1. Using Maintenance
  2. How You Manage an Asset Logical Hierarchy

How You Manage an Asset Logical Hierarchy

Logical hierarchies help you group assets that operate in the same or even across different inventory organizations. You can use your hierarchies to model a plant, production line, vehicle fleet, customer, or location. When created, you can easily search for, interact with, and manage your related assets.

Logical hierarchies can also be used to model asset routes. Asset routes allow you to centrally plan, execute and record maintenance for a collection of assets using a single work order. Asset routes are useful for repetitive or routine maintenance such as inspections or preventative maintenance, eliminating the overhead of creating multiple work orders for the same activity.

Logical Hierarchy Name

To start, create a new logical hierarchy by name using the Create Logical Hierarchy page. The name will be the top-level node of the logical hierarchy under which assets and their levels will be defined using the Hierarchy Navigator page. You can disable a logical hierarchy name, then you can't edit it any longer.
Field Description
Name Name of the logical hierarchy.
Note: It's recommended that you give a unique name to each logical hierarchy for clarity and better searchability.
Code Unique code for the logical hierarchy.
Description Optional description for a logical hierarchy.
Disabled Checkbox option to disable a hierarchy. If set to Yes, the hierarchy can’t be edited to add or remove child assets; it won't be considered for an asset route as well.
Asset Route

Optional field to enable a hierarchy as an asset route.

  • If set to Yes, the hierarchy can be used to model an asset route and is searchable in a work requirement.
  • If set to No, the hierarchy isn't an asset route and won’t be available in a work requirement.
Work Order Asset Route Required if a hierarchy is enabled as an asset route. Select a maintainable asset that represents an activity or a physical location such as a plant, building, floor, or a production line. This asset is forecasted by a preventative maintenance program and used to create maintenance work orders.
Allow Skip

Optional checkbox that indicates if a supervisor can indicate or technician can report assets as being skipped and not requiring completion during reporting in a work order.

  • If set to Yes, assets can be reported as skipped, regardless of the reporting option below.
  • If set to No, assets can’t be reported as skipped. You must follow the reporting option below.
Reporting

Required if a hierarchy is identified as an asset route. The reporting option indicates if each asset requires reporting to complete a work order:

  • Automatically (default): Reporting for each asset is optional. Assets in pending status are automatically reported as completed after work order completion.
  • Manually: Reporting for each asset is required. Assets in pending status must be set to completed or skipped. You can't complete a work order until all assets are reported.

Hierarchy Definition

Using the Hierarchy Navigator page, you can search and associate assets at different levels in the hierarchy.

You can only associate to a hierarchy if:

  • They're not already associated to the same logical hierarchy name.

  • They're not at a child position in an existing asset physical hierarchy. Only the topmost parent of a physical hierarchy can be associated to a logical hierarchy position.

  • They're in a physical hierarchy of assets, but they're the topmost asset parent.

Logical hierarchies can contain a mix of enterprise and customer assets, depending on your user role and privilege.

You can move and rearrange logical assets within the hierarchy by updating their parent and child positions using the action buttons. If you associate an asset that's the topmost parent of a physical hierarchy, you can view the children in the Hierarchy Navigator as well. However, you can't edit these physical hierarchy relationships.

When defining an asset route, the collection of included assets must be added only at the first child level under the hierarchy’s name. Else, they won't be included for reporting in the resulting work orders.

When an asset is associated to the hierarchy, you can click on the asset number hyperlink to navigate to the Edit Asset page. You can view and edit the asset details based on your user role and privileges.

You can also search for any asset in the hierarchy by its attributes, both logical and physical, using multiple search criteria. Search matches are identified to the user using a count of matching results, as well as displaying a push pin icon at the matching hierarchy level.

For each asset level in a hierarchy, there may be icons displayed to indicate if an asset has related maintenance work orders or a maintenance program. Click the icon to navigate to these respective objects in the context of the asset.

Use the new Create Order button on the navigator header to create a work order for the selected asset. Select an asset row in the hierarchy and click the button. This opens a Create Maintenance Work Order dialog box, where you can enter the details for the work order. The asset field is filled by default with the value of the selected asset row. After you enter other details for the work order in the dialog box, you have two options:

  • Save and Close: Use this button on the Create Maintenance Work Order dialog box to return to the Hierarchy Navigator page. When you refresh this page, you'll see a new Review Work Order icon in the work order column for the context asset. Click the icon to go to the Manage Work Orders page that displays a list of orders in Unreleased and Released statuses

  • Save and Edit: Use this button to go to the Edit Work Order page for the newly created work order. You can update your work order as you like, and even release it. Click the Save and Close button or the Cancel button to return to the Hierarchy Navigator page.

Managing Hierarchies Using Rest API

You can also create logical hierarchy names using the new Asset Logical Hierarchies REST API. When created, assets can be associated or removed from a hierarchy using a new Asset Logical Hierarchy Relationships REST API. This is helpful in creating logical hierarchies for large numbers of assets at different levels.

You can create logical hierarchy relationships by passing object and subject identifiers or by passing object and subject asset numbers. You can create relationships for an asset directly under the hierarchy name node and then create asset to asset relationships as needed. Additional documentation is found in the REST API documentation.

Update Hierarchy on the Oracle Visual Builder Studio Spreadsheet Using REST API

Using the Oracle Visual Builder Studio spreadsheet, you can add a new hierarchy name, associate an existing asset to a hierarchy name, and add a child asset to an existing parent asset's root node in a logical hierarchy name. You can also add an existing asset to a hierarchy name or update the position of an asset within a hierarchy through the Asset Logical Hierarchy Relationships REST resource. This REST resource communicates with Oracle Visual Builder Studio to show asset logical hierarchy data in the Oracle Visual Builder spreadsheet.

These are the attributes you can update on the Oracle Visual Builder spreadsheet:

  • Object Type
  • Object Id
    • This value can be derived from the Object Hierarchy Code and the Object Asset Number
  • Object Hierarchy Code
  • Object Asset Number
  • Position Number

Here are some examples of updates you can make. Assume you have 6 assets from A to F. Asset B and C are child assets of Asset A and Asset E and F are child assets of Asset D. Let's see the cases of switching positions among these assets and also rearranging their hierarchies:

1. Switch the position of Asset A to the position of Asset E by updating the Asset Number

Hierarchy Name: Building 200

Asset Number Position Number
  • Asset A
    • Asset B
    • Asset C
  • No position
    • 1.0
    • 2.0
  • Asset D
    • Asset E
    • Asset F
  • 3.0
    • No position
    • No position

2. Change Asset E's position to have this layout

Hierarchy Name: Building 200

Asset Number Position Number
  • Asset E
    • Asset F
  • No position
    • No position
  • Asset A
    • Asset B
    • Asset C
    • Asset D
  • No position
    • 1.0
    • 2.0
    • 3.0

3. Change the positions of Assets B, C, and D by updating the corresponding position number

In this scenario, Asset C's position is changed to 1.0, Asset D's position is changed to 2.0, and Asset B's position is changed to 3.0.

Hierarchy Name: Building 200

Building 200 Position Number
  • Asset E
    • Asset F
  • No position
    • No position
  • Asset A
    • Asset C
    • Asset D
    • Asset B
  • No position
    • 1.0
    • 2.0
    • 3.0

4. Make Asset A a child of Asset F, rather than a child of Building 200, by updating Asset A's object hierarchy code

Hierarchy Name: Building 200

Building 200 Position Number
  • Asset E
    • Asset F
      • Asset A
        • Asset C
        • Asset D
        • Asset B
  • No position
    • No position
      • No position
        • 1.0
        • 2.0
        • 3.0