The MC Express Implementation and Administration Guide provides an overview for System Administrators who are initially setting up the software. It also serves as a general reference guide for ongoing administration.

MC Express has extensive permissions and preferences that allow your organization to configure the system to mirror your business processes. This guide summarizes the configuration options available to you, and it highlights the preferences and permissions from the Main Application (MRO) and Technician Work Center (TWC) that are honored in MC Express.

While all efforts have been made to ensure that MC Express and the Main Application (MRO) are consistent, there are nuances between the systems that are highlighted in this article. As a technician-oriented system often accessed from smaller devices, there will be some differences in features and user interface conventions.

MC Express online help includes numerous topics of value to System Administrators. Links to topics of interest are also included in this article.

Maintenance Connection offers two types of licensing: Concurrent licensing and Named licensing. The majority of new customers will use named licensing, but many of our customers are still using the traditional concurrent licensing structure. This segment is specifically applicable to those with concurrent licenses. Named licensing grants a license to individual users, hence removing the hiccups created by sharing licenses (I.e., concurrent licenses).

To ensure that concurrent licenses are available for MC Express users, sessions are timed out after a specified period of inactivity. The default session time out is set to 30 minutes. This can be adjusted at your organization to best match your business process. If you have a limited number of concurrent licenses available for your users, you may wish to make this setting shorter, so that users without current activity are more quickly timed out. In contrast, if you have extensive concurrent licenses available, you may prefer to make the setting longer to give users more time before their inactive session is terminated.

To modify the session time out setting from the MRO:

• Select Tools->Preferences from the Menu Bar
• Select MC Express from the Modules options on the left.
• Ensure the desired Repair Center is specified.
• Locate the Session Time Out option in the All MC Express Modules - General Settings Group.
• Select the option and modify as desired.
• Repeat for additional Repair Centers as needed.

Session Management Tool - Dropping User Sessions

MC Express includes a Session Management tool that allows you to drop user sessions to free up concurrent licenses for other users. This tool is especially valuable if you have a longer session time out setting, which allows users to remain logged in even though they are not actively using the system.

The Session Management Tool can be accessed from a URL that can be bookmarked for expedient access. In addition, if you are at a desktop with a keyboard, the tool can also be accessed by Ctrl-Shift-Clicking the MC Express Logo on the standard logon page. Only users that are Members of an Access Group with permission to access the Session Management Tool will be allowed to access.

Cloud hosted customers can access the Session Management Tool from:

http://express.maintenanceconnection.com/Admin.aspx

Customers with On Premise installations can access the Session Management Tool by replacing the default.aspx at the end of their login URL with admin.aspx. The exact URL will depend on your configuration, but may be similar to the following:

http://[servername]/express.maintenanceconnection.com/Admin.aspx

The Session Manager Tool will display, listing users with open sessions. Users with the longest amount of time since last activity will be shown at the top.

Note: There are two reasons that concurrent licensed users may have multiple active sessions. First, they may have intentionally opened sessions on different devices. Alternatively, they may have created a new session without properly logging off from the original session.

To remove a user session, click or tap the red x to the left of the user's name. Their session will be immediately terminated. The next time this user tries to access a page within MC Express, they will receive a session time out message.

Continue to terminate sessions until sufficient sessions have been closed.

The MC Express User Interface has been designed to be as intuitive as possible, allowing users with limited exposure to the system to navigate around, find records, and update them. The following sections describe some nuances between the Main Application (MRO) and MC Express, as well as some user interface tips.

Differences between the Main Application (MRO) and MC Express

MC Express emulates the terminology and functionality of the Main Application as much as possible. There are a few cases, however, in which enhancements were made that result in slight variation in terminology and functionality between the applications:

• Default Shop/Repair Center: MC Express has independent preferences that drive default Shop and Repair Center. This allows them to be "sticky" and save between sessions. The default Shop and Repair Center Preferences are also applied globally in MC Express (in effect in Work Orders, Assets, and Parts as applicable). Based on a Preference, the currently active default filters may be displayed on the Home Page.
• Status Update (Complete/Close): MC Express uses a more general term to describe the update of a Work Order's status, since the feature can be used to Respond, as well as to Complete/Close. The feature is called Status Update, rather than Complete/Close.
• Technician Focus: MC Express has been designed from the perspective of the technician. As such, many administrative functions, fields, and pages are not available from the system. For example, records such as Departments, Accounts, and Vendors must be established in the Main Application. Users will not have the ability to approve Work Orders, order Parts, define Rotating Parts, or perform other administrative functions.

