Data Extraction Jobs

Data extractions, also referred to as jobs, are orchestrated through the different adapters. Depending on the type of data (i.e., Equipment, Functional Location, Work History) you want to extract, there is a corresponding job. SAP extractions are facilitated by the APM Connect Administration Center and a corresponding context file. The context file contains filter parameters that are applied to each extraction adapter Job. The filter parameters define the scope of the data extraction.

More Details

The following SAP and SAP PI adapters are available for data extractions:

Equipment Adapter: Extracts records that are used to store information about physical pieces of equipment, such as pumps, motors, and compressors.
Functional Location Adapter: Extracts records that are used to store information about locations in your organization including, but not limited to, the locations at which the physical pieces of equipment are installed.
Work History Adapter: Extracts records that are used to store data about work that was performed against your locations and equipment, as well as failures that occurred for those locations and equipment. Additionally, it allows you to transfer Notifications and Orders from SAP to Predix Essentials.
Notification Management Adapter: Allows you to transfer Recommendation records from Predix Essentials to SAP in the form of Notifications.
Technical Characteristics Adapter: Allows you to transfer Functional Location characteristics and Equipment characteristics from SAP to Predix Essentials.
Work Management Adapter: Allows you to manage scheduled work in SAP and Predix Essentials.
PWORK Adapter: The Planned Work Adapter job allows you to retrieve information about the work planned for your assets.
EAM Extractions should be filtered such that the load does not exceed 10 MB or more than 10,000 records in a single load. Proper batching should be applied in all cases.

About Time Zone Data

Predix Essentials stores the dates and times of transactions in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) format. This enables the data to flow through the system in a single time zone format. APM Connect supports the time zones defined in https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/embedded/gg154758(v=winembedded.80).

To provide information with the time stamp relevant to your operations, the system converts UTC to your time zone by using the time zone information configured in your user definition.

Important: If you change the time zone information configured in your user definition, all the records will reflect the new time zone.

The following sections contain the time zone considerations relevant to specific systems.

Maximo

Predix Essentials stores the time stamp associated with the data extracted from Maximo in UTC and displays the time stamp based on your configured time zone.

SAP

SAP provides a set of baseline time zone codes, which contain most of the standard time zones across the world. SAP also provides the ability for administrators to define their own custom time zone, as needed. Before you use a customized time zone, you must configure the timezone_control table in APM Connect to include the customized time zone.

SAP defines two types of time zones:

System: This time zone is based on SAP Application Server Operating System and is derived from the context file. You cannot modify this type of time zone.
User: This time zone is based on the user who created the SAP record. You can modify and store this type of time zone in the SAP user interface.

Predix Essentials stores the time stamp associated with the data extracted from SAP in UTC and displays the time stamp based on the time zone configured for the user who created the SAP record.

Note: If the data extracted from SAP contains only the date, then Predix Essentials will assign the time 00:00:00 and adjust the assigned time with the SAP system or user time zone. This may lead to a date mismatch when you choose to display the data in Predix Essentials. To prevent this, Predix Essentials stores the assigned reference time stamp as a string within the data, which is hidden by default. If you need this information, you can configure Predix Essentials to display the data.

Schedule a Job

Using the APM Connect Administration Center, you can extract items from the EAM source systems to create and update records in Predix Essentials.

Before You Begin

Before you can schedule a Job, you must verify or complete the following:

Ensure that a Job is imported in the Job Conductor.
Apply the filter parameters for the Job you want to execute in the context file.

Note:

You cannot run two Jobs of the same kind at the same time. For example, you cannot run two Equipment Jobs at the same time.
EAM extractions should be filtered such that any load does not exceed 10 MB or more than 10,000 records in a single load.

About This Task

While you can run a Job any time you want to extract new or updated items from the EAM source by executing a Run-Now Job, you will probably want to schedule the items to be extracted automatically based on the schedule parameters. This method ensures synchronization between your EAM database and your Predix Essentials database. This topic describes how to schedule a recurring Job in the APM Connect Administration Center.

