Internet Explorer 11 end of life and what it means for Lawson users

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Internet Explorer 11 is losing Microsoft’s support on June 15, 2022.

 

What does this mean?

In a nutshell, IE11 will no longer be secure after June 2022. Vulnerabilities will not be fixed after this date. You’ll also experience more issues as other applications get updates while IE11 does not.

 

How will this affect Lawson users?

As Infor updates their Landmark, Mingle, Portal applications, (especially cloud-based apps), IE11 will run into more and more issues and most importantly will be vulnerable to security threats such as phishing and malware. This will be the same story with third-party applications that integrate into IE such as MHC’s Image Express.

 

What should my organization do?

First, use a modern browser like Chrome or Microsoft Edge and make sure you’re on a supported version of Windows.

Your organization should also look into getting on a supported version of Lawson if they are not already. Update third-party and customized Lawson applications to use modern browsers.

If your in-house Lawson team is not well-equipped to perform mass Lawson upgrades/migrations, it is best to hire a Lawson Managed service consultant team to assist in getting your organization up-to-date. They often are more agile with a wider range of resources and expertise. Additionally, if your company has migrated from Lawson but still have historical data taking up space in your servers, you should look at archiving solutions that can give you the freedom to completely eliminate all Lawson footprint from your organization.

Nogalis can help with both your Lawson managed services and Lawson data archiving plans. Schedule a meeting with a Nogalis representative and let’s discuss your long term plans for your Lawson environment.

IP Designer Series – Web Service

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The Web Service Node is used for SOAP API calls.  The authentication information can be stored in a configuration set under the Web Service tab.  It is recommended that you create a new configuration set for each interface, and there can only be one Web Service configuration per set.  The authentication options are Basic or WS Security.  Both accept a username and password.

When setting up a Web Service node in IP Designer, select the configuration set that contains the authentication data.  Populate the WSDL tab with a schema file or URL.  That way, you can use the “Build” button to generate the SOAP call.  You can also type the SOAP call directly into the Activity window.

See this article to read more about making external API calls with IPA.

Using IPA Web Run to work with attachments/comments

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Working with attachments (or comments) to forms Is very simple using the WebRun node in IPA.

The first step to setting up a Web Run node, is to configure the Web Run Connection in your IPA configuration set.  For Internal Lawson commands, this will be your Lawson configuration set (usually “main”).

If your organization is using ADFS for authentication to Lawson, make sure you set up the Web Run Connection using the Lawson thick client site.

Here are the Web Programs used when working with attachments:

  • lawson-ios/action/ReadAttachment
  • lawson-ios/action/ListAttachments
  • lawson-ios/action/DeleteAttachment
  • lawson-ios/action/ChangeAttachment
  • lawson-ios/action/AddAttachment

The Post string should contain the pertinent details relating to the attachment.  All attachments will need a dataArea, filename, indexName, attachmentCategory, and Key values.  The Key values map to the index for the table to which you are adding attachments.  Attachment category is C or U (comment or URL).

When working with specific attachments (ReadAttachment, DeleteAttachment, ChangeAttachment), you will also need to provide attachmentNbr, which is the unique key of the attachment.  When adding and changing attachments, you will also want to provide the ATTACHMENT-NAME and ATTACHMENT-TEXT values.

Configuring MSCM 10 with ADFS

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To configure MSCM 10.x for ADFS, update the mscm.filter.properties file.  Set the service.name.param to the thick client identity, or you can set it to both thick client and SSOP delimited by a comma (i.e. SSOP, THICKCLIENTLDAPLS).  Also, set the lawson.username to the UPN.

Run an updateconfig to set the changes.

NOTE: All MSCM users in Lawson Security must have a thick client identity configured before making these changes.  Otherwise, the user synchronization task will fail in MSCM.

You can validate the change by checking the USER_IDENTITY table in your MSCM database.  This should show records for each user for each identity configured.

 

IP Designer Series – Web Run

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The Web Run node can be used to make different types of web calls, whether it be to external APIs or internal Infor Lawson commands.

