Product · Intelligence
Five questions a Maximo operator asks before they trust an answer.
Assist answers inside IBM Maximo on the record already open, from procedures your team wrote, within that user's own permissions. It prepares a change and shows every value beside its source; the person named on the record commits it.
What an answer is bounded by
- The application and record the user already has open
- The permissions that user already holds in IBM Maximo
- The procedures, policies and reference data your team exposes
Read and write boundaries
What Assist can see, and what it is allowed to write
What it can see
- The record in view
- The application and record already open, so the user restates nothing.
- Your configuration
- Maximo objects, domains, statuses and reference data as configured on your estate.
- Your procedures
- The written procedures your team exposes to it, held per site.
- The account
- The signed-in user's own permissions. Assist holds no elevated account.
What it can write
- On request
- Explanations, and opening the right application at the right record.
- Prepared
- A transaction filled from the procedure, every value shown beside its source.
- Committed
- Only after the user confirms on screen, under that user.
- Declined
- Where a procedure is silent, Assist names the owning team.
Live where adoption, mobile field use and support cost matter: user-facing half of the MaxIron intelligence layer alongside AI Smart Data; pairs with business process optimisation when procedure is reworked.
The five questions
Each one comes from somebody who can stop the pilot
Assist earns its place on the task done twice a year: a year-end rollover, a rotable return, a warranty claim.
- 01
“Where did that answer come from?”
Asked by: The application owner
- The mechanism
- Assist starts from the record already open and answers from your Maximo configuration, reference data and written procedures, naming the steps in your own sequence. Two sites with different stores sequences get two different answers.
- What we concede
- An answer is only as current as the procedure behind it. A document untouched for four years yields a four-year-old answer, and Assist cannot detect drift from what your best people do in practice.
- 02
“What happens when it is wrong?”
Asked by: The supervisor whose name goes on the record
- The mechanism
- Anything that would change a record is prepared, shown with its values and their sources, and committed only when the user confirms on screen. The change lands under their user, with the proposal and the confirmation retained.
- What we concede
- Confirmation is the control, and a control needs somebody to read the screen. A wrong answer confirmed in a rush produces a wrong record with a real name on it.
- 03
“Does it see data I am not cleared to see?”
Asked by: The security lead, and this is the question that stops pilots
- The mechanism
- Assist holds no elevated account. Where the signed-in user cannot open a record, the answer cannot use it, and the reply names who is authorised instead.
- What we concede
- It inherits your security groups, gaps included. Unclear groups surface in the first fortnight, and tidying them is configuration work your team owns.
- 04
“What stops it inventing an answer?”
Asked by: Whoever will own the first bad record
- The mechanism
- Where your procedure is silent, Assist says so and names the owning team. Platform faults, data problems, access requests and broken integrations are routed to a ticket rather than attempted.
- What we concede
- A refusal is a referral rather than an answer, and the fix is writing the procedure down.
- 05
“What does rollout cost us before it pays anything back?”
Asked by: The programme manager holding the budget
- The mechanism
- Writing the first ten to fifteen infrequent procedures properly, and tidying the security groups they depend on. Both belong to your team, and together they are the longest part of a rollout.
- What we concede
- The business case sits on infrequent work only. A planner raising fifteen work orders a shift needs no help, and Assist stays out of that user's way.
The write path
Three gates between a question and a changed record
The third gate is a person, and no configuration setting removes it.
-
Gate 1 Read
Signed by Nobody. Reading runs on request.
Passes
Explain the sequence from your procedure, and open the right application at the right record.
Held back
Anything the signed-in user cannot already open.
-
Gate 2 Prepare
Signed by Nobody yet. The record is unchanged.
Passes
Fill a transaction from the procedure, each value beside its source.
Held back
Committing it, or filling a field the procedure omits.
-
Gate 3 Confirm
Signed by The signed-in user. Proposal and confirmation retained.
Passes
The user checks the values, corrects what is wrong, and commits.
Held back
Any path that commits without that confirmation.
The boundary, in one line
Assist reads within one user's permissions and writes only what that user has confirmed on screen.
Every interaction records under that user, inside your boundary. The controls are set out in enterprise AI governance.
Boundaries
Three limits that decide whether Assist pays back
Two of the three are work your own team does before the software matters.
It is bounded by what is written down
A convention held in one person's head leaves nothing to ground on, so Assist declines. Writing the first procedures is your team's work, often alongside business process optimisation.
It inherits your security model
Assist reads inside the signed-in user's groups. Where a group is loose, that user's answers are loose with it, and tightening it is configuration work.
It is for infrequent work
The return sits on tasks performed fewer than six times a year, where finding out takes longer than doing. Daily work is muscle memory.
MaxIron Assist, frequently asked questions
- What does MaxIron Assist do?
- It answers a Maximo user's question in the application they are already in: data on the record in view, the procedure for the task, and navigation to the right screen. Guidance questions stop becoming service desk tickets.
- Can Assist change a Maximo record on a user's behalf?
- Only after that user confirms on screen, inside the permissions they already hold. Assist prepares the transaction and shows every value with its source; the person commits it under their own user.
- What happens when a procedure does not exist in writing?
- Assist says it has nothing to ground on and names the owning team. Rollout usually begins by writing ten to fifteen infrequent procedures properly, which is your team's work.
- Is our data sent outside our boundary?
- The default deployment keeps interactions inside your boundary and auditable. Data flow is reviewed and agreed before the engagement starts. See enterprise AI governance.
- How does this differ from MaxIron AI Crew and AI Smart Data?
- Assist advises one user in context. AI Crew executes multi-role work in IBM MAS Manage behind approval gates. AI Smart Data serves the data team on bulk records.
MaxIron products
MaxIron products that work alongside this
Bring three tasks your users get stuck on.
Three tasks performed fewer than six times a year. For each we show what Assist would read, what it would prepare, and where your person confirms.
Bring this to the first call
- Three infrequent tasks that generate a phone call
- The written procedure for one of them, in whatever state it is in
- The security group a typical stuck user sits in
- Last month's service desk log, filtered to questions rather than faults