The SAP Mobile Asset Management team is pleased to share details of the latest release of SAP Maintenance Assistant, the mobile maintenance execution solution for SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The fully offline solution increases technician tool time, providing on-hand asset and maintenance event-related data, when and where the technician needs it.
S/4HANA Cloud uses process phases to track the life cycle of the maintenance processes, with two levels of hierarchy. For example, a maintenance order that is ready for execution has a phase of "Execution" and a sub-phase of "Ready for Execution".
The phase and sub-phase provide important context to the technician, and we have now added support for these to the sub-operations pages.
When viewing a sub-operation detail page, the phase and sub-phase values can be viewed in the sub-operation details section.
And to help the technician better find the right task, the sub-operations list view can be filtered by phase and sub-phase using the "Execution Stage" and "Mobile Status" selectors respectively.
A welcome usability improvement in this release is the ability to markup a PDF inside the application. A typical scenario might involve checking a piece of equipment for damage, much like the sales agent inspection conducts when you rent a car.
A technician may now open a PDF document attached to a maintenance request, order, or operation and enable the edit mode. She can use set the color and pen thickness and access predefined shapes, e.g., rectangle, circle, arrow, or use the freeform drawing mode to annotate the PDF.
The edited PDF can be saved to replace the original or saved as a copy.
Note, that editable PDFs, those with form fields, are supported in iOS and may be filled using the keyboard, however, this is not possible in Android.
For maintenance order and operation, phase control codes allow you to control the transition from one phase to the next. For example, a block may be set during the Scheduling phase to prevent an order from reaching Post-Execution. A review may be required, the control code enforces this, and once complete the control code can be reset.
If applied to a maintenance order or operation, the code is displayed on the detail page along with a description, control key, process phase and sub-phase and the status. Operations may also be filtered by Phase Control and Control Key.
With this release, we have adopted the notification processing context for creating minor work requests. You will notice a user interface change when creating a maintenance request, instead of a switch to mark minor work there is a Minor Work button to differentiate from Regular Work.
With the Notification Processing Context set to Minor Work, the maintenance request will be accepted as soon as it is submitted. The technician records malfunction details and completes the maintenance request, effectively bypassing the screening, planning, scheduling, etc.
A key innovation introduced in S/4HANA Cloud Release 2011 is the phase model, representing the best practices for asset management. The process hierarchy is set by SAP and cannot be changed, thus ensuring a consistent, repeatable process. Each step in the end-to-end maintenance process can be clearly identified and tracked.
The previous "non-phase model" maintenance order types — YBA1 (Corrective Maintenance), YBA2 (Preventive Maintenance), YBA3 (Unplanned Maintenance) — have not been supported until this release.
While customers are advised to use the phase-model order types which support features like cost approval of work orders, phase control codes, etc., it is important for us to enable support on the mobile application for both order types and provide for customers who are not using the phase model.
With this release, a technician may now log a time confirmation for another technician either during the completion process or in the Labor Time section. When entering a time confirmation, a new "Employee" field is displayed. The field is defaulted to the logged in user but can be tapped to select from a list of colleagues. The list includes a search field to assist.
Lastly, a nice user experience improvement is the addition of a hierarchy view to display the Bill of Materials for technical objects. When the viewing the object detail page, if a BOM available it may be accessed from a link at the bottom of the page.
SAP Maintenance Assistant is available now. The application is publicly available and includes an offline demo mode for viewing and testing the functionality. The application may be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
We welcome your reviews and feedback.
New features
Support phase and sub-phase for sub-operations
S/4HANA Cloud uses process phases to track the life cycle of the maintenance processes, with two levels of hierarchy. For example, a maintenance order that is ready for execution has a phase of "Execution" and a sub-phase of "Ready for Execution".
The phase and sub-phase provide important context to the technician, and we have now added support for these to the sub-operations pages.
When viewing a sub-operation detail page, the phase and sub-phase values can be viewed in the sub-operation details section.
And to help the technician better find the right task, the sub-operations list view can be filtered by phase and sub-phase using the "Execution Stage" and "Mobile Status" selectors respectively.
Annotate PDF documents and save modifications
A welcome usability improvement in this release is the ability to markup a PDF inside the application. A typical scenario might involve checking a piece of equipment for damage, much like the sales agent inspection conducts when you rent a car.
A technician may now open a PDF document attached to a maintenance request, order, or operation and enable the edit mode. She can use set the color and pen thickness and access predefined shapes, e.g., rectangle, circle, arrow, or use the freeform drawing mode to annotate the PDF.
The edited PDF can be saved to replace the original or saved as a copy.
Note, that editable PDFs, those with form fields, are supported in iOS and may be filled using the keyboard, however, this is not possible in Android.
Support phase control code
For maintenance order and operation, phase control codes allow you to control the transition from one phase to the next. For example, a block may be set during the Scheduling phase to prevent an order from reaching Post-Execution. A review may be required, the control code enforces this, and once complete the control code can be reset.
If applied to a maintenance order or operation, the code is displayed on the detail page along with a description, control key, process phase and sub-phase and the status. Operations may also be filtered by Phase Control and Control Key.
Support minor work request using notification processing context
With this release, we have adopted the notification processing context for creating minor work requests. You will notice a user interface change when creating a maintenance request, instead of a switch to mark minor work there is a Minor Work button to differentiate from Regular Work.
With the Notification Processing Context set to Minor Work, the maintenance request will be accepted as soon as it is submitted. The technician records malfunction details and completes the maintenance request, effectively bypassing the screening, planning, scheduling, etc.
Support non-phase model maintenance orders
A key innovation introduced in S/4HANA Cloud Release 2011 is the phase model, representing the best practices for asset management. The process hierarchy is set by SAP and cannot be changed, thus ensuring a consistent, repeatable process. Each step in the end-to-end maintenance process can be clearly identified and tracked.
The previous "non-phase model" maintenance order types — YBA1 (Corrective Maintenance), YBA2 (Preventive Maintenance), YBA3 (Unplanned Maintenance) — have not been supported until this release.
While customers are advised to use the phase-model order types which support features like cost approval of work orders, phase control codes, etc., it is important for us to enable support on the mobile application for both order types and provide for customers who are not using the phase model.
Support capturing time confirmations for a colleague
With this release, a technician may now log a time confirmation for another technician either during the completion process or in the Labor Time section. When entering a time confirmation, a new "Employee" field is displayed. The field is defaulted to the logged in user but can be tapped to select from a list of colleagues. The list includes a search field to assist.
Support technical object BOM
Lastly, a nice user experience improvement is the addition of a hierarchy view to display the Bill of Materials for technical objects. When the viewing the object detail page, if a BOM available it may be accessed from a link at the bottom of the page.
When is the release available?
SAP Maintenance Assistant is available now. The application is publicly available and includes an offline demo mode for viewing and testing the functionality. The application may be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
We welcome your reviews and feedback.
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