Does anyone use FML to write financial reports for Lawson? I'd like to know how to set up the chart of accounts to use the FML hierarchy.
Thanks, Bethany
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Server Environment: Win2K3 Server WebFOCUS 7.13 Apache Tomcat standalone application server
February 15, 2008, 01:55 PM
JimRice
Hi Bethany,
I use WebFocus for reporting from Lawson, but I have not used FML much. I too would be interested in hearing from anyone who has done this. I've read that there is an adapter for Lawson Financials. Does anyone have any experience with this?
I would also like to know if there are many Lawson users out there that use WebFocus as their reporting tool. Our users mainly use the Lawson Query tool and some use Crystal Reports and then I use WebFocus.
Jim
WF DevStu 5.2.6/WF Srv 5.2.4/Win NT 5.2
February 15, 2008, 02:37 PM
Bethany
We are in the process of converting all of our Lawson reports from Crystal to WebFocus. We have done many reports without FML, but now we are doing the reports that use the account hierarchy so I thought now would be a good opportunity to try FML.
Do you know where you read about the Lawson Financials adapter?
Bethany
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February 15, 2008, 02:48 PM
FrankDutch
I do not know the Lawson GL application, but in our company we use CODA, and we have set up great application on this GL system with WF (FML).
What you will need is a master with the necessary extra info on certain fields (caption and parent).
I wonder if the Lawson GL table has an hierarchy build in, if it has, you probably need to convert it to an proper master. We did that and load the table once a week (only the static GL account codes).
Frank
prod: WF 7.6.10 platform Windows, databases: msSQL2000, msSQL2005, RMS, Oracle, Sybase,IE7 test: WF 7.6.10 on the same platform and databases,IE7
There are 2 tables that have the chart of account information. One that has the account descriptions etc., and a 2nd that has the heirarchy. Would you recommend joining the 2 to make a single table with the same format as the sample CENTGL table that's provided by IBI?
Server Environment: Win2K3 Server WebFOCUS 7.13 Apache Tomcat standalone application server
February 15, 2008, 03:57 PM
Bethany
Jim,
Fairly long story on how we decided to go to WF for the financial reports. Our university was already using WF for academic reporting from PeopleSoft, so when Crystal was not being fully supported, we decided to convert the lawson reports to WF as well. So far all of our users are much happier with the WF reports since it's user friendly and they run MUCH faster than the Crystal reports did.
Thanks for the adapter link.
Server Environment: Win2K3 Server WebFOCUS 7.13 Apache Tomcat standalone application server
February 15, 2008, 04:03 PM
FrankDutch
Bethany, that is not necessary, but it is an extra option. We created an master like the CENTGL example.
BTW we moved from Business Objects to WF. BO is sold together with the CODA GL application. Today they are looking for selling our solution with WF.
Frank
prod: WF 7.6.10 platform Windows, databases: msSQL2000, msSQL2005, RMS, Oracle, Sybase,IE7 test: WF 7.6.10 on the same platform and databases,IE7
February 18, 2008, 09:59 AM
JimRice
Hi All,
I would like to hear from any others that are using WebFocus to create financial reports. I don't know if there are many companies doing this, and if so, are you happy with the results.
Please let us know.
Thanks Jim
WF DevStu 5.2.6/WF Srv 5.2.4/Win NT 5.2
February 19, 2008, 11:28 AM
Bethany
Frank,
Another question about your master table. Does it have just the roll up account captions and you join to a separate table that has the account codes and their descriptions or does it include the roll ups as well as the specific account codes and their descriptions?
Bethany
Server Environment: Win2K3 Server WebFOCUS 7.13 Apache Tomcat standalone application server
February 20, 2008, 12:32 PM
JimRice
Bethany,
Were you able to find out anything about the Lawson Adapter?
Do you know of others using WebFocus and Lawson?
Thanks Jim
WF DevStu 5.2.6/WF Srv 5.2.4/Win NT 5.2
February 21, 2008, 12:29 PM
Bethany
Jim,
I looked at the link for the adapter. I don't think it will be useful for us since we already have the lawson data available for us in WF. However, I'm not that a hardware/middleware person so I may not be understanding what the adapter can do. I'm going to take Frank's suggestion to rework the lawson tables to create a master file for the heirarchy with the same format at the GLCENT sample table and then go from there. I'll let you know how it works out.
Bethany
Server Environment: Win2K3 Server WebFOCUS 7.13 Apache Tomcat standalone application server
February 21, 2008, 03:32 PM
FrankDutch
Bethany
You should be aware of some small problems you will meet. The thing I found was that sometimes a hierarchy is not complete balanced, I will show some records to explain this.
So in the unbalanced version you find the lowest level (the accountcode) sometimes at level 2 some on level3 and some on level4.
Our GL system can handle this, but in WF it was not the result I liked (nor the end user) We created some extra "branches" to get it as needed.
Frank
prod: WF 7.6.10 platform Windows, databases: msSQL2000, msSQL2005, RMS, Oracle, Sybase,IE7 test: WF 7.6.10 on the same platform and databases,IE7
February 21, 2008, 05:20 PM
Bethany
So how do you create these extra branches? We also have an unbalanced tree. Revenue accounts only have level 2 or 3 summary levels and Expenses may have up to 6 summary levels.
Can you use the heirarchy to create output like this where in operating expenses some accounts are summed at level 5 and others are summed at level 6?
LEVEL 3: OPERATING REVENUE ______________LEVEL 4: Tuition and Fees _______________________Gifts _______________________Other Income _________OPERATING REVENUE SUBTOTAL
Server Environment: Win2K3 Server WebFOCUS 7.13 Apache Tomcat standalone application server
March 04, 2009, 02:36 PM
Dan McDonald
We use Lawson also and we are in the middle of developing the financial statements. We also have an unbalanced Chart and we also have a challange where we need to have different grouping for different operations. We use Lawson attributes and assigned each account an attribute (Cash, AR,...Retained Earnings, Sales, ... Income Tax Expense).
We are able to create summary statements based on the attributes. We have tried to create the heirarchy, but we only get the first grouping (in our case Accrued Expenses) with all of the accounts that belong to that group.
I would love to talk to anyone who uses Lawson so we can compare notes.
Dan
Dan McDonald Version : 7.7.01 Platform:WindowsOutput : Excel, PDF, HTML