More and more organizations are moving their ERP services into the Infor Cloud each day. Join us for a discussion about how a managed service provider can be an invaluable resource when you move to the cloud.

Functional Assistance

A good Managed Service Provider will not only understand the “back-end” of Infor products, but they will also offer strong resources who can provide “front-end” functional assistance.  Infor’s Cloud Suite applications are quite robust, and as a result they can be quite complex.  Having an MSP on your team can give your users the comfort of knowing that answers to their functional questions are just a phone call away.  Additionally, Nogalis makes it our business to know your business.  We take the time to understand all your organization processes, and we will even make process improvement recommendations.  We have deep knowledge of the Infor applications in addition to knowledge of the business needs, so we are in a unique position to make these recommendations.

Front-line Support (break-fix)

Infor’s support service is quite responsive and knowledgeable about the Infor products.  However, it is still good to have someone who can bridge the gap between the applications and your organization.  A Managed Service Provider should make it their business to know your business.  That way, if an issue arises, they can be the one to initiate and assist with support calls to Infor.  They will be in the best position to explain the issues and work with Infor toward a solution.

Security

Infor delivers basic security roles with all of their Cloud Suite products.  The setup for these roles is maintained in the Landmark Configuration Console, which uses Infor’s proprietary language called “Landmark Pattern Language” (lpl).  It can be cumbersome to have your in-house IT learn this new language.  On top of learning the new language, they would also need to learn the ins and outs of each application in order to be able to properly create/modify security classes.  The security setup can get very granular, down to the field level.  An Infor Partner will already have the expertise available to create an maintain custom security.  They will also be able to better interpret the delivered security rules so that they can work with you to ensure that users are only seeing what they need to see.  An MSP should also offer robust security reporting, and assist you with keeping your security rules in line with your Infor licensing.

Monitoring & Proactive Maintenance

A Managed Service Provider can monitor your system, even in the cloud.  There are monitoring tools provided by Infor, plus there are diagnostic tests that can be run against every system.  This helps to make sure that your applications don’t undergo any unexpected downtime.  Also, a Managed Service Provider can monitor patch releases and make recommendations on when to request patches for your applications.  They can also monitor things like disk space and database health to hopefully catch any issues, and work with Infor to mitigate them, before they bring down your system.  Nogalis offers monthly health checks that bring all of these diagnostics into one place for your review.  For our customers, these health checks have resulted in a 98% reduction in downtime, and an 80% reduction in critical issues.

Patch Testing

Infor releases patch bundles regularly, and these bundles can touch every piece of each application.  It is important to be able to interpret what the bundles are changing so that users will know how to test.  It is almost always necessary to perform full regression testing.  An Infor MSP will be able to interpret the patch notes to assist your organization with a test plan.  They will also have generic test scripts to give you a jumping off point, and they can even help you to organize the testing effort (which should take about 4-6 weeks).  And once the bundle is complete, the MSP will be available to assist with any interfaces or custom work that might need to be done as a result of changes from the patch.

Configuration Console

There are countless ways to customize the experience in Infor’s Cloud Suite.  In addition to third-party interfaces using IPA or ION, and custom security rules, the applications themselves can be customized.  Configuration Console can be used to do something as small as add a user field, or something as large as adding a whole new business class to facilitate a brand-new custom application.  These types of customizations have a tendency to be under-documented, and often the knowledge of the changes leaves when the originator leaves the organization.  It is far safer to leave this type of work in the capable hands of a Managed Service Provider.  Once they create the new custom work, or review and document the existing, they can take on the responsibility for break-fix or minor tweaks going forward.

Process Automation & Reporting

Infor offers their ION engine for translating and loading data, and Infor Process Automation is available for more complex interfaces.  There is always going to be a need for automating processes, or interfacing with other applications.  These types of activities will inevitably run into some sort of issue, and it is important to have someone on the team who understands the tools as well as the applications they are tying together.  A managed service provider should be able to jump right in to troubleshoot issues, and also to make minor tweaks as the needs arise.

In addition to automating processes, custom reporting is very important to most organizations.  Configuration Console can be used to generate many custom reports, and if you need something even more complex, or if you need to bring data in from outside systems, Infor also offers Birst as an option.  A Managed Service Provider will already have a good handle on some basic useful reports, and they should be able to hit the ground running on any new reporting needs that may arise.  An MSP should readily know and understand Infor data and how the pieces fit together, so creating and maintaining reports will be a fast, efficient, and painless process.

Cost Savings

There is no way around it.  When you move to Cloud Suite, you will still need someone “on the ground” to assist with issues, customizations, and functional questions.  The most cost-effective option is to hire a Managed Service Provider.  You can see up to a 33% reduction in operational costs in the first year over trying to manage the system in-house.  Your MSP should also be able to provide statistical reports demonstrating turnaround on incidents, as well as compliance with SLAs.  And, having a managed service provider will allow your analysts and functional users to focus on their daily tasks and process improvement, where they can really contribute to the effectiveness of the organization.  It is a true win-win scenario.

Have you ever had a user in your organization setup correctly with all Lawson and Mingle security roles, yet when they login to Lawson Mingle and select any apps from the waffle tray, they get a blank page upon loading? This is a common thing that can be fixed.

As of writing this, Chrome is the primary support offered for Mingle.

First go to settings in Chrome

Search “Third-Party” in the settings tool bar and select Cookies and other site data

Make sure the Block third-party cookies in Incognito is selected

This should resolve the Lawson apps being blocked and presenting a blank page in Mingle.

