The hidden features of Work Logs

Work Logs are a very useful feature in Maximo and Control Desk products to allow users to keep notes of the progress of work.

A very nice feature of work logs is that Maximo displays all work logs for the current record an related ones. Lets make an example. If there is a work log on a work order originated from a Service Request, Maximo will display both SR logs and Work Order logs in the Work Order Tracking application.
In the example below we are in the Work Order Tracking application displaying work logs on work order 1019. The first work log has been added to the work order but the second one is attached to the originating service request 1214.

To go in details, Maximo will display records on the Work Logs tab with the following logic:

• Work logs attached to the current record
• Work logs for the originating and follow up records
• If the ticket is global, all work logs in related to this global
• If it is 'View SR App' (VIEWSR) or cloned by it, display only work logs which are marked as 'Client Viewable'

These rules seem pretty reasonable but in some cases we may prefer to adopt different rules. In such cases we can use a well hidden feature.

• The system property psdi.worklog.workorder.useWOrelationship allows to specify a custom rule in the CUSTOMWOWORKLOG relationship of the WORKORDER object.
• The system property psdi.worklog.ticket.useTKrelationship allows to specify a custom rule in the CUSTOMTKWORKLOG relationship of the TICKET object.

For example if we want to display only work logs related to the currently displayed work order we can configure Maximo as follows.
Open the System Properties application and set psdi.worklog.workorder.useWOrelationship to 1. Then apply configuration changes by selecting the record and clicking on 'Live Refresh' action.

Now open Database Configuration application, open WORKORDER object and go to the Relationships tab. Search for CUSTOMWOWORKLOG relationship and set it to:

recordkey=:wonum and class=:woclass and siteid=:siteid

This is how the configuration should look.

If we now open work order we will not see the work log on the service request.