Creating an LBI Smart Notification Series – Creating an Info Set (Part 1)

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LBI Smart Notifications are reports that are sent directly to users for reviewing vs a user logging into LBI to manually view a report. In this section we will first start off with an Intro to creating an Info Set.

 

  1. Login into LBI (admin permission required) >> go to Tools >> Select Smart Notification
  2. In Smart Notification, select Admin at the top >> Work with InfoSets
  3. Click Add to start creating an InfoSet
  4. InfoSet Wizard should start >> Select the type of Info Set you want
    • Our example will be a Relational Database (JDBC) stored procedure with a predefined Data Source
  5. Click Next or go to Step 2 Define Info Set
    • In this section you will be defining your data depending on what type you select.
    • This data can include defining column data, number/string format etc.
  6. Click Next or go to Step 3 Specify Links
    • This section allows you to add file or class links which is dependent on your organization’s needs and what the notification will be used for.
  7. Click Next or go to Step 4 Save InfoSet
    • In this section you can add a Name, Description, set a group name.
    • Also allows you to add additional access, filter certain content, even categorize or limit the InfoSet.
  8. Once done with Step 4, click Save As New at the bottom to finish your InfoSet

 

That’s it! Smart Notifications and InfoSets have a lot of customizability, most of which aren’t necessary to get it going.

See Part 2 of this series titled “Creating an LBI Smart Notification Series – Creating a Smart Notification (Part 2)” to find out how to add this InfoSet to a new Notification report. Good luck!

Foundation Building Materials Selects Infor CloudSuite Distribution as its Technology Platform for Growth

Foundation Building Materials (FBM), a leading building materials and construction products distribution company, has selected Infor CloudSuite Distribution as its technology platform for growth. Moving to Infor’s CloudSuite Distribution ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution will allow Foundation Building Materials to automate certain business processes, simplify complexities across several acquired businesses, and enhance scalability with AWS (Amazon Web Services’). Per the press release, FBM will also gain access to an integrated suite of applications, such as Infor Pricing Science (designed to help distributors set competitive prices and find opportunities to increase profits), proof of delivery and intelligent document management — eliminating the need to manage multiple third-party solutions. FBM will also be able to scale its business, while deploying its people resources more efficiently.

 

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Allowing company select in Requisition Center

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The default behavior of the shopping screen in RQC is to now allow users to select their Requesting Company.  To allow users to select the company, the rqc_config.xml file must be updated.  Navigate to LAWDIR/system and open the rqc_config.xml file in a text editor.  In the “client” section, update the setting “allow_company_select” to “true”.  Bounce the WebSphere application server for the change to take effect.

 

 

 

3 Ways Mixed Reality Is Changing Healthcare

Healthcare and technology have been an attractive combination in the modern digital age. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have been game changers. There’s also a new player in – mixed reality (MR). An interesting article on Channel Futures Channel Futures technology and media platform defines this new form of interactive tech is a mixture of virtual and augmented reality, creating a new way to interact with everything around us. Also known as ‘hybrid reality’ and ‘extended reality’, MR’s potential spans across every industry imaginable. In healthcare, MR can help simple and complex medical procedures become easier and safer.
The Channel Future’s article shares three ways mixed reality has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry.
  1. Instant diagnoses. “MR glasses are being built that can display images and information on top of a patient’s body and even perform instant analysis of a patient’s condition. The day is almost here when doctors wearing MR glasses will be able to look at a patient and instantly know not just a patient’s vitals, but what the most likely diagnoses are.”
  2. Medical training, mixed reality style. “By leveraging MR, medical students can operate on cadavers in an environment that replicates what it’s like to perform surgery on a live patient. With the implementation of half reality and half simulation, these mixed reality surgeries can respond to a student’s actions as if it were a real procedure. Students can now practice with realistic virtual procedures that don’t risk anyone’s life.”
  3. Enhanced surgery. “Surgeons can make use of mixed reality and carry out virtual procedures with more accuracy than ever. Mixed reality glasses or screens can project real-time information (such as blood pressure and heart rate), patient imaging and more. MR can even help doctors monitor vitals and changes in a patient’s condition better than they can with the naked eye. MR imaging also provides real-time 3D views of anatomy, giving surgeons more detail and helping them make better informed decisions during procedures.”

 

For Full Article, Click Here

How to Get a List of Users from AD to Compare against Users in Lawson

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This process is going to assume you already know how to build a Lawson CSV report of users to compare against. LSA Report Maintenance has these report options available for this.

