The machine hours feature records the meter reading for a device, or Spot. Enter the total reading on the physical meter, not the hours accumulated since the previous entry. A Spot can have maintenance rules based on machine hours, so changing the reading can also affect maintenance tasks.
Enable the feature for a Spot
You need permission to edit the Spot. Enabling the feature and correcting a reading that is too high are done in the browser.
- Open Assets and content > Assets, devices, tools and select Default table.
- Find the device and open the Spot by clicking its name link.
- Open the Basic info tab. Select Hourly maintenance in use under Running machine hours, if the option is editable.
- Check the meter reading and select Save at the bottom of the form. For a new Spot, the reading defaults to 0 if no reading is entered. A normal save does not accept a reading lower than the previous one.
- Reopen the Spot and check that the feature is enabled and the reading is correct.
Enabling the feature alone does not configure maintenance rules. Configure them separately if you want maintenance based on machine hours: creating an hourly maintenance template.
Shared folder setting
The feature can also be controlled through a folder setting. You need permission to edit that folder.
- Open Assets and content > Folder tree.
- Open the folder by clicking its name link and select the Settings tab.
- Change the Hourly maintenance in use option and select Save at the bottom of the form.
When the setting is enabled for a folder, it cannot be disabled for an individual Spot. Changing the folder setting updates the settings of the Spots directly within that folder in the background. The change does not update all devices throughout the subfolder tree. Wait for processing and reopen the affected Spots to check the result.
Disabling the folder setting also disables the feature for its direct Spots, even if the feature was previously enabled separately for a Spot. Check with your administrator whether the same setting is intended for all these Spots. Do not change the folder setting just to correct a single entry error.
Normal reading updates and mobile apps
Normal new, higher readings are entered in the Running machine hours field. See updating the running machine hours reading.
On Android and iOS, this information appears in the Spot details as Machine Hours. Normal reading updates in both mobile apps accept only a value higher than the current one. An equal or lower reading is not accepted, even though the Android error message also mentions an equal value. To correct a reading that is too high, use the separate browser function.
Correct a reading that is too high
Resetting requires permission to edit the Spot's folder. Permission to edit the Spot's details alone is not enough. The Reset machine hours button appears on the Basic info tab next to the Running machine hours field when the machine hours feature is enabled and you have permission to edit the folder.
Before confirming, find out what has been recorded on the maintenance tasks created using the incorrect reading. The correction may delete unfinished tasks and their data.
- Check the correct total reading on the physical meter. Open the Spot using the browser path described above.
- Select Reset machine hours.
- Read the deletion warning and enter a corrected reading lower than the current one. Confirm by selecting OK.
- Wait for background processing and reopen the Spot. The message The operation is performed in the background, this may take a while means that the request has been accepted, not that processing is complete.
- Check the current reading and reading history. Open the history using the history icon next to the reading field's label, which is the left-hand icon of the two.
- On the Tasks tab, check the remaining tasks and any tasks that may have been created. Also check the rules' Last value values under Rules for hours based maintenance on the Basic info tab.
The reset field does not accept zero as the corrected reading in this function. If the meter has been replaced or the correct starting reading is zero, check the procedure with your administrator. If the corrected reading does not appear after reopening the Spot, check the processing status before trying again.
What does the correction change?
The correction saves a new reading for the Spot. Previous reading history entries remain, including the incorrect high reading. When the machine hours feature is enabled, the corrected reading is recorded as a new history entry unless the latest history entry already contains the same reading.
The correction deletes tasks linked to an hourly maintenance rule that are not in the Completed status and whose meter reading at creation exceeds the corrected reading. The deciding value is the reading saved when the task was created, not the task's due date or a machine hours reading recorded on the task later. Tasks in In Review and On Hold are also included in this scope. Completed tasks and tasks that are not linked to an hourly maintenance rule are retained.
For example, correcting the reading from 1,500 hours to 1,200 hours deletes an unfinished rule-based task created at a reading of 1,500. A task created at a reading of 1,200 is not deleted based on this threshold, and a completed task created at a reading of 1,500 is not deleted.
This deletes tasks; it does not mark them as completed. Deleting a task also deletes its comments, attachments, form sections and their data, time entries, product entries, and travel expense entries other than personal travel expense entries. Personal travel expense entries are not deleted during this processing. The deletions affect reporting based on this data. Deleting a task linked to a contract is blocked, so check after processing which tasks were actually deleted.
The maintenance rules' last processed readings are also updated based on the machine hours recorded on the remaining tasks. If no tasks remain for a rule, its processed reading is not changed. The correction does not guarantee that all rules' processed readings will be restored to the correct values, so check the values, especially when the Spot has multiple rules. The correction does not mean that physical maintenance has been performed.
The corrected reading triggers another check of the maintenance rules. Depending on the rules' settings and the remaining tasks, new tasks or email notifications may be created. Therefore, also check the tasks after the correction.
Disable the machine hours feature
On the Spot's Basic info tab, clear Hourly maintenance in use and select Save. If the feature is enabled through the folder, make the change using the folder settings path described above; it applies to the folder's direct Spots.
Disabling is blocked if the Spot has tasks linked to an hourly maintenance rule in any status other than Completed. This applies to Planning, Open, Overdue, In Progress, In Review and On Hold. Disabling the folder setting is blocked if any of its direct Spots has such tasks. Investigate and handle the tasks before changing the setting.
Successfully disabling the feature removes the hourly maintenance rules linked to the Spot. Completed tasks remain, but their link to the removed Spot maintenance rule is broken. The Spot's meter reading and previous reading history are not reset. Enabling the feature again later does not restore the removed rule links: they must be configured again. Disabling the feature is therefore not simply a temporary pause in maintenance or a correction of an incorrect reading.
Reopen the Spot after processing and check the feature setting, maintenance rules and retained tasks.
Distinguish machine hours from Usability monitoring
Reset machine hours corrects the meter reading. Usability monitoring is based on separate usage schedules and the Spot's status history. Its reset function should not be used to delete machine hours history or assumed to be a reliable way to clear status history. The implementation of the Usability monitoring reset contains an inconsistency between the history data being processed.
See the meanings of the utilization rates and the calculation limitations in viewing a Spot's utilization rate.