Use of ming.le 'Foundation'

I am looking to speak with users who use ming.le FOUNDATION as the primary user interface for Lawson S3 products on v10.01 or higher.
We are making the move from 9.0.1.9 to 10 and use Smart Office for 90% of our users to access the S3 Applications (outside of RQC and E/MSS).

We are trying to decide
1) Continue Smart Office use and do all of our customization in that tool for 10.01 and see what 10x brings (landmark version of Smart Office)
2) Develop all our customizations in ming.le and use in 10.01 and be ready for 10x with fewer concerns

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Infor Lawson Technology Group - Discussion

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I think I heard that only Infor Lawson10 is on the Sharepoint foundation. The next version now in development (Infor Xi) does not use Sharepoint but instead uses the Landmark Java-based Rich Client User Interface. I don't know if this impacts your decision ...

Sorry, Xi is what I am referring to, not 10x

And yes that "Java-based rich client" is replacing current smart office user interface from what I can tell.

I was under the impression that ming.le (or Sharepoint) would be available for Xi as well. Is only the "Enterprise" version available for Xi?

And yes, these options/availability is exactly what I am looking to evaluate.

So, do you currently use ming.le/sharepoint?

There won't be any Sharepoint at all in Xi - no Foundation and no Enterprise. The Sharepoint goes entirely away - it will be on Landmark java-based UI.
Not on ming.le, sorry, we're still back in the 90.1 dark ages ;-)

Do you have an "official" reference for that?

Is there any point in going from 9.0.1.x to 10.x at all? Will there be a direct path from 9.0.1.x to Xi?

That I don't know.

I believe I heard these things by viewing the Inforum General Session which was open to everyone via the web.
I'm also pretty darn sure I heard that Payroll will not be in Xi (because they haven't figured out how to get it to work correctly) so there will be an interface to/from Infor10 for Payroll.
So by inference, if you are running Payroll, you have to get to Infor10 so InforXi has something to use. I'll see if I have a printed doc for this info, but I think it was just my notes from the Inforum GA.

Oh, found a doc with my notes on it. From the Ciber Infor 10X Webex on 10/29/2014 - I'd taken some screen shots and added my notes on it. Attached.

OK, I think ming.le will still be available for Xi, but I have nothing to base that on.

Forgot to upload - here it is

0911060553270289.pdf

Interesting. THanks

cjandrle - We considered the same question - why go to 10x when Xi is on the horizon? Given there are no similar customers like us (that I know of at this point) that are running Xi, we didn't necessarily want to be the first to try it out. Also, there is no decommission date that I know of for 10x, so I estimate we will probably have a 3-4 years on a known10x (LSF / 4GL) platform before making the full jump to apps running in Landmark. Going to 10x seems to be the least invasive jump for our business community.

We upgraded to 10x in May. Our power users use Smart Office and self service users use Ming.le foundation. We have a couple of mixed power users who use both ISO and Ming.le. Ming.le has gotten considerably better since May. You could definitely use it for power users if you want to go that direction. Our power users love ISO This is unfortunate because my sources have stated XI will not use ISO and will use Ming.le exclusively. I have not heard of end users using the Landmark Rich Client as part of the XI product. We currently only use the Rich Client for IPA management and configuration. I do not think any customizations for ISO will translate to the Rich Client.

I think it is of great value if Infor removes sharepoint from Ming.le as it adds no value to our organization. Our users always bypass anything sharepoint related in Ming.le and jump to the S3 screens or LBI. The contextual apps in Ming.le are cool and I see them getting much better with the XI product.

In regards to 10.x and XI, XI is a completely new product and the only thing (I think) that will translate over is your S3 database. I am not aware of any customizations working since all the forms will be different. There will not be a GL20 or GL45. There will be equivalents but the implementation is much different. I have seen some demos of the XI financials and procurement and they are really cool and very powerful but vastly different from S3. This is all based on what I have seen and heard and may change of course. Good luck with your 10.x upgrade.

ollerton,

Do you have any "form customizations" done in ming.le?

Also, that is very similar path forward as to what I have heard that Infor is taking. The discontinuation of ming.le was news to me above. Perhaps the interchangable use with ming.le and sharepoint led to that confusion, at least on my part.
I was under the impression however that XI will have the Landmark Rich Client available to access the applications as well as ming.le.

Also since Xi isn't even released yet, how they plan for users to interact with it is certainly subject to change.
Heck, LID was unsupported in 9, but we still use it in some instances, and support still asks us to try and duplicate issues with it so...

