

Very simple. You can create easy Page Guides simply by pointing and clicking.
Click here to view how to create one.

Not with MaxAssist, but you can with RulesManager.

You can make fairly complicated true/false conditions. For example: 
if ( WORKORDER.wopriority == 4 && MAXIMO.username=’SMITH’ && WORKORDER.status == ‘APPR’)

You can have a Page Guide with only Tooltips (no ToDo items). Also, if you minimize a ToDo List, the on a Page Guide that has both Tooltips and ToDo Items, the Tooltips will still display.

The Page Guides are configurable for any combination of users and security groups, so you can have different guides for any circumstance you can imagine.

Yes. The tooltip is an HTML field which will allow the addition of a hyperlink.

Yes, you can assign a Page Guide to be only visible to certain groups or to only open by default for certain groups.

When designing the Page Guide, you simply choose the tab you want them to go to and add that to the ToDo List.  And you can define any tab you want them to go to.

No, but you can link to them in the ToolTips by simply adding a link to them in html.

Yes, users can go out of order from the To Do list, however, best practices are set up to make it as intuitive and “in order” as it can be.

Your “page guide” only suggests that you fill in a field, so, yes, it can be saved.

You can minimize and close the ToDo List.

Yes, you can move it or minimize it.

Yes, you can disable Page Guides inside the Developer Environment.

Administrators can disable MaxAssist Page Guides altogether, and users are able to turn on and off Page Guides that open by default for them. (A feature we added in response to user feedback). See image:

It works on mobile devices that are connected to Maximo as in Maximo Everyplace, not in offline modes.

You can make fairly complicated true/false conditions.  For example: 
if ( WORKORDER.wopriority == 4 && MAXIMO.username=’SMITH’ && WORKORDER.status == ‘APPR’)

Yes. We added that as a response to user feedback.

Not at this time.  Currently, a Page Guide is a list of things to do without hard enforcement or auditing.

An administrator can disable a Page Guide in the editor by right clicking on it and choosing to disable it.  Users can disable a Page Guide from opening by default by choosing to disable it in the Select Action menu.

Yes, we have added this functionality.  They can do so by choosing the option in the Select Action menu.

A Page Guide is simply a guide, it doesn’t force you to follow the steps in order. So, if you skip a step, it will not be crossed off.

Yes, we recommend the standard IBM certified browsers for Maximo.

The impact is negligible and is no different than creating Conditional UI and Java classes since we leverage their functionality within the MaxAssist Framework.

An uninstaller is included with the product.

They can work across tabs. Currently other modules are in development.

As of today, we only support English.

Yes. MaxAssist works with any solution built on the Maximo platform.

No, we extend it just as a custom Java class, automated scripting, or conditional UI would.

In the editor, we grab the meta-data (presentations, MBOs, attributes) from your server to ensure your customizations will be usable with MaxAssist.

A Page Guide will not follow you from application to application, but you can have a different Guide display appear when you visit the another application.

In the case you mention, you would build 2 Page guides, one for each group and key that page guide to the relevant groups. When a user logs in, they get the page guide for their group.

You would use the editor to promote rules to another server.

You would use the editor to promote rules to another server.  You can also use the editor to import a Page Guide.

Unfortunately, no.

MaxAssist won’t be able to help you in the Application Designer, but the customized screen will be available for creating Page Guides in those apps.

JavaScript

Absolutely. The combination of RulesManger and MaxAssist (which is included with RulesManager) can give online assistance and enforcement together.

RulesManager on your server works hand in hand with MaxAssist. Validations, enforcement and other high level functions can be used to make the Assist experience richer.

Yes. MaxAssist works with anything on Maximo 7.5 or above.

Yes. MaxAssist works with any app in Maximo, including custom and add-on applications.

Yes, guides can be shared across environments. You can use the editor to push your changes to all servers in a defined cluster simultaneously.

The page guides are in individual xml definition files on your servers. We facilitate the deployment across clusters and environments with our editor. Since they’re not in the database, migration manager doesn’t apply.