Maximo/SCCD Extensions and Integration
Overview
This document is intended to take the reader through a use case of how you can leverage
the tooling provided with the Maximo products in order to add value through product
extensions and/or integration to other products. All Maximo features described below are
also available as part of the SCCD solution.
Use Case : Extend the Asset object with 3 new attributes, make those
attributes available in the UI and enable those attributes to be
updated from another application using integration.
This use case will hi-light the following capabilities:
1. Adding new attributes to the Maximo Asset object
2. Enabling new attributes within the asset application for viewing by a user
3. Enabling new attributes to be part of a SOAP-based web service for update by an
external system.
Adding new attributes to the Maximo Asset Object
At the start of this type of integration, the first step is to identify what object is the
appropriate one to extend. Often this is decided based on the application you want the
additional attributes to be available from. There are a multiple ways to determine which
object(s) is connected to an application, below are two:
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a. Identify the Main object of the application using Application Designer app. Note:
columns from other objects are likely to be used with the application.
b. Using field help by placing cursor into a field and hitting Alt/I
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Once you have identified the object that you wish to extend, you then can use the
Database Configuration application to add your attributes to the business object and its
underlying table in the database.
Database
Configuratio
n Application
Define
attribute
When you define a new field you can set properties such as data type, length, title (label
that is displayed in UI) and default value. Depending upon your requirements (if field is
not read-only), you may want to define an associated domain to control the values
allowed or provide a Java class and/or script that contains validation logic for the field.
After you have defined the new fields, these changes must be applied to the database by
setting the system into Admin Mode and then running DB Configure. When completed,
you need to exit Admin Mode and your fields should be available in the ASSET Maximo
Business Object (MBO) and defined in the underlying ASSET table in the database. At
this point you can now configure the Asset application to display the new fields that you
added to the ASSET object.
If you plan to develop new business objects, there is additional information at this link:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/IBM%20
Maximo%20Asset%20Management/page/Maximo%20business%20object%20developm
ent.
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Enabling the Asset application to display new attributes
The Application Designer application allows you to configure the UI for existing (or
new) applications. You can add new fields to the UI, move the location of existing fields
or remove UI fields from the application.
For more detailed information on customizing the Maximo UI, see the following:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/IBM%20
Maximo%20Asset%20Management/page/Configuring%20the%20user%20interface
For our use case, we will add the 3 new attributes created earlier to the Asset tab of the
Asset application.
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To add a field, select the section you want to add field to. One way to add a field is to
select an existing field in that section and right click and select Copy. Then if you right
click and select Paste a new field will be placed directly below the selected field:
sdf
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Once the new field is on the canvas (above), you right click on the field and select
Properties. Perform a look up on the Attribute field and select your new field by entering
the field name and object name in the Select Values dialog (below).
After the attribute is selected you can then provide additional information such as a
customer field Label and Input Mode.
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You can then repeat this process for all the fields you plan to add.
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Enabling new attributes for integration
Now that the 3 new attributes are part of the Asset object and visible in the Asset
application, you are now in position to provide data for those attributes using integration.
To support updating a fields using integration, the fields must be configured as included
within an existing object structure. Since our new fields are persistent (saved to the DB),
these fields would automatically become part of any object structure that has the ASSET
object wthin it. For our use case will we assume that we plan to use the MXASSET
object structure.
Now that we know the object structure supports the new fields we added, the next step is
to decide how to integrate data into those fields. There are multiple options that an
integration can leverage, often times this is decided based on the capabilities of the
external system that is integrating with Maximo.
From a protocol perspective, let’s assume that the external application, by practice,
prefers to integrate with other applications using SOAP-based messages (web service).
Given that, this eliminates other possible options that the integration framework supports
such as XML/HTTP, REST, DB tables, delimited files and XML files.
With the protocol set to SOAP, there are still 2 possible options, enable the object
structure as a web service or configure an enterprise service on top of the object structure
and enable that as a web service. Using the enterprise service provides the capabilities to
push the message through a JMS queue (asynchronous processing) if desired and also
provides the ability to implement customizations using the processing rules feature, Java
or XSLT. In our case let’s say that the integration should be synchronous and there is no
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need for customization as the client will invoke the object structure web service with the
correct XML format based on the Maximo schema. Using the Web Services Library
application, an object structure web service will be created using the MXASSET object
structure.
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The screen below shows the web service created for MXASSET with the available
operations.
The final step is to deploy the web service which will generate schema and WSDL files.
