1.9 Limitations & Restrictions

The following are limitations and restrictions of a provisioned Maximo SaaS Flex (PROD, NON-PROD) Application. It should be noted that Enhanced Access (DEV) environments can be provisioned that have less restrictions.

System Properties

Several categories of system properties are pre-configured. Notable among them are the Attached Documents configuration properties and a subset of the Integration Framework configuration properties. These properties cannot be modified by the customer as they reflect configurations on the file system of the application server. Consequently, they are read-only in the System Properties user interface through a security configuration.

Logging

Maximo SaaS Flex customers can define loggers and control log levels.  To access the log files they must submit a ticket through the IBM Support Community requesting that access via SFTP be granted.
It should be noted that Maximo Enhanced Access DEV environments access log files via RDC (Remote Desktop Connection)

Database Configuration

Maximo SaaS Flex customers can define new objects, attributes, indexes and other structural elements of a Maximo data dictionary using the Database Configuration application. To apply such changes, the Admin Mode functionality should be utilized. Customers do not have access to the command-line configdb tool (enhanced access DEV)

For custom objects and attributes, please note there is no IBM SRE or Product support for debuging or troubleshooting custom classes. This the customer's responsibility. For field validations, automation scripting Attribute Launch Point should be utilized.

Application Designer

Maximo SaaS Flex customers can modify presentations using the Application Designer tooling. They can download and upload presentation XML using the Import Application Definition and Export Application Definition actions available in the application. However, customers are responsible for tracking changes made to the presentation XML and maintaining revisions of the XML. Once a customer modifies a presentation, the recommendation is to export the XML and place an appropriate comment in the exported presentation XML file and check it into a version control system.

Actions

The action type ‘Command Line Executable’ and ‘Custom Class’ are not supported by IBM SRE / Product Support from a debugging / troubleshooting perspective.

Cron Tasks

Custom Cron Tasks that require a Java class are not supported by IBM SRE / Product Support from a debugging / troubleshoot perspective.

Web Service Library

Only product web service (Axis) deployments are supported.

Migration Manager

Note: database to database distribution of a package is not recommended or supported.

In support of package distribution a target called ‘TARGET’ can be created in Maximo SaaS instances pointing to a fixed folder on the server file system called /MigrationManager.

This can be requested via case ticket submission by the customer in the IBM Support Community Portal. This definition should not be modified or deleted.

Object Structures

There is no IBM SRE or Product support for Java customization of Object Structures with inbound or outbound processing classes. Support, debugging, troubleshooting is the responsibility of the customer. Customization can be done using Jython or JavaScript automation scripting.

Report Development

Report development is the design of reports using BIRT Report Designer.  This is an Eclipse-based tool with specialized BIRT plug-ins. A report development environment is necessarily Windows-based and must have a live connection to the Maximo database in order to test reports from Eclipse.  Upon request, and for additional fees, a replicated database can be provided in read only mode for Report development purposes.

For the purpose of enabling report development, a Report Developers Guide has been put together by Maximo architects. This guide provides instructions on setting up an Eclipse-based report development environment. The guide is available at the link below:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21498572

Review the Installation and Configuration chapter for full understanding of the report development procedures and pre-requisites.

In order to enable report development, customers must provide an on-premise Windows workstation or server that will constitute one end of a virtual private network (VPN) point-to-point tunnel to the Maximo SaaS environment running in the IBM Cloud.  Customers interested in doing this should submit a ticket through the IBM Support Portal.
The remainder of the System Configuration, Administration and Integration applications are all available for use in the Cloud environment.

Maximo SaaS Flex customers who have an Enhanced Access DEV environment can have BIRT Report Designer installed by IBM SRE in that environment after it has been provisioned. This can be requested via case ticket using the IBM Support Portal.

Integration Limitations and Restrictions

Integration limitations and restrictions can be broken down into several categories:

Email Integration

Outbound email notification capability is available to IBM Maximo SaaS Flex customers. At the operating system level, a localhost mail daemon is pre-configured to spool and deliver email to IBM Cloud’s SMTP servers. In the Maximo instance, the mail.smtp.host property always will be set to ‘localhost’ and read-only. Customers can define communication templates and utilize them in a number of different contexts to send email to intended recipients.

Inbound email processing (through Email Listener) can be configured to connect to a customer’s mail account using the available pop3 and imap protocols. Secure (SSL) based protocols are recommended and may require a site to site VPN to support connectivity.

Maximo LDAP Authentication

LDAP Authentication with a customer’s existing LDAP repository can be configured for Maximo using a site to site VPN.  Customers (or their implementer) who wish to enable LDAP authentication for Maximo SaaS should submit a ticket through the IBM Support Community Portal.

External Integrations with Integration Framework

Maximo Enterprise Adapters for SAP and Oracle are not included with Maximo SaaS Flex. They are available, but must be ordered separately.
 

From an Integration Framework perspective, the following are limitations:

1. Integration using Interface Tables is only supported for remote interface tables, not local. Writing to remote interface tables requires the configuration of an outbound VPN similar to the LDAP integration.  If a customer wishes to configure and use interface tables, the customer should submit ticket through the IBM Support Community Portal.  Once VPN connectivity is established, remote interface tables can be written to or read from.

2. Only the product-based container web services are supported. WebSphere-based container web services are not supported. Consequently, the System Property mxe.int.containerdeploy is pre-configured to 0.

3. For web services and the REST API (Native and OSLC), all communications take place over HTTPS only.  HTTP protocol is not supported.

4. OSLC UI-based interactions with another product instance in SoftLayer (for example, Maximo integrated with SCCD or with a Rational product) is not currently supported. ?Remove

Customization

Customization is primarily the authoring of Java code that will execute against application extensions.  Maximo provides several event-based and callback-based Java APIs. Customers can create custom java class file extensions and deploy them in IBM Maximo SaaS Flex environments, but IBM does not support debugging or troubleshooting of customer class files. This is the responsibility of the customer.

The disposition of common customization points is shown below:
 

Other Limitations

Command-line Maximo tools are not available in IBM Maximo SaaS Flex PROD and NON-PROD environments. These include:

1. maxinst

2. Updatedb

3. TDToolkit

4. Integrity Checker

5. configdb

6. IBM Installation Manager

Note: IBM Maximo SaaS Flex Enhanced Access DEV environments have the above access, with the exception of IBM Installation Manager.

Custom help authoring and deployment is not supported.