Lawson blog

Speed of Change
posted: 14 July 2009 by Andrew Provines
 

The Implementation Part 5: Ready Set Go
posted: 09 July 2009 by Andrew Provines
 

See more articles in the Lawson blog

For more information about our CIBER Packaged Offerings: Lawson Repeatable Solutions, please contact:

Robin Baughman
Manager, Marketing

CIBER Packaged Offerings are repeatable solutions that enhance the Lawson system to meet specific client needs. Because of our many years of experience with Lawson ERP implementations, upgrades and integration, CIBER is able to develop templates, programs and processes for the most requested enhancements. CIBER Packaged Offerings are “pre-packaged” and ready to implement. From employee re-numbering for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, ADP interfaces to in-place conversions for updating your Lawson accounting structure. Ask us about our CIBER Packaged Offerings!

Here is list of our CIBER Packaged Offerings:

Accounts Payable Minimum Payment
Lawson’s Accounts Payable system allows AP managers to select invoices for payment using many criteria, but not by minimum payment. The results can be multiple small payments requiring excessive processing time and costs relative to the payments being made. CIBER’s offering provides new functionality allowing the AP organization to run a process prior to payment in which invoices combining to small payments are put on hold based on parameters similar to the selection criteria used in the Cash Requirements program (AP150).

Accounts Payable Invoice Auto Batch
Many companies using Lawson's AP system also have external systems that generate invoices that must be interfaced into Lawson for payment and financial update. However, when these invoices are interfaced electronically, manual intervention is still required if the department processes by AP batch. By utilizing the enhanced AP interface program, AP departments can save time and improve accuracy related to batch processing of interfaced AP invoices without having to develop special processes for each type of interface. Simply load the interface files following standard procedures and run the invoice interface program with CIBER’s new parameter.

Accounts Receivable Email Past Due Notice
Lawson’s Accounts Receivable system provides for dunning letters, but the process is cumbersome and designed for printing and mailing dunning letters. Many companies are looking for a simple past due notice that can be easily emailed, saving time and money. Any Lawson customer that uses Accounts Receivable 8.1 or later, and has Lawson’s Smart Notifications application can use this CIBERGem to quickly and easily burst email notifcations of “past due” transactions to their customers. An optional link to the company’s credit policy may also be included.

A second notice is send to the credit analyst responsible for those customers receiving past due notices, including the same information that was sent to the customer.

ADP Tax Interface (in conjunction with Lawson, and ADP’s Tax Service): When installed, the interface is run in order to create both the periodic, or weekly files, and the quarterly summary files and annual tax processing to send to ADP. Printing employee W2s can also be handled by the interface. The interface programs take advantage of the Lawson and BSI relationship and logic to determine which customer defined deduction codes are mapped to federal and state taxes. A custom mapping table is created for local tax deductions. Custom mapping tables are also created to map the company’s process levels to ADP company codes. The interface works with ADP’s system on determining which records belong to specific federal Tax ID numbers.

ADP Check Print Interface (in conjunction with Lawson, and ADP’s Check Print Services):
Clients in retail, healthcare, and publishing have requested and benefited from this interface which allows them to:

• Maintain control of the payroll process
• Send their payroll information to ADP
• Print, sort and mail paychecks
• Handle the functionality of direct deposit and use of iPay cards

The customer maintains control of the payroll process by maintaining the employee data, and running payrolls within Lawson. Once the payroll print program is run, the check print interface program is run. This interface sends to Lawson the data needed to print the checks and vouchers. There are several levels of Check Print services available from ADP that can be used with the interface programs.

Benefit Interface
The National Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has developed a standard transaction set (834) to allow employers and benefit providers to exchange benefit enrollment and maintenance information in a consistent data format. Lawson has responded with the development of BN106 – Benefit Transaction Export which provides the majority of the data required by insurance vendors but still requires the specific EDI formatting and any vendor-specific data mapping. To assist companies with this effort, CIBER has developed a program to take the Lawson BN106 output file and add the necessary EDI formatting and mapping. Currently, this logic has been developed for interfaces with Anthem, EyeMed, MetLife, and UnitedHealth Group. Any other benefit provider that accepts the EDI 834 Transaction Sets can be added to the Benefit Transaction Export CIBER Gem.

Cost Analysis Inquiry
Within the Lawson system, there is not an easy way to view the actual cost paid for an item, which includes add-on cost. For organizations, such as retailers, wholesalers, or manufacturers that require the more detailed, quicker, and easier analysis of the cost of their goods, CIBER has created a powerful version of the IC47 cost analysis inquiry program. This program allows the inquiry of an item for a location and company (exactly like IC47). Unlike IC47, this program displays all invoices on which this item has been paid and has the option to display only Matched or Unmatched invoices, or both. The detail is in descending order by date to give the user an instant detailed view of the most recent transactions (invoices). The detail displays the invoice, the actual cost paid for the item for that invoice, the total AOC (Add-On Cost) paid for the item, and the total cost paid (actual plus AOC). The program can also list the selling price and calculated margin of these goods, whether this information is in Lawson or an external system.