In a previous article, we taught you how to bypass an error message “Internet Explorer cannot download file” on a Mobile Supply Chain Management, or MSCM, handheld. Today, we’re going to show you the simple way to to file share on MSCM handheld.

Occasionally you may need to copy the handheld CAB files to a file share so they can be loaded on the handhelds.

The local file path for MSCM up to version 11 is:

WAS_HOME\profiles\server\installedApps\cell\mscm.ear\hh.war

The local file path for MSCM starting with version 11.2 is:

WAS_HOME\profiles\server\installedApps\cell\mscm.ear\mscmwar.war\hh\installer

It’s that time again!  Infor Cloud is releasing a patch bundle for 2022, which is a pre-requisite for their year-end patching.  There are typically dozens (or hundreds) of patches applied during these bundles, to all the Infor applications hosted in the cloud.  This can be an overwhelming prospect for users and IT staff who are tasked with testing and validation during these patches.

If you haven’t already taken the latest bundle, here are some quick tips for preparing your organization for a patch bundle:

Preparation

  • Release notes: Infor always provides release notes on the patch bundle that they are implementing.  These release notes will be attached to the KB article that is associated with your bundle (which should be referenced in your email communication for the bundle).  If you are having trouble finding the KB article, your Infor account representative should be able to point you to it.
  • Security: Occasionally the bundles will impact Lawson Security, and even more frequently they will implement new forms/fields/tables/columns that need to be secured.  Run some security reports before the bundle so that they can be compared to the same reports after.  Also, search your html release notes for any tokens that will be added, and determine if your organization needs to secure them.
  • Reports: Run reports or queries for data validation, but also search the release notes for database changes, and make sure that you are ready to update any reports that are impacted by those changes.

MSCM

  • Certificate: If you own MSCM, it is almost always going to be updated as part of the patch bundle. There is often an issue with the certificate after this update.  Either the certificate is no longer valid, or it wasn’t generated during the patch.  After the update, make sure you go directly to the CAB file location and that you see a valid certificate there (it’ll be named like your server).  If you don’t see the file, or if you get security errors when trying to connect, open a ticket with Infor letting them know you think your cert is not valid.
  • CAB files: It is best practices to delete all your CAB files from the handhelds and reinstall them after these major updates.

IPA

  • Interface validation: There is a high probability that one or more of your IPA processes will be impacted by the patch bundle. It is important to test every single interface end-to-end.
  • IP Designer: The IP Designer version MUST match the Landmark/IPA version exactly.  So, after a patch bundle, you WILL have to download a fresh version of IPD.

Testing

  • What to test: You are most likely going to need to test everything.  Daily, weekly, monthly, and annual processes should be included in your testing.
  • How to test: Provide users with test scripts for each function, and have a central location for users to log the results. We like to use Monday.com as our central repository for testing.

Validation

  • You can use LID to validate data counts. You should also compare pre-update reports to post-update reports in all applications, including security.

 

Nogalis has assisted many cloud clients through the implementations of these patch bundles, and we would love to assist you as well!  We have some great resources on hand who can provide managed services of your system, training, and project work.  Check out our managed services program, or email our managed services and cloud expert Desi at [email protected] for inquiries about project work.

 

When running SRGEN in Lawson on iSeries/AS400 there are some things to consider. first, make sure you have the lawson source library LAWSRC in your library list. If the LAWSRC source library is not in your library list, your screen rules will not be updated. You should also make sure to put LAWSRC above your modification library and make sure they contain lawson source files as well as the .sr members before you run SRGEN. Lastly, the syntax for running SRGEN is CALL SRGEN PARM(LAWAPP SYSTEMCODE), where systemcode is your Lawson system code (i.e. HR). If you need to create screen rules (.sr) for multiple system codes, separate the system codes with a single space (i.e. HR GL AP IF AR).

In your organization, you may want to set the default application to Lawson Portal or MSCM for all users when they first login. To do this, follow the steps below.

 

First login to Infor Mingle.

Go to the user icon on the top right and select User Management

Once in user management, open the waffle icon on the top left

You should see all the Lawson apps you have access to here

In order to make Infor Lawson the default application, click and drag that icon and make sure it’s the top left most Icon.

The first icon in the top left will always load by default.

 

As of writing this, this should be the way to set the default app globally but can change in the future.

Reload the page and the default application should stay the same.

To Install a CTP on AS400, follow these guidelines:

 

Open a green screen and go to command line:

Enter the following commands:

call lawenv

qsh

cd $LAWDIR (or location of tar files)

The Versions file is EBCDIC instead of ASCII. You will use /QOpenSys/usr/bin/tar to unpack package.

Otherwise, you will get this error:

Error: Versions file is wrong CCSID.

If so, you will need to remove all untarred files from directory and start over with QOpenSys/usr/bin/tar

 

/QOpenSys/usr/bin/tar -xvf 9.0.1_patch_84930.tar                  

   x 9.0.1_patch_84930.readme.html, 331911 bytes, 649 media blocks.            

   x Versions, 5816 bytes, 12 media blocks.                                    

   x Tasks, 3034 bytes, 6 media blocks.                                        

   x patch.tar.Z, 2483873 bytes, 4852 media blocks.                            

   $                                                                           

 perl $GENDIR/bin/lawappinstall preview ProdLineName                              

 perl $GENDIR/bin/lawappinstall update ProdLineName                              

 perl $GENDIR/bin/lawappinstall activate ProdLineName                              

 

check for errors

ls $LAWDIR/ ProdLineName/rpg/*rpg/*SRC/*.err

Hit F3 to exit command line

Dspmsg to Display messages

If you find any failed job enter

Wrkjob # for failed job