Hi @Mayura Wasantha .

I appreciate if you could help with above question, we have lot of doubts on how to use this Category Objects.

Thanks in Advance,

Kasun

@KAMANUK ,

We had the similar requirement for one of the customer where they want to have service contract for the general maintenance of the building which has 5 floors and each floor has 20 apartment and customer don't want to create  object for each and every apartment as all of them are similar and contract only cater the general maintenance which is standard all the apartment in that building. Also, customer want to generate the monthly invoice with fixed value.

As system wont allow to create PM for the category object , we instead created a functional object and connected this to service contract and generated the PM. We used the field category in the functional object in order to identify this object category.

Now, all the maintenance work is carried out as per the predefined maintenance plan and invoices are generated periodically as per the invoice plan in service contract. 

hope this helps!!

Regards,

Mithun K v

@EqeMithuV  Thanks lot, indeed we can use this as a workaround. At the same time I really need to know why PM action is blocked from using for Category objects. It doesnt make a sense, I mean in real business we need to work it like that. Perhaps someone from IFS RnD should reply on this.

Thanks again,

Kasun

I think the whole idea of Category Objects is that they are not "real" equipment objects. I found this in the documentation:

  "Category objects can be used to define a set of common objects
  e.g., computers, printers. This makes it easier to administrate
  large amounts of equipment on a service contract"

And there is this as well:

  “Category Objects and Locations

   A functional object can be defined as a geographical object in order
   to function as a location, for example a service company may have a
   contract to take care of computers for an organization which has
   multiple geographic locations (e.g., airports) and multiple buildings
   at each location. Here you have a location-building-computer hierarchy
   where the computers might be moved between buildings or locations
   overtime.

   Category objects are a type of functional objects that is used to
   group objects, e.g., Printers. A category object is created using the
   Category Object page, locations on the other hand are created using
   the Functional Object. Both locations and category objects are used in
   service contracts.:

I doesn't say much I'm afraid, despite all those words. I have seen in several places in our code base that category objects are ruled out for certain features.

I think it would be good to ask for having our documentation be enhanced to explain this better, to explain the purpose and how customers can expect these objects to behave.
 

Hi @KAMANUK ,

As mathias pointed out from the documentation, Category objects can be used to define a set of common objects e.g., computers, printers.

So basically a category object is a virtual object, not a real existing object. Category object represents a set of objects to be used in service contracts. A separate PM action describes a certain type of recurring task that needs to be executed on a particular equipment object that actually exist on the facility.

Hope the clarification is clear

CC: ​​​@Mayura Wasantha 

Thank you both @Mathias Dahl and @Asitha Rajapaksha really appreciate for these information,

As you said category object is a virtual object which is fine or type of a functional object that is used to group certain type of object.,

Then at the same time I can define a Functional object in the same way. I.e. say I am creating a Functional object connecting an Object Type as “Area or Site” then again this also can be identified as a Virtual object (A geographical location). I named it as “Block D” where my all solar panel exits in this block. Then I can create one PM action to inspect all panels other than creating many for each panel.

Means I can use the Functional object form exactly as a Category object, here only the connection type is different that really doesnt matter. My doubt is then why exactly we need this Catgory object from even we are not allowed to create a PM action for this? 

What more I think is, application should allow to create a PM action for Catgory objects so we can define a maintenance plan for this virtual object and raise one work order for all objects defined under this category object.

Please let me know if my understanding is incorrect, I am still trying to figure out how to use it in real business.

Thanks,

Kasun

Hi

I think the differentiation comes from the intended functionality of the category objects. You probably have a point in this from maintenance perspective but Category objects are specifically intended to be used in service contracts but it is not used to raise a single PM and work order to cover all of the objects.

When the scope of the service contract is set it can be set as a Equipment(meaning a specific equipment) or a category (Covering a set of objects in the same nature). So even if you create virtual functional object(not a category object) still it will be connected in the service contract as an equipment scope and visualized as a single functional object

As said above, category objects was intended for Service. Scenario is that the objects at the customer changes over time and you don’t always get the new objects for registration in equipment and contracts when they appear at customer site. If you then have a category object on the Contract you can use any object on the Service Request to be covered by the Contract, this also means that there is need for manual validation that the object on the service request is the of the type covered by the category object. If it is an object we don’t know about it can be registered in the service request registration or by the technician at customer site doing the work.

Also there is a scenario that service company don’t want to keep track of the objects at all and then keep the category object on the service request thru the process, in this scenario you have no good handling of reclamations and similar on the work done as you don’t have recording for the actual object.

For doing work on known equipment you normally don’t want to use Category objects as that include more of contract validations and manual handling and is hard to follow up.