AppPoints in practice: installs, custom apps and watching the pool

Part 5a counted the people. But when a licence manager gets a surprise, it’s rarely a person. It’s an install nobody priced, a custom application nobody entitled, or an integration nobody counted.

A quick recap from part 5a: you buy one pool of AppPoints for the whole suite. Authorized users hold their points all the time, and concurrent users borrow them while they’re logged in, from 0 to 15 points a user depending on their tier. This part covers everything else that draws on the pool, and how to keep an eye on it.

1. Custom and cloned applications

Most 7.6 systems have a few applications of their own. MAS 9.2 treats the two kinds differently:

• Cloned applications, copied from an IBM application in Application Designer (or duplicated in Maximo Application Framework configuration), inherit their licensing from the original automatically. Anyone given access needs at least the same level of access as they’d need in the original.
• Custom applications, built from scratch or changed so much that they no longer match their source, don’t. You add their entitlement in Suite → Access and usage → Security groups → System actions → Cloned and custom applications: choose the application, the suite application it belongs to, its module, and the access each tier gets (no access, read-only, read and save, or full).

Until you do, a custom application won’t appear in security groups at all. The three-module rule applies to these applications too, and IBM’s guidance is blunt: custom or cloned applications mustn’t be used to get round licensing. See IBM’s steps for adding entitlement.

2. Installs, the AI service, and the users you might not count

Some components take points as soon as they’re deployed in production, and hold them for as long as that environment runs. They’re gone from the pool before anyone logs in.

Non-production is free, with a catch. A development or test install costs nothing, as long as the same component is also installed in production. Administrators and developers who use those environments still need licences.

Maximo Optimizer is the biggest install on the list. In 7.6, schedule optimization was a separately bought add-on, Maximo Scheduler Optimization, so many teams never had it. In MAS it’s Maximo Optimizer, deployed from the suite catalog. Maximo Scheduler uses it to run optimization models against a scheduling scenario, so planners can compare what-ifs before committing:

• Longer-term plans: resource leveling (no idle or over-booked crafts), capacity planning (how much work fits in the period, and whether you need more people) and maintenance scheduling (the critical path for complex jobs, within resource limits).
• Short-term dispatch: labor and crew assignment by availability and skills, and spatial scheduling, which assigns work by location and builds efficient routes.

Full Optimizer takes 220 AppPoints. Optimizer Limited takes 60, but is restricted to 2 VPCs, a single optimization model and one job at a time. And Maximo Asset Investment Planning (200 points) needs Optimizer too. So before you install it, decide which models you’ll actually run.

The AI service is metered. MAS 9.2’s AI features, such as the Maximo AI assistant, problem code recommendations and similar work orders, run on the AI service. It’s charged by the content tokens those features use each month: 1 billion tokens a month costs 10 AppPoints. A limited-use watsonx.ai licence is included, and from 9.2 its AppPoints show on the licensing dashboards. IBM’s AI service page lists the features.

Users you might not count. Licences follow people, not screens:

• Anyone who updates Maximo’s records through another system, such as a third-party mobile app, an email approval or a custom web page, needs a licence, where Maximo is the system of record for that data.
• The reverse is free: data fed in from a system that owns it, such as HR, ERP or SCADA, and reports or data extracts that people only read.
• The integration framework’s own admin user doesn’t need a licence, and neither do the Maximo Mobile template user or performance-test users (with enforcement off).

3. Watching the pool

MAS 9.2 has a new AppPoints Usage dashboard: Suite → Administration → AppPoints Usage. Administrators and user managers see it automatically; anyone else, such as a licence manager, needs the LICENSEUSAGE security group.

On a customer-managed system it shows real-time and historical use, broken down by application and user type, and it’s also where you set the consumption controls:

• Idle timeout. A concurrent user who closes the browser without logging out keeps their points until the session times out, typically after 30 minutes. At a shift change that can leave the next shift waiting. A shorter timeout returns points sooner.
• Compliance enforcement on. When the pool runs dry, the next concurrent user can’t log in until someone logs out. You never exceed what you’ve paid for, but people get blocked, usually at the worst moment.
• Compliance enforcement off. Everyone gets in, and the peak is recorded. Nobody is blocked, but the overage is there in the figures for the next conversation with IBM.

Two details from that page. The access denial message can be edited, so you can tell people who to call. And if several MAS instances share the same IBM Suite License Service, the enforcement setting applies to all of them.

A monthly check that takes ten minutes: look at the peak and when it happened, compare authorized users with the people who actually logged in, and look for users whose tier rose because of a security group change.

4. Five ways to stop wasting points

1. Make only the all-day users authorized. Put people who dip in on concurrent, and check the peak before you decide.
2. Keep requesters on Self-Service. Raising and tracking requests costs nothing. Don’t let a stray security group lift them to Limited.
3. Design Limited users’ groups around three modules. One extra module with edit rights makes them Base, at 50% more points authorized and double concurrent.
4. Switch leavers off. As part 4 showed, account status can deactivate a user on a date or after days without use. An authorized leaver still holds their points.
5. Look for licensed users you haven’t counted. Integrations, email approvals and third-party apps that update Maximo’s records all need licences.

If you remember one thing

The pool pays for more than people. Installs take their points before anyone logs in, custom applications need entitlement before anyone can use them, and integrations that update Maximo need licences. Check the peak on the AppPoints Usage dashboard every month, and the pool you buy is the pool you need.

What’s next

Part 6 covers the move from Maximo Anywhere to Maximo Mobile: what replaced Anywhere, one technician’s first morning on a phone, working without a signal, and what to plan before cutover. You can see all the parts of the series, and what’s coming, on the series page.