workspace and/or LSO ???

I thought I should follow-up on this topic since I have more information... Friday I contacted Infor to get confirmation - in writing - because I wanted to make sure I could use the ESS/MSS without the stupid SharePoint Wrapper. I was informed by an Infor Services Technician and my Account Executive that using "just" portal without the SharePoint wrapper for ESS/MSS is supported. In fact, I was further informed that if I want I can create all of my own html landing pages and link associates to different ESS/MSS feature pages without using the Workspace warpper at all.

My 2 cents on the SharePoint Wrapper: "It is a huge dehancement." I am seeing little that improves my use of the system and they pretty much give you a blank canvas. (More clicks to get places - how is that better?) Anything you want to do in the Sharepoint wrapper you will need to develop. Additionally, with the SharePoint wrapper I have to remove probably 50 or more email links that used to take users directly to a Form (HR11, PR14) which you can not do in Workspace. They will have to manually navigate to the form and lookup the record that you want reviewed. With the SharePoint wrapper for an ESS feature I will not be able to send an associate a link directly to a ESS/MSS feature. (i.e we send associates emails indicating that their Dependent was missing information or they are married and their beneficiary is not their spouse.) The email would in 9X include a link DIRECTLY to the ESS feature page. Workspace can not link directly to the ESS/MSS feature bookmark.

Are any of you "using" Version 10? I would be surprised if companies do not drag their feet a bit on using Workspace as the front-end for ALL users. (Look how long LID hung around.)

Shane, I have to agree with you about Sharepoint/Workspace being a dehancement. Couple of thoughts, being on the front lines of installing v10 and v10 products. I'm trying to be positive but it's hard to when some of this underlying technology is not completely stable or just plain wonky. Or it could be me too that I can't make sense of incomplete or unclear documentation. And of course there is the support.

I think there is too much wrapper in the wrapper. Behind the scenes there is Sharepoint,Workspace,DSSO/DSP, LS to STS (or Kerberos), Workspace Identity Provider, Workspace Plugins, plus 3 new IDs you have to create (spinstall, spfarm, spservices). All of it has to be installed in the correct and proper order, plus it all has to be configured spot on.... or else....the stuff just won't work. And all of that wraps around S3 for Workspace. Do long time or even short time customers need Ming.le, SoHo... boo.boo or ding.dong? Do they need all those bells and whistles inside Sharepoint? My 2 cents is that I don't want to go Faster, I just want it to go correctly and get me there in one piece. On course and get me to my destination.

And I haven't even touched on LBI....

What about patches and upgrades to this stuff. If you're upgrading to a new version of Workspace for example, does that mean you have to tear out everything and reinstall it again? I haven't done a v10 to v10 Workspace upgrade yet but I'm dreading it a little.

Versus,..

Just S3 for Workspace (Portal). Clean simple log in screen. And your there.

-Roger

Workspace was an interface UI that was MANDATED by Infor for install at S3 Clients, primarily so that All Infor products - Lawson being one of them, could be deployed in a single container as a frontend. Although "Portal" is still there at ../lawson/portal, it is deployed inside a WorkSpace Wrapper. I have heard that there was discussion about not having Workspace installed at PURE S3 Clients, but that the Parent Company still wanted it to be that way. I guess they would wish to cross-sell other Non-Lawson Infor Software products to the Lawson S3 Clients and have them all available in a single UI. The reccomendatin I have heard was to install Sharepoint Foundation, and make that Sharepoint for Workspace "independant" of any Sharepoint Farm a Client may have, most likely because n the transtion to Workspace there may have been fear (on both ends) about pushing this into a pre-existing sharepoint farm and potentially breaking it.

Our organization was just given a "sales" presentation on Mingle (renamed Workspace) and they really emphasized the collaboration tools built into Mingle. The desktop we saw looked like a combination of Facebook and LinkedIn. Very little emphasis was placed on actually using Lawson. We are currently working on our upgrade to Lawson 10, including rolling out LSO for power users. A few users are currently working with LSO and really like it. However when I asked the Infor sales team if the nifty collaboration tools they were waxing eloquently about in Mingle are available to LSO users the answer was no. So you could have user "A" in Mingle initiate something which will then send a notification to other users ("B","C") that they have a task to perform, but if user "C" is on LSO then user "C" will not get this notification. WTF?? Infor is supposedly working on integrating the collaboration tools into LSO but they are not there yet.

We were told that LSO is not going away anytime soon, and will be supported for at least 4 years (the timeline Lawson uses for decommissioning products) but did not get a clear answer if LSO was going to be merely supported or would be actively developed and expanded going forward. Does anyone have insight about the future of LSO?

David, are you guys going to install Ming.le foundation or Enterprise? When we look at it, the enterprise version will allow you to do all the social collaboration like you said but I can't quiet get there in order to purchase and install ION etc since we don't run any other Infor (Non Lawson) product.

When I asked the question about LSO vs Ming.le; I was told they are both moving forward as planned for UI. There are clear differences between the two UI's and the purpose behind them. I love the collaboration within LSO for headsdown users. I am looking at the Ming.le webparts (sharepoint) to provide additional contextual BI for EMSS and RQC users.

I think the collaboration and contextual BI set both UI's apart from portal today.

Hi Mark,

We will probably just be using the Ming.le foundation at present.  Our power users will be using LSO and the sharpoint system will be for everyone else.

Mark, sorry I didn't reply sooner.

From your comments, is ION also required to utilize Ming.le Enterprise? We too do not have any non-Lawson Infor products (and only have S3 apps) to integrate.

We are going with Ming.le Foundation at present and probably scrapping ISO. The quote we got for Enterprise was $450,000. Also we were told you have Enterprise to integrate with the next release of ISO (new name for LSO).

Part of my point was Infor introduced Ming.le and really touts the collaboration tools built into Ming.le Enterprise but then admits these collaboration tools are not integrated with ISO so our ISO users would have to be logged into both ISO for their normal work and into Ming.le to get notifications.

David, ION is required if using enterprise. That is one of our driving factors as well. Our user base will be "core" heads down users in ISO, all EMSS/RQC in Mingle. You are correct that means two different UI's or at minimum links between two.

We have not been able to justify the collaboration that Ming.le provides in a business case as of yet. That is why we are planning V10 upgrade with Ming.le foundation for Oct go-live.

Shane. Can you share where the commented code block is? We are not planning to roll out Mingle to end users as we are not sure what to do with it yet.  We are going to push the Lawson 10.x portal link for self service. Thanks

Jim Ollerton

Posted By Ollerton on 04/30/2014 11:34 AM
Shane. Can you share where the commented code block is? We are not planning to roll out Mingle to end users as we are not sure what to do with it yet.  We are going to push the Lawson 10.x portal link for self service. Thanks

Jim Ollerton

Hello just an FYI, if you are not planning on rolling out Mingle to end users, and instead you just want the 'old' portal, Infor/Lawson may not support your users if they begin having issues with the application or environment. 

-Roger