 

  1. Login into your windows machine and open Powershell as an Administrator.
  2. Type in this command: Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase “dc=domain,dc=local” | select Name,SID | Export-CSV
    1. dc=domain,dc=local will need to be updated to match your organizations.
    2. select Name,SID will extract the users Name in AD (typically First and Last Name) and their Security ID.
    3. Since we are doing this to compare against Lawson users (assuming you’re using SSOP), you want to also include the sAMAccountName, this is login name the users use to login into their windows machine.
    4. Export-CSV Requires a path after it including filename,
      • example: Export-CSV C:\ExportDirectory\ADUserList.csv
  3. For example, if you only wanted the Name and sAMAccountName use the command below:
    1. Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase “dc=Yourdomain,dc=Yourlocal” | select Name,sAMAccountName | Export-CSV C:\ExportDirectory\ADUserList.csv
      • NOTE: If you type dc=domain,dc=local incorrectly, Powershell will list the allowed partition(s), see screenshot below.
  4. If you only want Name and SID use the command below:
    1. Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase “dc=Yourdomain,dc=Yourlocal” | select Name,SID | Export-CSV C:\ExportDirectory\ADUserList.csv

You should now be able to acquire the CSV file in your C:\ExportDirectory\ that you outputted to.

Good luck!

The Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration Partners with Infor

The Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration of New York has chosen to implement key Infor Hospitality applications, Infor HMS, Infor EzRMS, and Infor Sales & Catering to meet and exceed modern guest expectations. Per the press release, Infor HMS is a hotel property management system (PMS) built in the cloud that provides hospitality organizations with a reliable hub for operations, tools to create clarity around business data, and the ability to establish a solid foundation to consistently deliver a superior guest experience. Additionally, Infor EzRMS is a cloud-based hotel revenue management software solution that automatically calculates demand and revenue forecasts, while recommending appropriate selling strategies. Further, Infor Sales & Catering automates the entire event booking process—from initial inquiry to the final invoice.

 

For Full Article, Click Here

How to get a list of specific program codes and screen descriptions in Lawson

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There are two common ways to get a list of program forms and their description from Lawson. One is through LID and another is through a database application like SQL Management Studio.

 

Method 1: The database application method requires your user to have at least database read access to the PROD or TEST Lawson database.

  1. Login to the PROD or TEST database through your database app (using SQL Management Studio for this example).
  2. Expand the PROD or TEST GEN database and expand the Tables folder:
  3. Scroll to the dbo.SCREEN table >> Right-click >> Select Top 1000 Rows
  4. For those not familiar with SQL, simply remove the TOP 1000 portion from the code to return all records in this table.

Change from this:

To this:

  1. Now click the Execute button:
  2. Select all returned records at the bottom by clicking the top left box:
  3. Right-click same box >> Copy with Headers
  4. Paste into Excel and filter as needed:

 

Method 2: The LID method is simpler if you have access to Lawson Interface Desktop

  1. Login into LID, your user will need access to rngdbdump
  2. Change directory to a safe directory to dump a file into.
  3. Type this command: rngdbdump -ct gen SCREEN > SCREEN.csv
    1. This command will dump out the SCREEN database table into a csv file in your current directory
  4. Go to that directory and open the csv file in Excel, filter down on the forms you want to view.

Good luck!

 

Infor Continues to Invest in Cloud-Based Event Management for Hospitality Industry

Infor recently released a significant update to Infor Sales & Catering with two new guest self-service portals (SSPs) for online booking and ordering. Part of the Infor CloudSuite Hospitality suite of solutions, Infor Sales & Catering is one of the industry’s only platforms designed around the beginning-to-end stages of an event with its unique, process-driven lifecycle technology and customizable to streamline processes for added productivity, building consistent business practices to improve data integrity, and eliminating errors to help reduce costs. There are two new portals:

  • Infor SCS Online Booking SSP –  allows guests to check availability for new events in real time. If event space is available on a desired date, guests can reserve that location, make selections for food, beverage and other services, receive a summary of charges and pay with a credit card — all online without having to engage with a salesperson. The benefits to guests and meeting planners are convenience, flexibility and enhanced productivity.
  • Infor SCS Online Ordering SSP – delivers tools for guests to go online to order catering services for delivery. Whether ordering food and beverage services for a trade show booth at a convention, catering for a meeting on campus at a university, or catering services for a wedding in a backyard, everything can be ordered and paid for online. The benefits to guests are convenience, flexibility and enhanced productivity, with no more waiting for a reply to an inquiry or working within the venue’s business hours.