We don't have any form customs in ming.le All of that stuff is done in smart office. If you have cloned a form and done custom cobol,etc that would work in ming.le of smart office at 10.x. We have not touched design studio since we implemented smart office. Design studio still exists in 10.x. I think you will be able to use the rich client with Landmark apps, however, I would not roll it out to an end user. Ming.le would be a much better option. In regards to upgrade to 10.x or not, I think there is a lot of value with having Payroll at the 10.x revision since it will most likely play nicer with XI financials. They will be tightly integrated until Infor releases their Landmark based payroll.

Jim Ollerton

Hi all -

Let me take a stab at clearing up some of the things in this thread, as there seems to be some confusion out there.

In Lawson 10 today, there is the option today to use Ming.le Foundation (free) or Ming.le Enterprise (cost) as the web-based UI that replaces the old Lawson Portal. You MUST install Ming.le to be supported.

Both Ming.le Foundation or Ming.le Enterprise require Sharepoint today. There have been some rumors about removing that requirement at some point in the future, but there is no stated confirmation on that, nor release date for a non-Sharepoint version. So for all your planning purposes surrounding moving to v10, you will need Sharepoint.

Smart Office is a separate user interface that is available for purchase to use against the Lawson cobol-based products (S3). Smart Office 10 is supported for use against Lawson 901 and Lawson 10.x. It has a whole host of features that justify that additional expense that I won't go into here. Many customers have rolled out Smart Office (over 75% of the customers already live on Lawson 10 are running Smart Office). Most are running both Smart Office (for power users) and Ming.le (for casual users). Some though are running Smart Office for all their users and just have Ming.le installed for support purposes (no users use it day-to-day).

In Xi (Lawson 11), we are moving from cobol-based applications to java-based applications (LSF environment to Landmark environment). Landmark applications have three different available UIs today. First is Rich Client (LRC). LRC is a desktop install that has a very similar look and feel to Smart Office, but they are very different technologies. LRC is Java based, Smart Office is .NET based. Even though they look similar, they are very different UIs. Smart Office is not compatible with java-based applications. LRC provides full UI functionality, as well as admin UI functions, for accessing Landmark based applications. It is a fat-client that requires a footprint on each desktop. Think of it as the "LID" of Landmark (souped-up of course).

The second Landmark UI is called the "applet". It is a web-based way to access the above LRC. It runs as a java frame within a web browser. Pretty much the same functionality as LRC (some admin functions not accessible, but from an end-user perspective its the same). The main difference is there is no desktop footprint and it runs in a browser. The downside is the caching is different, and therefore for casual users, it has some performance limitations. It was basically built to provide LRC access via the web, versus being built specifically as a web-based UI for Landmark applications.

Enter the newest UI for Landmark. Called HTML5 interface, or WebUI, or some other name once marketing gets ahold of it, this is a true web-based UI being built for Landmark apps. You will be able to run this in multiple browsers, on tablets, on phones, etc etc etc. True web UI. Talent Management is leading the charge here and their latest version supports using this interface. Xi will also support using this interface.

So... When Xi is released, the plan is for this new interface (WebUI) to be the go-forward approach and replace the applet. LRC will still be available for power users and sys admin types. But the Xi applications are being built around this WebUI being deployed in Mingl.le. That is the go-forward approach. Smart Office is not currently planned to move forward into Xi. Functionality from Smart Office that customers love today is being brought forward into Ming.le so that it can be accessed from the web with zero footprint. All of these UIs are converging into a single front end for the user community.

Now to the customization question. No matter what you deploy today for Lawson 10.x, you will probably be revisiting those customizations tomorrow on Xi. The back-end technology is different (LSF vs Landmark, Cobol vs Java) , the customization tooling is different (Design Studio vs Configuration Console). Cobol code customizations will have to be completely revisited. So I don't think the UI plays much of a role in the customization discussion.

The 901 to 10x vs 901 to Xi conversation... When I talk to customers, here is how I position this. The dates for 901 end of life are fast approaching. They have not changed. We have a track record of pushing out dates in our history, but to my knowledge, there has been no discussion of pushing out the dates for 901 support. 10.x has been out now for over 3 years. We are nearing 100 customers live on the release in 3+ years of availability. Everyone can do the math and say that adoption has been slow. There are a variety of reasons for that - if you buy me a beer one day I can dive into them. But the 10.x release is reaching maturity. In April, LSF 10.0.7 and Apps 10.0.6 will be released. More customers are moving every day.

Xi is not yet GA. That is targeted for mid-late 2015. We are actively recruiting early adopters/betas. We have one today that we have been working with for over a year. We have a pool of candidates that we are hoping will sign up in the next few months. Those projects are targeted to begin in June 2015. Those early projects will validate both an upgrade from Lawson 10.x as well as a skip upgrade from Lawson 9.0.1. Even if we GA at that time, that will give a customer less than a year to move to Xi prior to the stated decommission of mainstream support for 901. We anticipate that the early adopter projects will take 9-12 months, which will put the first go-lives on Xi around mid-2016. We are now into 901 extended support dates.

