Yes. The Mobile Informer Platform has been validated as using IBM Best Practices and as such has earned the badge of Ready for Cloud & Smarter Infrastructure. It is one of the few mobile platforms for Maximo that has earned this distinction.
We like to call Mobile Informer “future-proof,” which means choosing Mobile Informer is a wise investment choice. There are two parts to Mobile Informer:
Mobile Informer is licensed on a named user basis. Mobile Informer Platform Authorized Users and Mobile Informer Industry App Authorized Users can use any and all apps in our suite, in addition to any apps developed for their organization.
The server portion of the Mobile Informer platform is installed as a native application within Maximo and requires no additional mobile-specific hardware. The Mobile Informer server fully supports clustered environments, and can spread processing across the Maximo cluster or can be confined to certain cluster nodes as desired.
Because the Mobile Informer platform sits inside of Maximo as a Maximo application and does not require any additional hardware or software services, it works equally well in an on-premise, hosted, or SaaS environment.
Please see the simple architecture diagram below:
The source code for all Mobile Informer applications is provided to customers at no charge with a user license. Customers have the option to install, modify, and support the applications as they wish.
Rather than rely on proprietary SDK and development toolkits we use the official platform tool kits: Android Studio and Xcode. This makes it easy for an app developer to use the tools they are familiar with to create and modify apps. The apps are built using the native toolkits and thus will have no restrictions and can utilize the features that make each platform unique. Using the unique platform functionality means the full functionality of the platform and hardware is available. Non-native applications rely on a middleware layer that requires proprietary SDKs, IDEs and specialized knowledge requiring additional training.
Mobile Informer is integrated at the MBO layer using the MIF (Maximo Integration Framework). Any applications that are cloned such as WOTRACK will utilize the same MBOs and will work without any additional configuration. Informer supports all custom persistent and non-persistent MBOs, fields, and applications via configuration tools in the Informer Developer application.
Mobile Informer is integrated as a native Maximo application and uses the MIF (Maximo Integration Framework). Mobile Informer will integrate with all existing Maximo integrations to SAP, Peoplesoft, JDE, Tririga and others. All Mobile Informer applications use the Maximo business rules, including any external integrations such as Publish Channels.
"Mobile Informer performs data validation offline at all time, according to business processes. For instance, Users can pick values from lists of Domain Values for actions like changing a Work Order Status or indicating Service Request priority. Similarly, the mobile apps check data validity before submitting changes to Maximo, for example by ensuring appropriate length of free text entry."
Any mobile solution that requires real-time field lookups will not allow the user to create or modify data offline. If the mobility solution needs to be online to perform field lookups it will introduce a performance penalty whenever a lookup needs to be queried.
Mobile Informer downloads the domain values offline and validates business logic offline before being sent to the server.
Mobile Informer will listen for any changes to domain or table values and push the data to the devices. No application or configuration changes will be required.
Mobile Informer is integrated natively into Maximo and will utilize the user’s Maximo security profile. When data is saved back to Maximo it will create a new session using the mobile user’s security profile. All CHANGEBY fields will correctly reflect the user and Maximo restrictions utilized. The user’s security profile will be downloaded to the device so the appropriate restrictions can be performed offline. Informer will listen for changes to the security profile and push them to the devices.
Mobile Informer will integrate Maximo workflows. Most changes to the Maximo workflow will not require changes to the mobile application.
A single JVM MIF server can process thousands of transactions daily. The MIF servers can easily be clustered and load balanced to increase throughput and provide redundancy.
Informer tracks when users log in and out, and a user login creates a LOGINTRACKING audit event.
Yes, Mobile Informer will support multi-site and multi-org configurations. The data available on the device is configured via SQL queries and can be administered through the Informer Maximo application.
Mobile Informer can easily support several hundred thousand offline records. Mobility users only need access to data to support their use cases, not the entire Maximo database. The data that needs to be synchronized to the devices is based on saved Maximo queries.
"In systems where different groups of users need access to different groups of data, the dataset can be partitioned for storage and sync speed optimization."
Because Mobile Informer assumes that the application is always offline, it opportunistically synchronizes data in the background with no user intervention. Mobile Informer downloads the data set each app uses to the onboard device database, and is able to store and query hundreds of thousands of records locally – without high latency network connections or remote servers.
"In most mobility solutions the users have to undertake a series of actions to work offline, and then with a reduced feature set. When working online their experience is degraded by the reduced performance caused by frequent server requests and network latency. Mobile Informer is designed to always work in an offline mode. However, when connected it quietly synchronises data both ways to ensure the user is working with the latest information and that Maximo is up to date. This means the performance is very fast and the feature set is complete whether on or off line."
The Mobile Informer platform continuously monitors the network and state of the Maximo server. It will continuously synchronize data in the background as long as Maximo and the network are both online. If either the network or Maximo is offline, Mobile Informer, in the background, will temporarily stop synchronizing data, without affecting user performance or experience. Mobile Informer will continue to monitor both network and Maximo, and will start synchronizing as soon as an online state is detected.
Mobile applications regularly need access to several hundred thousand records such as assets, locations, Work Orders, inventory, and supporting data. In Maximo, both mobile and desktop users are continuously modifying the data.
The Mobile Informer platform is native to Maximo and is able to listen for changes directly on the MBO layer. When relevant data is modified in Maximo, such as a Work Order status change, Mobile Informer will record the transaction. The transaction will be queued and evaluated and only the relevant changes will be sent to the device.
Mobile Informer applications can optionally use the native Google or Apple push notification architecture rather than polling the server on a timed basis. The result is changes are delivered to the devices faster with less drain on the battery.
Another advantage Mobile Informer has is that it is a native Maximo application. A Maximo system administrator can login to the system and validate which data has been sent to which device.
For example, a technician may report to help desk a Work Order was assigned to them five minutes ago and they cannot see it on their device. The help desk technician can log in to the Mobile Informer application and determine which data and when it was sent to which device.
Mobile Informer handles transactions in a reliable manner though several means.
When a user saves a transaction it is put into an outbound queue. The Mobile Informer platform will continuously monitor the network connection and Maximo server and synchronize the transactions in the background.
One of the key advantages of the Mobile Informer platform is its simplicity. Transactions originate on the mobile device and are sent directly to Maximo via the MIF (Maximo Integration Framework). The process between the mobile device and Maximo is synchronous where the mobile will not mark the message as processed until Maximo acknowledges the transaction is complete it fails MBO validation. There is no middleware or message brokers where the transactions could get lost or stuck.
If a message fails validation such as a Work Order that has been cancelled it will be stored in the Maximo Informer application in the error queue. A Maximo system administrator can view the error as XML and either reprocess it as-is, modify it or delete it.
The mobile devices communicate directly with Maximo via MIF. No additional server software or integrations need to be set up or configured.
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