General LBP Maintenance

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ErikaS
Basic Member
Posts: 19
Basic Member
    Hello...

    We are in the initial phases of implementing LBP (this is the first week of training/prototyping) and I can't seem to find any documentation on how to maintain LBP data.

    We have 5 productlines that we constantly move data to and from for our other Lawson implementations (Finance and HR) , with one productline "attached" to LBP.

    Typically, I refresh data from one productline to another with expsysdb and impexp. Can I still use these commands to move data to my attached LBP productline or will I break the LBP/LSF9 "handshake"?

    I also understand that there is a LBP command (dbbat??) to clear out the LBP data. At what point is best to do this function?

    Also, I'm having a hard time figuring out ad hoc reporting out of LBP. Currently, to pull data out of our LSF9 databases, we use an ODBC connection via Crystal Reports. Can we continue to use this method to pull data out of LBP? I understand that the LBP data is in a star-schema...I am unfamiliar with this data structure.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
    Allan Ingle
    Posts: 3
      I have been performing LBP implementations for well over 5 years. What I have found that works best is to point your DEV Lbp and your PROD Lbp to the S3 Production Environment. The rationale for this approach is that LBP simply pulls data from Lawson. At most you can push a budget to your Prod S3 however it sits in the interface file until you process an FB165 in update mode. You simply delete the run group or use an FB budget number that is outside the range of FB budgets in current use.

      Another reason for pointing both DEV and PROD to S3 PROD is that it makes it easy to migrate your PROD LBP Environment to DEV LBP when you want to test a patch, new custom report, etc.... This approach will allow you to use the LBP migration utility to seamlessly move the data in a quick and efficient manner.

      There are two commands deploy.bat and deploywithdb.bat. Both commands generate the war file using the contents of the configuration flat files. The deploywithdb.bat command is specifically used to truncate (clean out the LBP db tables). I use this command for various reasons (a) to test/implement a new LBP Budget Design Approach, (b) as part of a Migration Process, and (c) to correct data corruption to name a few reasons.

      LBP comes packaged with canned reports that are installed as a solution pack in LBI. In addition to this there are Copy|Paste and DES Export utilities. "Export Finance Data in Report Format" and Export Workforce Data in Report Format" will export Meta Data and Data into csv files.

      You can write reports directly against the LBP dB. Lawson has written a reporting guide you can download from MyLawson that will give you reporting insights. You can run a shareware tool that documents the schema for you. Once you have the schema you will see Lawson has created Table Views you might be able to leverage for reporting purposes. Typically we write our reports against the Fact Tables. Once you understand the schema it is not that difficult.

      If you are creating reports that you intend to schedule and/or burst you may want to consider using Rights Management in LBI.