Schedules for PM items are established using the PMs Tab; however, repair centers have the responsibility for monitoring the process and generating PM work orders on a regular basis. Make sure that someone is given this task and knows how important it is to generate PMs regularly.
At some organizations, this is a weekly process, at others it may be as much as a month. These selections are made by repair center. WebTMA recommends you generate PMs frequently rather than overload technicians with stacks of work orders that are not due for a long period of time.
The WebTMA System Administrator chooses the number of days in advance to generate the PMs by repair center; however, you can override the number when generating PMs. The Administrator also specifies the length of the PM work week (7 days for organizations that perform maintenance tasks on weekends, 5 days for those that do not).
Regardless of the intervals between PM generation times, establish a regular PM generation schedule. A routine assures that no PM tasks are missed.
The PM generation process is a batch operation using Admin > Batch Management.
PM Job Generation
Path: Admin > Batch Management
If you have a large database, WebTMA recommends you generate PMs during times of the day when fewer people are using the application. PMs can be scheduled to run immediately (Manual) or at a time and date in the future (Automatic). Automatic generation does not allow you to edit the list of PMs you want to generate.
E-mails are sent to all designated e-mail addresses when a batch job runs.
Depending on the permissions granted in your User profile, you can Edit/View or simply View. If you have Edit privileges, you see a number of links in the Add Batch Job section at the top of the page. Users with View-only privileges are limited to querying for existing jobs and cannot see the links to establish new batch jobs.
Click the PM Generation link to open the Batch Job Entry window and add new batch jobs.
NOTE: To grant privileges for this page, go to Admin > User Management > Records / Window Access. Click to expand the Admin Menu Name, and look below the menu name
PM Scheduling Conflicts
Scheduling conflicts are determined by the following rules:
- Only one PM schedule for each repair center can be scheduled at the same time. You can create multiple schedules, but they cannot be scheduled to run at the same time.
- A PM schedule for "All Repair Centers" prevents setting any other PM schedule for the same time frame.
Other than these restrictions, you can set future generation schedules as often as you want.
PM Manual Selection
Path: Admin > Batch Management (Batch Job Entry)
If you use Manual Selection, a third Batch Job Entry window opens with a list of the possible PMs to generate.
The entire list prints unless you click check boxes of line items you want to remove before you click the Finish button.
If you want to use the Generate All check box, WebTMA requires a Repair Center selection.
The following definitions will help you determine choices appropriate for your organization.
Select Item or Item Type – Use the down arrows to open the selection window and choose the type of PM desired. If you select one item type, such as equipment, the only option in the next section is the selected type, and all other PM types are disabled.
Select PM Type – By default, all types are checked. You can accept the default, or clear the check boxes of any that you do not want to generate.
Select Location – To generate PMs for a particular location, click the down arrow, and select the location type from the list. The Code field displays a down arrow to select the code for the selected location. If a building is selected, facility, entities and groups are not generated since they are not linked to buildings. If you select a location, you do not get a group option since groups are multiple location items.
Select Zone – To generate PMs for a particular zone, click the down arrow, and select the zone from the list.
Selection Type – Automatic Selection generates all PMs without allowing you to review the list.
Manual Selection generates a list of PMs for review and selection before generating work orders. Note: If the recurring option was set up on the previous window, Manual Selection is disabled.
Department – Select or de-select all lines in the list box. Multiple departments can be selected by using the Ctrl+Shift keys.
Generation Options – Click the Generate All check box to generate a separate PM work order for each occurrence during the period specified.
Example: If the PM is weekly and the number in the Days forward field is 30, the system will print four work orders. That is, it will generate all the work orders to be used during the time period specified.
The Generate All feature does not work if you have marked the Consolidate PM check box on the Repair Center / Identity Tab.
Days Forward indicates the number of days in advance to generate PM work orders — typically this is 7 to 14 days. The Repair Center window includes an optional PM Generation field for a default value. If you select a repair center in the Other Criteria section, any values default from the repair center settings. You can modify the values on the Batch Job Entry window if needed.
Other Criteria – To generate PMs assigned to a particular repair center, account, work order type, contract, technician, trade, or shop, click the down arrow and select the from the list. You can specify more than one of these filters.
Risk Factor – To generate PMs for equipment or biomed equipment with assigned Risk Factors, select the ratings in this field.
Batch Job Query
Path: Admin > Batch Management–Action Menu New Query Link
The Batch Job Query window opens when you click the New Query link on the Action Menu. Similar to the Work Order Browse window, you have the option of setting date ranges and other criteria to generate a list of existing batch jobs for your review.
