LTM Employee Self Service

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L G
Advanced Member
Posts: 38
Advanced Member
    Hi
    Does anyone have experience with LTM ESS. How customizable is it vis a vis S3 ESS?
    Specifically do we get the company and employee attributes for the logged in user just like we used to get in S3 ESS if they had the employee identity defined for S3 ESS?

    We have tons of custom pages that use Employee id to identify the user's employee number and give the employee his /her details.
    Srini Rao
    Veteran Member
    Posts: 149
    Veteran Member

      Employee/Manager space is not really customizable like ESS/MSS. We need to use CC and Security to make changes.


      What kind of change you like to make?
      L G
      Advanced Member
      Posts: 38
      Advanced Member
        We have some custom tables/applications/pages in Legacy S3 that are using Company and Employee Identities in V9 and derive Employee Security by linking to EMPLOYEE table as it works for ESS/MSS security logic.
        For V10 Lawson is proposing LTM and management likes the look and feel of LTM ES. But we are concerned that our custom employee self service screens would not work.
        Basically we don't want to maintain S3 V10 ESS just for our custom employee self service screens. Is there any way to get the employee id from within LTM ES.
        Something equivalent to authUser.employee in ESS or getAttribute("employee") in Lawson Design Studio that we can get while hosting our web pages in ES or Lawson Workspace if we don't plan to deploy S3 10 ESS.
        We will be maintaining Legacy S3 for Payroll but planning to migrate to LTM for HR and SS.

        While setting up users for LTM ES do we need to give their employee number as an identity somewhere in ES that we can extract within Lawson Portal/WorkSpace.
        JackB
        Basic Member
        Posts: 9
        Basic Member
          You would want to keep S3, because Payroll is there. LTM would become the system of record. All manager/employee access are on LTM.
          with LTM v10, using Configuration Console, you can customize the user screen at two level:
          1. Configure: Changes are global
          2. Personalize: Changes are for the particular logged on user.

          So you can delete fields out of a form, delete a menu out of a form, change the field label, add new fields, customize a form, link to an external URL..... a lot of options, ways to do thing quick and easy.

          You would also want to have you system federated (single signon), so user only make one log on and have access to both LTM and S3.
          You can also easily configure so that from LTM, the user can access S3 (Benefits, Pay data...) directly.

          It was very difficult and costly to customize LTM version 3, but with Configuration Console in Version 10, it is both easy and flexible. We like it a lot.

          Good luck
          Jack
          JackB
          Basic Member
          Posts: 9
          Basic Member
            Hi LG,
            I am not sure I understand you correctly, but when load data from S3 to LTM (1st time) you load them with current EE#. Then you can tell LTM to assign the next sequential EE# to new hire after that. Personnel data will be interface from LTM to S3 (via PA), so HR 11 will be in sync with LTM. If your current process would extract data from HR11, it will continue to do so. In addition if you create new data fields in LTM and map them to S3, they will be interface over. Your employee will not need to access to ESS anymore, they will go to Employee Space (ES) in LTM. If there is a particular screen in S3, that you want to use, you can have that linked to from LTM (V.10 only). Then while on LTM, if they click that button, the S3 screen will pop up for them. But I do not think you need to go that far. As the Comp # and EE# and other data are available in LTM and interfaced back to S3 already. You current process that extract data from HR will continue to work as is.
            Log on authentication can be done in either S3 or Landmark via federation is your choice when set it up, this will give you single signon. Once log on, security in LTM is handle via Security class assigned to actor roles.
            Technical guys can also modify LTM process flow (IPA) to include the addition process steps you wish to do. That's not difficult, but you have to know IPA.
            Jack
            L G
            Advanced Member
            Posts: 38
            Advanced Member
              My concern is this:
              1) A lot of our custom ESS screens depend on us getting the logged in user's employee id and company from the RMID identity of the logged in user via authUser.employee in S3 ESS or getAttribute(employee) in Design Studio and then use that employee id to get the Employee details via AGS or DME calls.
              Can these be hosted in ES workspace? Or do they have to be stored in legacy Lawson Portal.
              Or do we have to rewrite the whole thing in CC or LPL.
              We are hoping that the custom S3 tables and forms developed for ESS can be maintained rather than having to rewrite them for LTM ES.

