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  Either the certificate is no longer valid, or it wasn’t generated during the patch.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 desi@nogalis.com 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).

When troubleshooting issues, you can look at the base UI of Infor applications temporarily without configurations by simply modifying the URL.

It is important to note that the URL addition must go on the Landmark URL (not Ming.le).

To open up the landmark URL, first right-click on any of the menu items on the side panel and select “Open link in new tab”.

Next, you will need to add the text &csk.disableuiconfigs=true to the URL.  Keep in mind that this will only work for the HTML4 web  UI.

That’s all there is to it. You’ve successfully disabled custom configurations in Infor web applications.

I’m often connecting to Lawson servers to grab reports, important files, etc. via Citrix through the browser and it’s frustrating when you can’t copy files via clipboard direct from the server, forcing me to use alternatives like wetransfer.com.

A workaround that seems to work for me is opening Citrix Workspace from your desktop tray icon

Then select Menu >> Accounts >> Add…

Add your store URL and continue

Once added, click Sign In

Enter your credentials and open the Remote Desktop app in your Citrix App Store.

Once remote desktop is open, click Show Option >> Local Resources and make sure Clipboard is checked

Clipboard should work properly now. If this ever doesn’t work, reboot your PC and try again.