Member Settings

The Main Application (MRO) Members Module is used to specify the Access Group to which the MC Express user should belong, as well as the type of Application Access they should be allowed:

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For those in the concurrent licensing structure, users given any Application Access in the Members Module will have access to MC Express, as long as their access group has been given the associated permission. This is also true for those with named licensing unless, of course, your organization has opted to not enable MC Express.

• Those using concurrent licenses can limit Members to only access MC Express by setting their Application Access to R - Service Requester. This will ensure they cannot log into the Main Application (MRO), but they will have access to MC Express (and the Service Requester if you use this at your organization).
• To provide member access to the Main Application, the Tehcnician Work Center (TWC) and MC Express, set their Application Access appropriately. For example, to allow access to the Main Application and MC Express, you could set their access to MGR or MGRD. To allow access to the TWC and MC Express, you could set their access to TWC or TWCRPT.

Repair Center and Accessible Locations

Repair Center restrictions assigned to Access Groups are honored in MC Express. Users will only see data from Repair Centers to which they have access. It should be noted that users with access to only one Repair Center will not see Repair Center controls in MC Express. This simplifies the user experience for users with access to only one Repair Center.

Accessible Locations tied to a Labor record are also honored in MC Express. Users with access to restricted locations will only have access to Assets and Work Orders from those locations.

MC Express Permissions

MC Express offers numerous permissions to ensure that users only have access to appropriate features. Existing permissions from the Main Application (MRO) are honored whenever possible, such as the edit, create, and new permissions for each module. However, in situations where the feature is different in MC Express (or the access does not align), a separate permission will be provided for MC Express. The best example of this is for Part Utilities. Although these features exist in the Main Application, the permission structure is different, so a separate set of MC Express permissions are available for Part Count, Transfer, Adjust On Hand, Receive, and Check Out.

MC Express has a complete set of permissions accessible from the Access Groups Rights Tab in the Main Application:

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The following permissions relate to MC Express in general. Module specific permissions are highlighted in the segments that follow:

• The Access MC Express permission allows you to limit access to MC Express to Members of specific Access Groups. This may be helpful if you have limited licenses available.
• Access Feature to Remove MC Express User Sessions provides System Administrators access to the Session Management Tool to drop user sessions.
• The Edit Contact Information on Personal Profile permission determines whether or not the My Profile page will display as editable, or view only. Organizations that retrieve email and contact information from another system through SSO or LDAP will typically disable this permission to ensure that values are not inadvertently overwritten.

The following permissions affect the availability of pages and features for work orders.

• Access Unapproved Work Orders lets you determine if the access group should see unapproved Work Orders. If not enabled, unapproved Work Orders will not show on any Work Order list.
• The Tab Access permissions allow you to hide tabs that are not used at your organization.
• The Filter permissions allow you to determine the filters that display on the Home Page for Members of the Access Group. All Access Groups have access to My Open Work Orders and My Completed Work Orders. For technicians, the permissions to access the All Closed and All Open filters are sometimes disabled, providing the technician with more concise access to the records most important to them.
• The Access Work Order Start/Stop Options provides Members of the Access Group with the ability to start a timer that opens a Work Order Labor record, which they can "stop" when their work is complete. The Edit/Stop In Progress WO Labor Records Started by Other Users permission is typically reserved for System Administrators, allowing them to stop a started Work Order Labor record that is preventing the Work Order from being completed (in the event the user forgot to stop the timer).
• The Edit Previous Entries on Labor Report permission lets you determine which Access Group should have permission to edit previously saved content on the Labor Report. Users without this permission enabled will only be able to add new entries to the Labor Report. Users with this permission enabled will also have the ability to edit previous content.

The following permissions affect the availability of pages and features for assets.

• The Tab Access permissions allow you to hide tabs that are not used at your organization.
• The Asset Task permission provides access to a feature that allows technicians to complete tasks for multiple Work Orders tied to the same Asset.

The following permissions affect the availability of pages and features for parts.

• The Tab Access permissions allow you to hide tabs that are not used at your organization.
• Part Utility permissions (Count, Adjust On Hand, Apply Counts, Transfer, Check Out, and Receive) have independent permissions in MC Express. The features and permissions do not completely align with the MRO-System permissions for similar features, so the permissions must be set independently.
• The permission to Add/Edit Part Location (Stock Room) Data is unique to MC Express. It provides additional control over which Access Groups can add Stock Rooms and edit attributes. This allows you to provide some users with the ability to edit general Part information, but not create (or modify) Stock Room records.