The first step to setting up a Web Run node, is to configure the Web Run Connection in your IPA configuration set.  For Internal Lawson commands, this will be your Lawson configuration set (usually “main”).  For external connections, you will want to create a new configuration set.

If your organization is using ADFS for authentication to Lawson, make sure you set up the Web Run Connection using the Lawson thick client site.

Once you have a Web Run connection, you can set the properties of the node.  The “Configuration name” should be the configuration set for which you just set up the Web Run Connection.  The default is “main”.  If this is an internal Lawson connection, select “Infor Lawson”.  Otherwise, select “External”.  Provide the Web program that you are running.  The Web Run node can be used internally with Lawson to run batch jobs or add attachments/comments to Lawson forms.

See this article to read more about making external API calls with IPA.

lawson-ios/action/SubmitJob?jobName=<!JobName>&jobOwner=<!JobOwner>&wait=TRUE

 

Configure S3 Connection Pooling

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If you are receiving frequent connection failures between IPA and Lawson S3, you may want to configure the connection pooling for S3.

To do this, open the Landmark Grid, and click the “gear” to open the configuration manager.  Click Applications > [your landmark application] > Edit Properties.

Expand “LPA Settings” then “S3 Pooling”.  Click “pfi.pooling.s3UsePooledConnections”

Select “All” for the display complexity.  Click the top LPA option, first column.

Check the box “pfi.pooling.s3UsePooledConnections” and click “Create (or Update) Property”

Now, set the rest of the s3 connection properties.  Best practices are as follows:

Be sure to click the save button at the top of the screen.

Unable to get a SQL connection from the pool

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What to do if you are seeing this error on a SQL node in an IPA work unit:

java.sql.SQLException: Unable to get a SQL connection from the pool at com.lawson.bpm.processflow.pooling.SQLConnectionPool.borrow(SQLConnectionPool.java:79) at com.lawson.bpm.processflow.pooling.SQLConnectionPool.getPooledConnection(SQLConnectionPool.java:58) at com.lawson.bpm.processflow.workFlow.flowGraph.FgSQL.executeQuery(FgSQL.java:1107) at com.lawson.bpm.processflow.workFlow.flowGraph.FgaSQLQuery.startActivity(FgaSQLQuery.java:149) at com.lawson.bpm.processflow.workFlow.flowGraph.FgActivity.execute(FgActivity.java:947) at com.lawson.bpm.processflow.workFlow.flowGraph.FgProcess.run(FgProcess.java:2201) at com.lawson.bpm.eprocessserver.grid.ExecuteFlowImpl.executeFlow(ExecuteFlowImpl.java:427) at com.lawson.bpm.eprocessserver.grid.ExecuteFlowImpl.restartFlowForUA(ExecuteFlowImpl.java:181) at com.lawson.bpm.eprocessserver.ProcessFlowEngine.execute(ProcessFlowEngine.java:193) at com.lawson.bpm.eprocessserver.ProcessFlowEngine.reStartProcessAt(ProcessFlowEngine.java:116) at com.lawson.bpm.eprocessserver.KBConnectionDispatch.dispatch(KBConnectionDispatch.java:48) at com.lawson.bpm.eprocessserver.KBConnectionDispatch.run(KBConnectionDispatch.java:37) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744) Caused by: java.util.NoSuchElementException: Timeout waiting for idle object at org.apache.commons.pool.impl.GenericKeyedObjectPool.borrowObject(Unknown Source) at org.apache.commons.dbcp.datasources.SharedPoolDataSource.getPooledConnectionAndInfo(SharedPoolDataSource.java:181) at org.apache.commons.dbcp.datasources.InstanceKeyDataSource.getConnection(InstanceKeyDataSource.java:701) at com.lawson.bpm.processflow.pooling.SQLConnectionPool.borrow(SQLConnectionPool.java:68) … 14 more

 

To resolve this error, try setting your Maximum Core Pool Size, which determines how many work units can concurrently execute SQL nodes.  Best practices are to set this value to the number of work units that are allowed to concurrently run on your system.

To add this parameter, search for “Configuration Parameter” in Process Server Administration in the GEN data area.  Create the parameter if it doesn’t already exist.