Data Mapping
Some type of data mapping is necessary in every project that involves interfaces or conversions of data from one system to another. Clients have many challenges when facing a complex mapping scenario which include storage, maintenance, tracking changes, access and enforcing standards. To assist companies in their mapping process, CIBER has designed a data mapping management system built using Lawson technology that allows complete control of the processes and procedures around data mapping.

Employee Number Changes: Both UNIX and iSeries
Once a Lawson Employee Record has been established, the associated employee number cannot be changed using standard Lawson functionality. In the past it was not uncommon for an organization to use an employee’s social security number (SSN) as the Lawson employee number. With recent changes to Federal & State privacy legislation, including the HIPAA regulations (Healthcare Information Privacy & Portability Act), organizations must now take measures to ensure an individual’s SSN remains confidential.

To assist companies in updating employee numbers, CIBER has created a process that maintains the system data integrity, while simultaneously changing the Lawson employee number. All Lawson HR-PR records associated with the single employee are updated with the new employee number.

In-Place Conversion
Once an accounting structure is established within Lawson there is only a limited amount of change that can be achieved with standard Lawson functionality. The process can be tedious, and the results are often not 100% of what is desired. Often, old data is required to be left in place: e.g. account numbers can’t be deleted once they’re used. Many organizations have encountered this issue when faced with the need to redesign their accounting structure due to:

• significant growth
• better understanding of the software through experience
• acquisition of new entities
• new requirements to integrate with 3rd party software.

To assist our clients in achieving maximum value in their Lawson investment, CIBER has created a process to update Lawson’s accounting structure across all applications and all history. In this way system integrity is assured, no history is lost, drill-around is maintained and all old ‘setup data’ is eliminated, providing a clean, well-organized system that operates as if it had always been implemented on the new structure. One key benefit is that historical year-to-year and period-to-period comparative reporting is maintained because history is also updated to the new structure!

Portal Password Management (iSeries Authentication) for Portal 8
The CIBER Gem provides a password management for Portal users utilizing OS/400 authentication. The CIBER Gem is a J2EE application utilizing existing ISeries API’s to integrate with ISeries profile management. The Enterprise Application is installed along side with the Lawson IOS Enterprise Application. The CIBER Gem allows the Portal administrator to configure password expiration thresholds for warning the user and forcing the user to change their password. The CIBER Gem can be used for all current Lawson clients using Lawson Portal on version 8.x with the OS/400 providing the back end authentication.

ProcessFlow CIBER Packaged Offerings
CIBER has developed a number of the most requested flows to allow automation of various processes. Each of the ProcessFlow CIBER Packaged Offerings has increased efficiency, shortened total procedural time, and eliminated redundant and manual process in our client organizations.

• New Hires and Terminations ProcessFlow
• Employee Review Notification ProcessFlow
• Contract Review Notification ProcessFlow

Tax Report Entity Payroll History Fix
Lawson’s tax related reporting entities feature allows an employee to cross over EINs without ceiling tax limits starting over. Clients can select whether they would want this functionality or not. If they choose not to use related report entities, then taxes will start over when an employee transfers under another EIN. If any of the above setup items are changed mid-year or is not setup properly at any point in the year, this could impact how tax report entities are tracked in payroll history. Because the tax report entity is tracked each payroll, if the setup is incorrect, then the tax report entity populated on pay and deduction records will be incorrect. This has a direct impact on quarterly tax reporting and W-2 printing and filing. There is not a simple solution to fix the report entity history that has already processed. The current solution is a very time consuming manual effort.

CIBER has developed a quick and fast CIBERGem that can be run over a client’s payroll history data to correct and reassign report entities when any of the above problems occur. It is a series of programs developed by CIBER that can be run, tested and put into production in less then one week.

User Portal Password Changes (PPC)
Many companies with self-service, Web-access applications incur substantial administrative costs changing Web user passwords for Portal access. This is particularly time consuming when there are a large number of employees with Portal access throughout the organization. Allowing users to change and maintain their own Lawson Portal passwords will reduce those associated administrative costs, resulting in time and cost savings, and overall better internal customer service.

The PPC CIBER Gem allows users to both change and maintain their own passwords.

Web User Integration (WUI)
Many IT Departments find that the maintenance of web user records in Portal, ESS, RSS, and Information Office is very time consuming, and interferes with the more important tasks that are the primary focus of the IT staff.

The Web User Integration automates the process of maintaining these records, resulting in a substantial time savings and overall better internal customer service. When a user adds, modifies, or deletes employee records in HR11, the WUI CIBER Gem will:

• update RD30 (Web User records)
• update RD54.2 (Web User Bookmarks)
• add employees to web user groups
• allow password use for end-users, with a system generated password
• generate a logfile with the username/password
• create an ID.xml file: a bookmark file for custom bookmarks that are not entered into Lawson)
• generate custom bookmarks for departments, if desired

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