Maximo is a powerhouse when it comes to asset management. It’s robust and capable of handling complex maintenance environments. But let’s be honest — when it comes to maintenance scheduling, it often feels too complicated, is very slow, and requires so many clicks.
This is why planners and schedulers complain when managing schedules in Maximo. Inevitably, many teams turn to spreadsheets or other workarounds to get the job done. And while those quick fixes might work in the moment, they come at the cost of speed, visibility, and confidence in the schedule.
If you’ve ever felt like Maximo makes scheduling harder than it needs to be, there is a simple solution — a Maximo scheduling bolt-on called Sockeye. It will help you maximize the value you get from using Maximo.
The scheduling struggle in Maximo
Even for experienced Maximo users, maintenance scheduling can feel more of a chore than it should. Here are the most common challenges we hear.
Complexity of creating and adjusting schedules in Maximo
Maximo can do a lot — but that robust functionality inevitably comes with complexity. Setting up a schedule often means navigating multiple screens, digging into configuration settings, and double-checking dependencies. Making a simple change shouldn’t feel like defusing a bomb.
Lack of intuitive, visual tools
Planners, schedulers, and supervisors work best when they can see what’s happening. Unfortunately, Maximo doesn’t offer a great way to visualize and manage schedules. Instead, you’re mainly stuck with lists and tables — hardly ideal when you’re trying to spot gaps, balance workloads between crews, or juggle maintenance priorities on the fly.
Difficulty making real-time adjustments to labor and tasks
Plans change. People call in sick. A conveyor line breaks down. But in Maximo, reacting to change can be slow and frustrating. Shifting labor assignments or reordering work often means going back to square one, which eats up valuable time and slows down your entire team.
Takes ages to train new employees
Over time, Maximo’s user interface changed its look a few times, and the system was upgraded with new features. However, now that Maximo has hundreds of functions, only a very experienced user can understand how they all interact with each other.
All of this makes training new schedulers a project in itself. It takes 3 days of hands-on training to teach people just the basics of Maximo’s scheduling module — and months of use until they really get a good handle on it. Most teams just give up and go back to Excel before that happens.
Compare that to scheduling in Sockeye, where schedulers can learn all of its main functions in a single one-hour training session.
The cost of inefficiency: missed PMs, overtime, and frustrated teams
When scheduling is clunky, the impact ripples across your operation:
- Preventive maintenance gets skipped.
- Overtime creeps up.
- Your maintenance backlog keeps growing.
- Planners and schedulers feel like they’re always playing catch-up.
- Technicians and contractors don’t always have the right info at the right time.
These hidden costs add up fast.
What Sockeye adds to Maximo
Sockeye is a bolt-on solution built specifically to make Maximo scheduling easier, faster, and more flexible. It doesn’t replace Maximo or ask you to change how you manage assets. Instead, it works alongside it — pulling in the data you already rely on and giving your scheduling team a simpler, more powerful, and more visual way to work with it.
You don’t need to overhaul your processes or spend weeks training. Sockeye is designed to slot right into your existing setup and start delivering value almost immediately. It is a simple way to maximize your Maximo investment.
Here’s what it brings to the table:
- Simple scheduling interface: Say goodbye to spreadsheets, tabs, and dropdown-heavy forms. Sockeye gives you a clean interface where you can find work orders, schedule jobs, assign labor, and balance workloads between teams in just a few clicks — using our powerful automation.
- Labor availability dashboard: Sockeye can pull this data from your HR software, or use your shift patterns. If a technician is sick, you can update their availability in a couple of clicks. This helps teams schedule more work while avoiding overtime.
- Real-time adjustments: When plans change, Sockeye makes it super easy to adapt. Using a simple drag-and-drop function, you can reassign tasks, move work orders, and shift crews on the fly — without breaking your schedule or losing track of anything.
- What-if planning: Need to test out a few different scheduling scenarios before committing? Sockeye lets you explore options safely, so you can plan confidently without accidentally overwriting your Maximo data.
- Rapid adoption: Sockeye is so easy to use that it only takes about one hour of training! Depending on the type of integration you choose, the whole implementation can be done in under two weeks.
The result? More completed work orders, fewer gaps and delays, and less stress. You’ll spend less time fighting your scheduling tool and more time getting work done.
Make Maximo work smarter
Sockeye helps you get more out of Maximo — it makes scheduling easier, more responsive to change, and far more intuitive for the people who rely on it daily.
There’s no rip-and-replace, no long implementation process, and no need to rebuild your workflows from scratch. If you’re still juggling spreadsheets, stuck in endless schedule tweaks, or feeling limited by Maximo’s native tools, it’s time to explore a smarter way forward.
Book a quick demo with our team to see how we help free Maximo users from their scheduling headaches.