MC Express Preferences

MC Express has numerous preferences to allow you to tailor the user experience. This is especially valuable in MC Express where access is often from small devices that benefit from a more customized display. MC Express preferences are retrieved by selecting MC Express from the Module/Category folder on the left:

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Note: It should be noted that all MC Express Labor preferences (My Preferences) are available for the user to set directly from within MC Express using the Settings page.

MC Express Preferences are described in the segments that follow.

*Labor preference (My Preference) that is typically only set by the user within MC Express.

*Labor preference (My Preference) that is typically only set by the user within MC Express.

MC Express has an independent set of preferences that are appropriate to the user interface and capabilities of the new feature. That is, MC Express does not honor any existing Complete/Close OR ECC preferences. However, all Complete/Close functionality that is appropriate for MC Express has been incorporated, resulting in many preferences that are similar to those used in the MRO CC.

*Labor preference (My Preference) that is typically only set by the user within MC Express.

The majority of MRO preferences are designed to affect the user experience in the MRO/TWC. As such there are only a limited number of MRO Preferences (external to those tied to MC Express) that are honored. The following general preferences continue to be honored in MC Express. The two preferences highlighted in italics can be set directly from the MC Express Settings page:

• Work Order:
  • Default fields for new work orders
  • Use RC for WO Prefix
  • Approve/Issue work order on assignment
• System (Localization):
  • Currency
  • Date
  • Timezone
• Inventory
  • Part Checkout settings
  • Use Internal Part ID in lookups
  • Automatic Numbering
• Asset
  • Asset Hierarchical Order
  • Asset ID builder preferences

System Administration for MC Express Modules

The following information in regards to the Work Order Module may be helpful to System Administrators:

• Downtime: From the Work Order perspective, downtime can only be entered through the Status Update (Complete) process. It should be noted, however, that the Status Update Page does allow you to "keep the asset" down if it remains out of service. Assets can also, of course, be taken out of service from the Asset module using the Action Menu options to Remove from Service and Return to Service.
• Unapproved Work Orders: Consistent with the Main Application (MRO), users will be prohibited from taking action on an unapproved Work Order. Work Orders that are pending approval are marked as such on the Work Order Summary Tab. In MC Express, you can also set an Access Group permission to hide unapproved Work Orders from view.
• Grouped Work Orders:
  • Master Work Orders: For groups of Work Orders defined with a master/child relationship, only the Master Work Order is shown / accessible in MC Express. Upon work order close, all Work Orders in the group are updated and closed.
  • General Grouped Work Orders: MC Express does not provide any special functionality for groups of Work Orders that are not part of a master/child relationship. That is, each work order is accessible independently, but there is no group processing (such as Status Update).
• Rotating Parts: For customers that use rotating parts, MC Express includes enhanced capabilities to ensure the rotation is properly specified. The feature can be summarized as follows:
  • Rotating part fields will only show on the Work Order Part page if a Rotating Part has been selected from a Stock Room.
  • The interface ensures that the user can only rotate valid serialized parts and provides lookups and messaging to assist.
  • As with the Main Application (MRO), the user can enter a new serial number if a Part without a serial number if it is available from the Stock Room.
  • Inventory quantities for Rotating Parts are generally managed within the Asset Hierarchy to ensure that the proper record is moved or deleted. As such, users are prohibited from taking action that would reduce inventory for a Rotating Part (they cannot reduce on hand count or quantity, transfer, or checkout a rotating part).

Start/Stop Timer

The Start/Stop timer feature provides an expedient method for users to start and stop Work Order Labor records. Users can only have one Work Order started at a time, but multiple users can have a timer started on the same Work Order. Since a user can only have one Work Order started, it is important to ensure that started Work Order Labor records do not become inaccessible upon the close of the work Order (as the user will not have the ability to start another Work Order). The following is in effect to ensure that started Work Order labor records get properly closed out:

• Status Update: Users will not be able to complete Work Orders that another user has started. The user will be provided with the ID of any individual with a started Work Order Labor record. Users with permission, such as a System Administrator, can edit (and stop) a started Work Order Labor record to allow the Work Order to be completed or closed. This capability is important in the event a user starts a Work Order and then leaves for the day (or goes on vacation), forgetting to stop the timer.
• Complete/Close (Main Application): If a Work Order with a started Work Order Labor record is closed in the Main Application (MRO), the started record is stopped, marking the stopped time with the designated start time. This results in a zero hour Work Order Labor record.
• Deleted Work Order or Work Order Labor Record: If a Work Order or Work Order Labor record is deleted, any associated Start/Stop records are deleted as well.