Depending upon the customer implementation of the system, the web service may be
deployed using the Axis SOAP engine (Product container) or using the application server
(Application Server container). See this link for more information:
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v49r1/topic/com.ibm.mbs.doc/wsregistry/c_ctr
_overview.html
Below is a screen shot of the step to deploy the web service:
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When deployed, the WSDL and Schema files will be located in subfolders under the
integration Global Directory (defined in system property mxe.int.globaldir). Depending
upon property configurations, the schema file may resolve ‘included’ files to a single file
(recommended) based on the setting of the mxe.int.resolveschema to 1 (true). The
WSDL file can include the schema file if the mxe.int.wsdlincludesschema system
property is set to 1 (true).
The object structure service schema is located at:
http://hostname:port/meaweb/schema/service/MXASSETService.xsd
The WSDL file for the service is located at:
http://hostname:port/meaweb/services/MXASSET.wsdl
The web service is available to invoke at:
http://hostname:port/meaweb/services/MXASSET
For all of the above, MXASSET represents the object structure name.
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Now that the web service is deployed the next step is to create a SOAP client on the
external system that can build the XML message according the Maximo schema and
invoke the Maximo web service. You can retrieve the schema as mentioned above and
also view a sample XML from the object structure application.
For the MXASSET object structure the XML could be something similar to below. This
XML uses the ‘Sync’ operation of the service which will attempt to find the asset record
and update it. When the Asset does not exist, the service will create the asset. The ‘key’
of the Maximo Asset that will be used to find the asset is the ASSETNUM and SITEID.
These values must be passed in order to find an existing record. In the example XML
below, the processing will attempt to find asset SAMPLE1 in site BEDFORD.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SyncMXASSET xmlns="http://www.ibm.com/maximo"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" creationDateTime="2013-0501T11:10:29-05:00" transLanguage="EN" baseLanguage="EN">
<MXASSETSet>
<ASSET>
<ASSETNUM>SAMPLE1</ASSETNUM>
<CHANGEBY>MAXIMO</CHANGEBY>
<CHANGEDATE>2013-05-01T15:32:11-05:00</CHANGEDATE>
<DESCRIPTION>SAMPLE ASSET 1</DESCRIPTION>
<NEW1>Field 1 Value</NEW1>
<NEW2>Field 2 Value</NEW2>
<NEW3>Field 3 Value</NEW3>
<SITEID>BEDFORD</SITEID>
</ASSET>
</MXASSETSet>
</SyncMXASSET>
If the record is found, processing will update these fields: DESCRIPTION, NEW1,
NEW2 and NEW3. Any attributes (or other objects/attributes of the object structure) that
are not provided in the XML are not updated. For records being created, many fields not
provided in the XML are likely to be populated with a default value as configured in the
business object.
If you were to use the Maximo SOAP-based web service below are some sample code
snippets that show the building a web service URL
This code builds the service URL and attaches the XML payload (describe earlier)
QName serviceQName = new QName("http://maximo/"+serviceName, serviceName);
QName portQName = new QName("http://maximo/"+serviceName, serviceName+"Port");
Service svc = Service.create(serviceQName);
if(soapVersion == null) soapVersion = SOAP11;
svc.addPort(
portQName,
soapVersion.equalsIgnoreCase(SOAP11)?SOAPBinding.SOAP11HTTP_BINDING:SOAPBinding.SOAP12HTT
P_BINDING,
epURL);
Dispatch<Source> dispatch = svc.createDispatch(
portQName,
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Source.class,
Service.Mode.PAYLOAD);
if(soapVersion.equalsIgnoreCase(SOAP11) && action==null)
{
action = "";//for SOAP11 the action has to be specified as per BP 1.1
}
if(action != null)
{
dispatch.getRequestContext().put(BindingProvider.SOAPACTION_USE_PROPERTY,
true);
dispatch.getRequestContext().put(BindingProvider.SOAPACTION_URI_PROPERTY,
action);
}
if(httpUser != null)
dispatch.getRequestContext().put(BindingProvider.USERNAME_PROPERTY,httpUser);
if(httpPassword != null)
dispatch.getRequestContext().put(BindingProvider.PASSWORD_PROPERTY,httpPassword);
This code invokes the web service
Source input = bytes2Source(payload);
// Invoke the operation.
if(mep == null || mep.equals(MEP_SENDRECEIVE) || mep.equals(MEP_SENDROBUST))
{
Source output = dispatch.invoke(input);
byte[] response = source2Bytes(output);
return response;
}
else if(mep.equals(MEP_FIREANDFORGET))
{
dispatch.invokeOneWay(input);
}
return null;
}
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