              2) We plan to retire ESS for S3 and use LTM ES.
              Is there a way to store Employee Number in the RMID that is created for LTM ES.
              Or do we need to maintain the Employee Identity that is required for ESS to work in addition to whatever new identities that LTM ES will require if we wish to maintain our custom ESS screens that interface to custom S3 Forms and Tables.
              We don't want to maintain ESS S3 just for our custom ESS type screens.

              Basically what we are looking is a way to get the Employee Number from within ES and then be able to call AGS and DME calls to Legacy S3 using the employee number. The pages need to be hosted within ES. Currently we are hosting them in /xhrnet or /xbnnet or /lawson/portal.

              Woozy
              Veteran Member
              Posts: 709
              Veteran Member
                Hi L G,

                We are heavily customized in S3 Benefits, HR, Absence Management, Payroll, ESS, and MSS and we also use Landmark ES/MS/CS. We are currently upgrading to TM10, and we plan to implement Landmark Benefits when it is implemented, but we realize that we will not be able to replicate what we have now - not by any stretch. Life will become much more difficult for us.

                From your comments, it sounds like you are expecting that Landmark/TM will be similar to LSF/S3 in the way it allows modifications and customization. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Jumping back to Srini Rao's comment, Employee Space is not anywhere near as customizable as S3 ESS, nor does LPL/CC have the customization abilities of COBOL. There is the ability to do some configuration of screens, but the functionality is severely limited compared to ESS. Although there is some ability to create forms, they will be based (single) on Landmark business classes. The configuration that is available is primarily limited to the user interface - there is very little business logic that can be manipulated.

                I don't believe there is any abilty to create a new Landmark page and then do S3 DME/AGS calls from that page. It just doesn't work that way. I suppose you could create a non-Infor html webpage and provide a link to it from within Landmark, but if you're going to do that then you could stick with your existing ESS pages.

                Landmark also does not store user information in an LDAP repository the way S3 does - the information is instead stored in database tables in GEN (actors/roles) and in the app prodlines (identities). If you are continuing to use S3 in addition to Landmark/TM, then your S3 security/RM will remain in LS9 security and your Landmark security will be done in Landmark.

                One final thought - it took us a long time to figure this out. S3 and TM/Landmark are completely separate environments and applications. There is an interface from TM to S3 to keep them in sync, and they can be "federated" to allow single sign-on, but they are not truly integrated in any way. Infor is slowly moving applications from S3 to Landmark, but the ability to customize and manipulate the screens and functionality will be severely restricted as they do this. COBOL and html/Javascript are fantastic for allowing user customization, but Landmark LPL is not.

                Sorry for the bad news.

                Kelly
                Kelly Meade
                J. R. Simplot Company
                Boise, ID
                L G
                Advanced Member
                Posts: 38
                Advanced Member
                  Thanks a lot everyone for the replies.

                  Sounds like we are stuck with hosting our Custom ESS pages within S3 ESS or Portal.
                  I was hoping that we could avoid upgrading to Lawson S3 ESS for V10.
                  But accessing Portal directly is also not supported by Lawson (I understand we could unofficially use it without support) and moving to LTM ES sounds like its going to severely contract our ability to customize it. Oh well, but management likes the look and feel of LTM ES.
                  Justifying the additional cost of S3 ESS for V10 would be very difficult.

                  Looks like we have to rewrite our custom applications in Java or Dot Net either immediately or later and then make customizations outside of Lawson for our custom needs given the future direction of Landmark. Shame because Employee/Manager/Requestor Security and ESS/DS/PF served us really well.

                  Though Lawson upgrades would be a breeze since they have given us no ability to customize. Not much to worry about when upgrading.
                  mterlesky
                  New Member
                  Posts: 2
                  New Member
                    Hi Kelly - We are implementing LTM. Would you be available to discuss on the phone?
                    Thanks
                    Matt