The following information in regard to the Asset module may be helpful to System Administrators:

Viewing / Finding Assets

Asset can be viewed from two perspectives, the Asset Hierarchy and the Asset List. The Asset Hierarchy is virtually identical to the Asset Tree/Hierarchy in the Main Application (MRO). The Asset List, however, is somewhat unique to MC Express, providing a non-hierarchical alphabetical list of assets and the ability to filter/search for records as needed. It is most similar to the Expanded Asset Search in the Main Application (MRO). Repair Center and Shop filtering are handled a bit differently in the Asset List as described in Online Help.

You can easily switch between the Hierarchy and List View using the option on the grey header bar. It should be noted that the filter page is only accessible from the Asset List, as the hierarchy cannot be filtered:

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It should also be noted that the Asset Lookup defaults to the hierarchy, but can also be switched to a List View using the same icon.

Remove / Return to Service

Options to remove an Asset from service (and subsequently return) are available from the Action control on the grey header bar on the Asset Summary and Detail pages. There are two methods available to enter downtime, based on an Asset Downtime preference setting.

• Shutdown / Return to Service Date: If the preference is set to enter the Shutdown and Return to Service Dates, the elapsed time will be calculated and stored in the downtime record. This option mirrors the capability in the Main Application (MRO), although the downtime calculation is automated.
• Elapsed Time: If the preference is set to enter Elapsed Time, the user will have the ability to enter the amount of downtime, and the return to service date will be calculated for them. This is a unique option provided in MC Express.

Asset Task List

The Asset Task List is a feature that is unique to the MC mobile applications, allowing users to quickly mark Tasks as complete from multiple Work Orders associated with a particular Asset. There is a Preference available to determine if the feature should return only linked Tasks, Tasks directly tied to the Work Order's Asset, or both.

The following information in regard to the Inventory module and Part management features may be helpful to System Administrators:

Stock Rooms

• There are places in the MC Express user interface where a user must select a specific Repair Center when identifying a Part (places where an All Repair Centers filter cannot be supported). As such, it is important that customers ensure that Stock Rooms that are used by multiple Repair Centers are NOT tied to a specific Repair Center. In the Main Application (MRO), this does not create an issue because the All Repair Centers filter is always available (meaning the user can bypass a Repair Center filter that does not make sense). To ensure that Stock Room relationships are logical:
  • Access each Stock Room and verify that Stock Rooms with a designated Repair Center are not used by more than one Repair Center. If a Stock Room is shared by multiple Repair Centers, it should have no Repair Center listed.
  • Access each Repair Center and verify that the Repair Center's default Stock Room is either tied to that Repair Center or has no Repair Center listed.
• It should also be noted that MC Express often displays Stock Room names without the ID showing. As such, it is important that Stock Room names are unique so that users can distinguish them when looking at Stock Rooms from all Repair Centers (such as in the Part lookup).
• Default Stock Room: MC Express uses a default Stock Room Preference set at the user level (My Preference) that sets the default Stock Room for adding a Part or performing a Part utility (count, transfer, etc.). This can be set by the user in MC Express (Settings Page) or in the Main Application (MRO).
• Internal Part Number: MC Express honors the Inventory Module preference to Display Internal ID instead of Part ID. If this setting is turned on, MC Express will only show Parts that have a valid internal Part number. If Parts are not showing in MC Express, you must go into the Main Application (MRO) and assign a proper Internal Part Number.

Note: It should be noted that if you have enabled the Internal Part Number preference for MC Express, you should make sure you use the Forms Manager to set the Internal Part Number field as a required field.

Part Checkout

MC Express includes a Part Checkout feature that allows users to check out Parts from the perspective of the Part and tie them to a Work Order to ensure proper costing. The MC Express Part Checkout feature was designed to be consistent with a Main Application (MRO) feature. As such, all Cloud Hosted customers and all On Premise customers implementing MC Express will find that they have a Multiple Part Checkout feature available, carried over from the from the Main Application (MRO).

It should be noted that the features use the same Preferences that can be found in the Inventory module of the Main Application (MRO). There are independent permissions now available to enable the feature (MC Express permission for MC Express; System permission for the Main Application).