 

For Full Article, Click Here

Program Error “netexpress not found”

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In a new install of Lawson, we recently had an issue running forms (inquire, previous, add, etc).  The program would hang and eventually show an IOS error message.  The job log said that lacobrts failed due to a timeout, but latm.log presented a more detailed error.

Thu Jun 17 18:55:55 2021: latm (jeeStartComponent): netexpress not found

Thu Jun 17 18:59:21 2021: latm: Monitoring turned on

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: Timeout on opening application, removing application

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: Pid=-1, Program Code=CU01  DataArea/DataID PROD       

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: Possible causes: Insufficient NetExpress licenses or

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021:      not enough database users configured in ladb.cfg.

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: latm (PrcTPCrash): Received death notification of lacobrts, Uid=-1, Pid=-1

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021:                  Program Code = CU01 , DataArea/DataID = PROD         

Thu Jun 17 19:01:16 2021: ERROR:    Exited with error code 0

 

The Microfocus COBOL licenses were definitely not an issue, so we started trying to track down the “netexpress not found” error.  Running “echo %COBDIR%” in LID revealed that the COBDIR environment variable was not pointing to the correct location.

This variable is set by the system, and is not something you can override in the Windows system environment variables.  After some troubleshooting, we discovered that the Lawson system value “LAUNCHER” was not correct.  We ran the command LaMgmtCmd -r <envname>, which showed the LAUNCHER value as “NetExpress”.  We compared this to another (healthy) environment that showed the LAUNCHER value as “run.exe”.

Some of these values can be modified using laconfig, but this specific value had to be updated using the update option on the LaMgmtCmd command.  First, we created an XML file with all the values (including the correct launcher), then ran LaMgmtCmd -u <envname> <filename>.

After the update, we rebooted the system, and ran lamgmtcmd -r <envname> to validate.

The value was correct, and we were able to start using the forms again.

5 Best Practices for Maximizing Your CRM Capabilities

Having the right tools is essential for any job. What if you have all the right tools, but don’t know how to use them? Or worse, you didn’t even know you had the tools to use. This is what happens to businesses who do not see the full potential and resources that customer relationship management (CRM) systems provide. Being able to fully analyze your CRM data will help your business immensely. Thanks to the cloud, data can be updated and reported in real time, so people expect information to be accurate at all times. Your CRM needs to do this well. That starts with knowing your CRM’s capabilities.

Mark sales expert and president of Sales Xceleration, shares an article on Destination CRM highlighting five best practices to to optimize your CRM’s capabilities.

  1. Include a Salesperson in the CRM Selection Process. “By involving your sales team, you ensure that your CRM elevates their current operations rather than impedes them. Plus, you’ll automatically get more buy-in when the most relevant people—those who will work most directly with the CRM—are involved in the process. They’ll feel a sense of ownership and know that their input is valued.”
  2. Balance Sales Reps’ Time With Getting the Data You Want. “Considering leadership has invested resources in the CRM, they will want to see key data from the technology. That said, you need to strike a balance when asking sales reps to gather and enter that data; you don’t want your sales team entering information at the expense of business development.”
  3. Set Clear Expectations Surrounding Data Entry. “Optimizing your CRM starts with timely data. If your sales team is responsible for maintaining prospect and customer records, they need to use only the most up-to-date and relevant data. Data can’t be accurate if it isn’t updated regularly, and leaders can’t rely on any data that doesn’t reflect the most current reality.”
  4. Customize Your CRM to Fit Your Company. “An off-the-shelf CRM is easy to set up, but it’s not truly effective until you’ve updated it to match your company’s processes. Without CRM optimization to fit your company’s precise terminology and process, your sales team will view the CRM as obsolete and default to their own systems that are consistent with the proper terminology and tracking methods.”
  5. Build Custom CRM Dashboards That Reflect How You Do Business. “Create reports and dashboards that match the way you do business and deliver the style of reporting your leadership team expects. The CRM contains information, but you need to harness that information correctly for it to be actionable. The right dashboards will provide critical business insights, allowing your sales and management teams to understand where they are on forecasting and goals. Once the right data is in the tool and represented the right way, it becomes a valuable resource to understand pipeline status while seeing whether your team is on track to meet goals, overcome roadblocks, and solve sales challenges.”

 

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