LawsonGuru Letter

September 2005

The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter providing provocative commentary on issues important to the Lawson Software community. The LawsonGuru Letter is published by—and is solely the opinion of—John Henley of Decision Analytics. Visit Decision Analytics at http://www.danalytics.com. For subscription information, see the bottom of this message.

The LawsonGuru Letter is not affiliated with Lawson Software.

As another summer draws to a close, enjoy these tips & tricks. I'll be back soon with a great new issue!

Remember to share your tips. Send them to mailto:letter-tips@lawsonguru.com.

Just a reminder to check out the North East Lawson User Group's annual Fall Conference in Newport, RI. If you're a Lawson user in the North East, you shouldn't miss this conference! Visit the NELUG web site for more details.

In this issue:
Tip 1: Show an Invalid Username or Password Message in Lawson Portal
Tip 2: Display your current Product Line in Lawson Portal
Tip 3: Uploading to Asset Management using Lawson's Excel Add-In
Tip 4: Creating .log files to Troubleshoot IOS CGI Programs
Tip 5: Accessing WEBUSER Variables in Design Studio

Tip 1: Show an Invalid Username or Password Message in Lawson Portal
(Thanks to Pat Patterson at Akron General Medical Center for this tip!)

When we first implemented the Lawson Portal, we received numerous calls from users having problems logging into the portal. It seemed like the “red boxes” did not convey the message of an invalid username or password, so we added some code to explicitly indicate this:

Procedures:

In $WEBDIR/lawson/portal/logon.htm (make sure you make a backup first):

1. Locate the reference to the <body tag. Below that, you should see code looking something like this:

Add the <DIV in place of the   reference, like so:

<table border="0" width="350" align="center">
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><div id="LOGMSG" class="xTLabel" style="color:white"> </div></td></tr>

2. Locate the reference to backgroundColor = “red” and add the lines needed to display the message (noted in bold):

document.getElementById("LOGMSG").style.color = "yellow";
document.getElementById("LOGMSG").innerHTML = "Invalid username or password";
document.getElementById("USERID").style.backgroundColor="red" document.getElementById("UPSW").style.backgroundColor="red"
document.getElementById("USERID").focus()
document.getElementById("USERID").select()

After you have made these changes, make sure you save a copy of your modified logon.htm, since it will be overwritten by new Lawson deliverables and patches.

Tip 2: Display your current Product Line in Lawson Portal

If you work in multiple Lawson product lines, it's often helpful to readily see which one you're currently using. Here's a tip on how to display it in the Lawson Portal banner area.

As delivered, your banner area probably looks like this:

The welcome banner is defined in $WEBDIR/lawson/portal/roles/default.xml, and you can modify the line:

to include the <<PRODLINE>> tag:

Run the IOSCacheRefresh servlet, and then when you relaunch Portal, your new banner will appear:

If you do make this change to your default.xml role definition, be sure to make a backup first, since it will be overwritten by new Lawson deliverables and patches. Ideally, you should make the change to specific roles files, and assign the PORTALROLE attribute to each user.

Tip 3: Uploading to Asset Management using Lawson's Excel Add-In
(Thanks to E.J. Hikel at Eastern Maine Healthcare for this tip!)

We've found some limitations using the Excel Add-In's Upload Wizard in Asset Management because Additions, Adjustment, Transfers and Disposals often prompt new forms after the first record is entered onto the first form.

Our way around this is to not use the standard entry forms, but some alternate forms.

For additions, use AM15.1 instead of AM20.1 or AM20.2. You'll be required to enter Vendor and Invoice information, but usually this is available or you can use something generic. Once you have added your assets, run AM115 to interface them to AM20 screens.

For disposals, use AM45.1 instead of AM40.1. This is the mass disposal screen, so you will need to define a Selection ID, you company, Function Code field (=A for each record) and Asset Number. I was surprised but very delighted to find that this worked when we recent disposed thousands of assets (that couldn't easily be grouped on AM45 using the conventional method. Once the assets have been added to the Selection ID, run AM145 to process the mass disposal. I haven't tested, but this should work for transfers as well (AM35).

Tip 4: Creating .log files to Troubleshoot IOS CGI Programs

If you need to troubleshoot the behavior of a particular Logan/IOS CGI program, you can try turning on logging for that program. A "touch" file can be created in the Lawson for the particular CGI program. For example, to log messages related to the dme CGI program, create an empty file called dme.log.

After you've finished troubleshooting, be sure to delete the .log file.

According to the Lawson knowledge base, the following cgi programs are coded to write to ".log" files if one exists:

ags.exe
authen.exe
chgfile.exe
dme.exe
formdef.exe
jobrun.exe
userdocs.exe
webrpt.exe

Tip 5: Accessing WEBUSER Variables in Design Studio

You're creating a Lawson Design Studio page, and want to access some fields from a user's WEBUSER (RD30) record. How do you do it?

Using JavaScript, you can reference them using the getUserVariable function:

var vCompany = top.lawsonPortal.getUserVariable("COMPANY");
var vRequester = top.lawsonPortal.getUserVariable("REQUESTER");

lawForm.setFormValue("Text1",vCompany);
lawForm.setFormValue("Text2",vRequester);

Worthwhile Reading

Zapping Cancer Cells
In a bunker the size of a football field, a Houston research center (Lawson client M.D. Anderson) will blast tumors with a colossal proton generator.
Fortune, June 27, 2005
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/imt/0,15704,1071920,00.html

Keeping Secrets
How five CFOs cooked the books at HealthSouth.
CFO Magazine, June 2005
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/4007474/c_4028838

Service With a Frown
You won't believe what happened when we tried to spend big at a store.
Fortune Small Business, June 2005
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/smallbusiness/inspire/0,15704,1062910,00.html

High Finance Learns a New Language
It won't be long before government regulators, tax authorities and market exchanges require enterprises to use eXensible Business Reporting Language for financial data.
Application Development Trends, June 2005
http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=11168

Reader's Digest: The Longest Goodbye
Decades before the idea took hold in the dot-com era, Reader's Digest kept a "360-degree view" of each of its customers—tracking every contact it ever had with a subscriber to its magazine or a purchaser of any of its condensed books or other products. Yet, because it was ahead of its time, it took 17 years to unwind its novel data-based marketing system.
Baseline Magazine, July 2005
http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,1836602,00.asp

ERPzilla
10 ERP deployments show that megaprojects are standing strong--though they've changed in focus and function.
Information Week, July 11, 2005
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=165700832

The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter providing provocative commentary on issues important to the Lawson Software community. The LawsonGuru Letter is published by--and is solely the opinion of--John Henley of Decision Analytics. Visit Decision Analytics at http://www.danalytics.com.

To subscribe, visit http://www.danalytics.com/guru/letter/

Please share The LawsonGuru Letter in whole or in part as long as copyright and attribution are always included.

Decision Analytics is an independent consultancy, focusing on Lawson technical projects, and specializing in customization/modification, data conversion, and integration/interfaces. Please visit http://www.danalytics.com for more information.

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