Maximo Works: MXDIFF & MXAPPLY tools to update application screen presentation

Thursday, November 5, 2020

MXDIFF & MXAPPLY tools to update application screen presentation

As DevOps practices have evolved in recent years in many organizations, we plan to apply screen changes in Maximo applications using a .mxs file.

.mxs files - files used for applying screen (or application or presentation) changes in Maximo.

mxdiff tool - The out of box comparison utility used to generate a differential transactional output file between existing presentation and new presentation changes(add/remove/modify/move).

parameters

-b: Existing version baseline file or individual presentation file.

This file is the consolidated single file for all presentation xml in a Maximo version

-f: (optional) baseline file is available in this path maximo\tools\maximo\screen-upgrade\basexxx.xml

-m: New version of baseline file or modified individual presentation file.

-t: output file with differential changes between existing & new file of .mxs extension

In our example, we choose an individual presentation file instead of complete presentation set as baseline.xml

poc\base\inventor.xml is the existing Inventory application presentation file.

poc\inventor.xml is the modified Inventory file with screen changes

Run mxdiff.bat file against these two files to generate a transactional file.

mxdiff.bat -bC:\Users\surendar\Desktop\poc\base\inventor.xml -mC:\Users\surendar\Desktop\poc\inventor.xml -tC:\Users\surendar\Desktop\poc\testapp.mxs

It generates testapp.mxs file with a differential content - removal of a tag from Inventory List tab.

mxapply.bat in maximo\tools\maximo\screen-upgrade path or runscriptfile.bat file in tools\maximo\en\script path can be used to apply the changes to Maximo system using .mxs file

i) mxapply.bat - Utility to apply screen upgrade changes.

mxapply.bat -tC:\Users\surendar\Desktop\poc\testapp.mxs