Fiedler Data Import brings data from Excel workbooks into IBM Maximo Manage, in the Maximo Application Suite (MAS). You upload a workbook, the app plans what each row will do, you look at the plan, and then you run it. The app writes as you, with your own rights, so Manage checks every record as if you had typed it in.
It reads Excel workbooks, because Excel is widely known and easy to use: the people who prepare the data already work in it, and anyone can read and correct a workbook. A library of import workbooks that took years to build keeps working on MAS. Fiedler Data Import itself is a new product, written from scratch with its own code base and no Java.
What it does
- It plans first. For every row the plan says whether it inserts, updates, deletes or skips a record, or why it cannot. Manage stays untouched until you run the plan.
- It works as you. The app signs you in through MAS. You can change only what Manage lets you change, and every record carries your name in Manage.
- It handles real structures. Main records with their child records in one sheet, such as job plans with their tasks and labor, assets with spare parts, items with their texts in more languages, failure code hierarchies and classification specifications.
- It writes the results back into your workbook. After a run you download your workbook with a result text for every row, and colours on the cells that need a look. Fix the failed rows in place and upload it again.
- It keeps a history. Every job has its log, its files and its result. A job that stopped halfway resumes where it stopped and never sends a row twice.
- It has two ways into Manage. The business object path writes through Manage’s business rules. The object structure path writes through an object structure of your choice, also your own.
How it runs
Fiedler Data Import is a companion app: a container in the MAS cluster on OpenShift, next to Manage. Inside Manage it needs four small automation scripts, which it installs itself, and its own application for the rights. It adds no Java code, and it changes none of the existing Maximo applications. An administrator controls it through settings in a ConfigMap, and its metrics feed Prometheus.
For scripts and build servers, a command line client does the same as the screens: upload, plan, run, results and test suites.
Who it is for
Maximo administrators and data teams who load and maintain master data and configuration in Manage: during a go-live, a migration to MAS, or the daily work. And teams who move to MAS with a library of Excel import workbooks from Maximo 7 and want it to keep working.
Editions
Fiedler Data Import shares one licence with Fiedler Data Export, the licence of Fiedler Data Tools. The free edition imports up to 200 rows of each sheet, for up to three users. The Fiedler Data Tools page describes both editions.
The series
A series of articles follows Fiedler Data Import from the idea to the running product:
- Built from scratch for the Maximo Application Suite: the history, and why Fiedler Data Import is a new tool
- The workbook format: why your old workbooks still import
- A companion app beside Manage: how Fiedler Data Import fits into MAS
- Plan first, then run: how every row is checked before anything is written
- It works as you: rights, sign-in and what the log keeps
- Results you can act on: colours, write-backs, resume and review
- Four layers of settings, and callbacks: how Fiedler Data Import is configured
- Measured: 10,000 job plans and a million rows: the numbers from our test system
- Running and scripting it: install, metrics, backup, the command line and test suites
- Values Manage owns: dates and time zones, spaces, audit columns, generated keys and the application a job uses
The articles appear below as they are published.
Example library
The example library is free to download: 37 workbooks that set up a small demo system in Manage, in load order. Each one is also a template for your own data.
Talk to us
Want to see Fiedler Data Import on your own workbooks? Get in touch. We work in English and German.
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