Our clients like to talk about making these jumps, and I would encourage anyone to explore it if they are interested. But the reality is that few will go this route. In the first year of v10 release, we had zero go-lives. In the first 18 months, we had less than 10. In the first 2 years, less than 25. And 901 to 10 was a far less complex undertaking than going from a cobol stack to a java stack. Do I expect some clients to take that path? Absolutely! Do I expect many to make the 901 to Xi jump in the first 2 years - no, the track record doesn't support that. IF (and I continue to say IF) we GA in June 2015, then 2 years from that will be June 2017. We will be past the current stated decommission dates of even extended support for 901. So unless the dates move, the timeline just doesn't work for that kind of move.

But I don't want to move to 10 with Xi looming... I understand that thinking. But I would counter that the jump to 10 does more than just spend your money on an upgrade to stay current. It provides a bridge for many different technology changes that you will have to absorb over the coming years. If you haven't gone to IPA yet, v10 forces that change. IPA is the foundation workflow engine for the Landmark application stack. IPA also brings Landmark into the environment. Many of our customers haven't purchased a Landmark application yet, and therefore have no experience with that environment. IPA will be the door into Landmark for close to 1000 clients. That will build expertise and exposure. So too will Ming.le. Lawson 10.x brings the Ming.le UI and the concepts of contextual applications and ION to the Lawson customer base. These are foundational elements to the Xi architecture and so you will again build expertise and end-user exposure to these functions. There are many more stepping stones, but not only does moving to 10 provide you that bridge in technology, it also buys you time. Time to plan your Xi move. Time to allow Xi to mature and stabilize (most customers don't want to be the trail-blazers). It will allow you time to be exposed to the other Infor products that will make up the Xi framework (Infor Bi, dEPM, etc).

So, sorry for being longwinded - I hope I was able to add some clarity. Any questions - keep adding them to the thread, or reach out to me directly!

We said Hans!

Jim Ollerton

Thank you thank you THANK you!!!
Hans for infor product communication lead!!!

Thank you, Hans! We've been struggling with the 9.0.1 to !0 vs 9.0.1 to Xi paths since attending Inforum in September. This information is very helpful.

Annotated Agenda 2024 March SuperSystems.pdf

Hans- At Inforum, there was a session on this and as I understood it, the venerable HR/Payroll in S3 was proving to be extremely problematic in moving from good old cobol to Java only, are there any updates on that since Inforum? As that looks to be the last module to go java, many of us could be in a mixed (LSF/Landmark) environment for a considerable amount of time.....so any "expert" guidance you can provide will be of great interest to those of us in that particular boat. -Frank

Hi Frank -

All of HR except Payroll has moved into Landmark with the release of HCM Xi in December 2014. Payroll is being reviewed, but there is currently no timetable to communicate for its move to Java. So yes, early customers on the full Xi suite who run Payroll will have a mixed environment. There will be delivered integrations from HCM and Financials to and from Payroll, but you will still have an LSF environment around to run the Payroll system for the short/medium term.

Hans

Thanks for the clarification on HR and Payroll. It will be interesting to see how long that takes to transition. -Frank

0911060553270289.pdf

By the way, how do we initiate an upgrade with Lawson these days? At one time, we couldn't "see" the downloads on the support site until we asked to have them "turned on" but now it looks like all the 10.x stuff is showing up there already.

Still should start with your AE. While some downloads are now available, others are not. For example, IPA would be not be available unless you have another Landmark app already licensed, or already did that piece of the v10 prep. A no-charge addendum would be needed to turn that one on. If you are on Windows, you will need to review the switch to Visual Cobol and that will require separate contracting with your AE. So always start there. You also still need to work with a "certified" resource on the install, so depending on your preference of ICS or partner, you will want the AE involved there too.

One clarification to my response to Frank above.

All of HR except Payroll has moved into Landmark with the release of GHR/TM 11 in December 2014. I had originally said HCM Xi (which is more a marketing term for a solution) rather than the specific product and release, which is GHR/TM 11.

Hans - Can you confirm that the iSeries platform will NOT be supported in version Xi?

Hans, Thanks for presenting at our MRLUG meeting on 5/20. My company would prefer to skip Ming.le V.11 and it's SharePoint requirement in favor of Ming.le V.12 when we upgrade in early 2017. Can you elaborate on when Ming.le V.12 might be available?

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