Procedure

From the Menu pane, in the Conductor section, select Job Conductor.

The Job Conductor pane appears, displaying the Jobs that can be executed.
Select the Job you want to schedule.

Note: If the Job you want to execute is not in the workspace, you must import the Job into the Job Conductor.
At the bottom of the Job Conductor workspace, select Triggers.
The Triggers section appears.
In the Triggers section, select Add trigger.
A menu appears, displaying the options for the types of triggers you can add.

Note: The CRON trigger is a time-based trigger that generates the Job and executes it multiple times at a specified date and time. Cron Trigger is most widely used because it allows the user to set the repetition of execution with more accuracy. For example, a Cron trigger can be set in such a way that it is executed every 10 minutes beginning at 10 A.M. and ending at 11 A.M. on every Friday in January, March, August, and December in the year 2015. This trigger is applicable to APM Connect data extractions.
Select the Add CRON trigger button.
The Add CRON trigger section appears.
Enter the trigger details using the following guidelines:
- Label: Enter a name for the trigger.
- Description: Enter a description for the trigger.
- Time zone strategy: Select the time zone that applies to the schedule you are configuring.
- Minutes: Enter the time interval (in minutes) after which the execution needs to be repeated.
- Hours: Enter the time (in hours) when the execution should begin.
- Days of month: Enter the days of the month on which the Job should be executed.
- Months: Enter the months during which the Job should be executed.
- Days of week: Enter the days of the week on which the Job should be executed.
- Years: Enter the years during which the Job should be executed.
Select Save.
The new trigger is created and appears in the Triggers section.
The Job is scheduled.

Execute a Run-Now Job

About This Task

While you can use the APM Connect Administration Center to schedule Jobs to run on a recurring basis, you can run a previously scheduled Job at any time to extract new or updated items. This topic describes how to execute a Run-Now Job.

Important: You cannot run two Jobs of the same kind at the same time. For example, you cannot run two Equipment Jobs at the same time.

Procedure

In the Job Conductor workspace, select the Scheduled Job that you want to run.
Select Run.
The Job is run.

View the Execution Log

About This Task

You can view the execution log for information about the Job execution such as its status, ID, trigger type, and other details. The log also contains information about the errors and warnings that occurred during the execution process. The execution details are available for any Job that appears in the Job Conductor workspace. This topic describes how to view the execution log.

Procedure

In the Job Conductor workspace, select the

button next to the Job whose execution details you want to view.

The Task execution details window appears, displaying the details of the latest execution.

You can view three types of information in the Task execution details window:

In the Log section, view the sequence of execution, error messages, and warning messages.
In the Context values section, view the values that were passed into the parameters of the executed Job.
In the Advanced Information section, view information about the executed Job.

Update Existing Jobs

Occasionally, changes will be made to the .zip files associated with an adapter Job. When changes are made to the adapter through a .zip file, the existing Job must be updated by reimporting the .zip file. This topic describes how to update an existing Job.

Procedure

In the Job Conductor workspace, select the Job for which the file has been updated.
On the Job Conductor toolbar, select Delete.

Note: If you do not delete the existing Job, the Job will not update properly, and the Job cannot be executed.
On the Job Conductor toolbar, select Add.

The Execution task pane is activated.
In the Execution task pane, in the Label box, enter a label for the Job.
In the Description box, enter a description for the Job.
Select the Active check box.
In the Job section, select .
The Import generated code window appears.
Select Browse to navigate to the file containing the adapter Jobs that have been updated.
Select the appropriate file.
On the Import generated code window, select Launch upload.
The Project, Branch, Name, Version, and Context text boxes are automatically populated with appropriate values.
In the Execution Server list, select the server on which the Job should be executed.
Select Save.

The updated adapter Jobs are imported into the APM Connect Administration Center.