There is already a guide to import failure codes with Maximo 6 and MEA but it seems as though this guide isn’t really useful for Maximo 7 and the Integration Framework.  Initially, I thought it the guide provided by IBM for Maximo 6 would of been enough, but when I tried to create an import for Maximo 7, I realized that guide was all wrong.  I guess that was my mistake for not looking into the guide completely.  So here is my method of importing failure codes into Maximo 7

The first thing to do is to create a new Object Structure.  Let’s call it “MXFAILURELIST’ and set the ‘Consumed By’ to ‘INTEGRATION’.  We also want to check the ‘Support Flat Structure’ because I will be importing this through a CSV or DAT file.  Next we will want to add some objects to this structure.  Now this is where the IBM guide for Maximo 6 differs.  The first object we want to add is ‘FAILURELIST’.  The second object we will add is ‘FAILURECODE’.  Set the parent to ‘FAILURELIST’ and the relationship to ‘FAILURECODE’.  If you save, you will now notice that the ‘Alias Conflict’ is now checked.  So we have to fix that before we proceed.  Go to Select Action -> Add/Modify Alias.  You will see that the FAILURECODE for the FAILURELIST object is a duplicate, so let’s rename this alias name to ‘FL_FAILURECODE’.  We prefixed it with ‘FL’ to know that it belongs to the FAILURELIST object.  Click OK and save.

Next, we want to create a Publish Channel for this object.  Create a new one and call it ‘MXFAILURELISTInterface’.  Set the object structure to the one above and save.  This publish channel will be used to export data to a DAT file so we have a format to work with.  Now let’s create an Enterprise Service.  Create a new one and call it ‘MXFAILURELISTInterface’.  Set the object structure to the one above and save.  Now since this is the import interface, we want to turn on message tracking so go to Select Action -> Message Tracking and check the appropriate box.

Now, I will already assume that you have your external system setup and properly running so I won’t go into details on setting that up.  I do want to mention that you will have to setup your MIF global directory in order to export data.  You can look at this tutorial if you haven’t done that already.  So open your external system and click on the Publish Channel tab.  Add the ‘MXFAILURELISTInterface’ we created earlier and enable it.  Set the end point to ‘MXFLATFILE’.  Now click the export data button and go check your MIF global directory for the DAT file it created.

This file it created will be used as our template to import data.  So here you can add as many failure codes as needed.  Here is a sample of what my import file looks like with one record:

EXTIMPORT,MXFAILURELISTInterface,AddChange,EN
FL_FAILURECODE,FAILURELIST,ORGID,PARENT,TYPE,DESCRIPTION,FAILURECODE,FAILURECODEID
TESTCODE,,BEDFORD,,,DESCRIPTION OF CODE,TESTCODE,

One important thing to note here is that I added the ‘AddChange’ property to the first line.  Now go into your external system, and add the ‘MXFAILURELISTInterface’ and enable it.  Now click the data import and select the DAT file with all your failure codes.