Questions from Ask the Expert: Infor Smart Office

We recently held a webinar called “Ask the Expert: Infor Smart Office”. For those of you who could not make it to the session here are a short collection of questions that were answered. Some answers have been shortened to work in this format. I’ve also included a few at the end that we couldn’t get to in our short hour together ( a little bonus for our blog readers!).

Thank you for all who attended. Watch for another session on a new topic in July!

Question Summary

I am upgrading from ISO 10.0.4 or 10.0.5 to most current version, from the technical perspective of doing the upgrade, are there any tricks, gotcha’s, or things to look out for?

We published a blog article on this here.

I would like to learn more about deploying an Info Browser Query to my users. I can’t seem to get any farther than creating in “Predefined Widgets”. I would like to be able to “import” a saved Info Browser to another user.

Once the widget is saved to the canvas go into the Settings of the widget and select export. The file can be sent to any users for import.

There are two different installations for the smart client (ClickOnce and msi installation for VDI deployment). Are there plans to go just one version as Lawson products have in the past?

We plan on keeping both.

Where is the documentation for using the URI syntax for smart office tools?

We will add documentation for it in the future but you can also always drag an existing shortcut to the canvas and examine its settings.

How does LSO compare with using add ins regarding downloading and uploading data and relating one table with another? (Is Mashup Designer required to get the equivalent functionality that add-ins provides?)

Our Microsoft Add-ins product is quite different from exporting data from Smart Office List Views. Our Add-ins product is really meant for users who understand the application’s underlying DB table structure and business rules. List View exports to Excel are more basic and functionality is restricted. Mashup Designer does not add any new Microsoft Excel integration options.

What are some best practices/lessons learned for the users relating to using this product.

Start small. Start with a small group of users in a focused business area. Use that group as a test case to see what they find helpful, what they personalize, and how they work with the tool. Learn from them and then roll it out to more groups. But plan for large adoption over time. Once word gets out, ISO can become very popular!

We have developed a .lawsonapp and uploaded it to the ISO server. We are now accessing the app by typing in script:// in the search box however we would like to access the App using a custom menu like accessing any other M3 functions from the Navigator. As suggested in the ISO admin guide, I attempted to create one using the MSN110/B program but wasn’t successful. Could you please shed some light on this?
You can’t do it in the M3 Menu, but you can use the class called menu extension service or implement the iclient application class. Check out those classes in the SDK documentation.

When will the “Job Description” field will be populated with the Print Manager – will it be in the next version of ISO?

Make sure you are on the latest version of ISO and LSF. There are changes in both needed to make this happen.

How to change font sizes of text with a form – is this even possible?

Use built in zoom feature to make entire forms or all forms (in Smart Office Settings) larger or smaller.

How to add custom processes to the Navigator list

You can import Favorites into the Navigator and 10.2.0 will bring new organization tools. You might also check out the Start Pad widget and the new Menu Builder widget in 10.2.0.

Question regarding Life Cycle Manager (LCM)/Lawson Grid/ISO and Landmark. We will be implementing Landmark as well as Infor Smart Office. Up until now, not much thought has been put into whether or not these two components can exist (or should exist) on the same Lawson Grid installation. Since Landmark and ISO both require Lawson Grid, can I just deploy ISO and Landmark into the same Lawson Grid instance and eliminate the need for LCM all together? I understand LCM is mentioned with ISO but I don’t see it required for Landmark.

No, we don’t recommend running Landmark and Infor Smart Office in the same Grid. If you do, you will run into compatibility issues during upgrades.

Do most organizations allow free reign for users to personalize? If so, are there any issues that result?

Many lock the system down initially has the ability to have end users personalize can be a bit scary at first. As Admins get more comfortable with the system they often open up permissions to allow more personalization.

Is it the recommendation that “power users” use Smart Office and “casual users” use Ming.le? Why or why not?

Often we do break up the users of our different UI’s (Mobile, Rich, Web) by role. Casual users often don’t appreciate, or understand how to use all the tools available to them in ISO.

One of the largest issues we are struggling with right now is not being to see the elapsed time in the Job Scheduler. Is there anyway to make that appear?

You are probably referring to Active Jobs. We have a new patch coming that out will display elapsed time. However, there are still issues if your LSF server and user rich client are in two different time zones. That issue is still being worked on.

I am hoping to understand how (as an Admin) I can better manage personalization’s to forms. I want each user to get a group of personalized forms as default when they start and right now we have done this is a rather messy way. I am also trying to make sure I understand what needs to be done when we patch to make sure those personalization’s stay with the system and users.

The typical way to push out personalizations is to assign a department/group to a Role. Then make the personalization changes. Then the admin can go to our Personalization Manager can copy/move them to the Role. Typically there is nothing to be done in a patch unless it is a major migration from one release to another. In that case, refere to the release notes and installation guide.

In the past there was a limitation on the “Lawson Info Browser” widget where it would not show all records – has this been resolved and if so what version?

There is a limit to protect performance of the system. There has been a change to requery all records when you filter the list. This was resolved back in ISO 10.0.3.

Where do I find the Log Viewer Widget I see on your canvas during the demo?
10.2.0

Questions we didn’t get to:

If I’m on LCM 9.x against a 13.x biz engine, can I run 10.2.x on my Smart Office Server?
Yes

One change to my earlier question Can I run 10.2 against a 14.1.2 BE?
Yes

Is that requered now to have DSP or DSSO on versions higher 10.0.5?
Recommended. Other session providers will work but DSSO support more scenarios.

If I’m on 10.1.1.1.5 can I go direct to 10.2?
Yes from 10.1.1

How can I get rid of the Inbasket error that populates every time I open the Smart office?
If you have an error because your user is not an Inbasket user then you should configure Smart Office so that not all applications all loaded for all users.

There are three different ways to control which applications should be enabled:
1. Configure the allowed applications setting in Mango.Core
2. Enabled / Disable the Application Group that the application belongs to in the profiles. Disabling an Application Group will disable all applications that belong to that group. This is done in the Profile Editor (or Profile.xml file depending on version)
3. Enabled / Disable the feature in the Installation Point Manager – combined with a feature folder setting in the profile. Since this depends on the profile to be different for the two groups this case is very similar to no two in the list.

We just received a new SSL certificate (it’s a wildcard). Our current one expires in about a month. Can you describe at a high level what needs to happen on the server and desktop client?
I assume this is an SLL certificate by a trusted authority? On the server you need to import that certificate in the grid. If it is issued by a trusted CA there is nothing more that needs to be done. If the CA isn’t trusted this might help http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772491.aspx

Navigate to the Configuration Manager (Settings icon)
Select Advance Configuration
Select Certificates
Then manage certificates for the host
Import the signed certificate

On the clients you don’t need to do anything.

We would like to use an internal certificate for signing the installation point as opposed to the self-signing certificate we currently have. Our certificate manager keeps mentioning providing a CSR like we did for the server, but I don’t see how to do this for the installation point.

You need a certificate for Code Signing for the installation point. Your CA should have templates for this.

If you have your own CA server please follow these instructions from Microsoft. The first seven steps there apply to this issue.

If you use Java Scripting to modify a form where does the scripting reside? Is it within the canvas, lawson server or smart office server?
They reside on the Lawson application server (<datapersist>/lawson/SmartClient/data/scripts/<DataArea>)

They can be viewed and/or deleted in the Lawson Personalization Manager on the Other tab.

They can also be viewed in the Script Tool.

When you use list driven forms is there a way to search on a select date range?
Yes, there are special search tokens for date fields available from the field context menu or which can be simply keyed in once learned.

For example, to search for data from the previous month use: [currentmonth-1]

Conditional formatting – I want to make a conditional format for a PO line that is closed, but PLI-CLOSED-FL is not in list of fields to make a formula. Is there a way to add it to the list of available fields?
This has been fixed. (JT-538955)

Saving changes – When I add columns to a form like the job scheduler, how do I save the setup so that I do not have to add those new columns each time I open the form?
This is what ‘data views’ can provide. Tools -> Personalizations -> Save Data View As…

Comments

5 responses to “Questions from Ask the Expert: Infor Smart Office”

Rita Green says:

April 28, 2015 at 1:09 pm

How do you delete reports?
And how do you change the name of reports?

Evelyn Peters says:

June 9, 2015 at 6:31 pm

Can Lawson Smart Office be configured to allow our internal auditor to have inquiry (read only) status and the ability to run HR/Payroll reports?

Keith Knuth says:

June 9, 2015 at 7:54 pm

@Rita: Not sure what you mean about reports. In Infor Smart Office you create reports and name them the same way you would in our Web UI.
@Evelyn: Security roles and rules govern Infor Lawson Applications running in Infor Smart Office just like they do in our Web UI. So yes, you can create read-only rules for some programs and also allow a user to run reports.

Deborah says:

January 12, 2016 at 11:18 am

Could you describe the plan for Smart Office? When will Smart Office be going away? My understanding is that Smart Office will be available and supported up until the decommission of version 10, is this correct? Will Smart Office or similar functionailty be available for version 11 or 12? Thanks!

Delmar Dehn says:

January 14, 2016 at 4:36 pm

Infor Smart Office 10.2.x will align with the Infor Lawson 10 maintenance policy. Infor Smart Office will not be compatible with Infor Financials and Supply Management 11. The strategic goal is to bring the most loved features of Infor Smart Office into Infor Ming.le Enterprise. You’ll start to see this strategy with Infor Ming.le Homepages which will provide a canvas like experience where users can add different widgets for their own personalized start page.