LAWSON Software

Summary

The interface between Databasics’ time and expense management products, and Lawson Activity Management   is the result of a joint development project.  The interface strategy is to define a “middle layer” of standard tables with fixed formats to which the “system of record” for a particular type of information writes its updates and from which the “consumer” of that information takes its updates.  Generally, Activity Management is the system of record for codes and Time and Expense, the systems of record for employee time and expense reports.

The use of these intermediate tables has a number of benefits.  Among them are:

·         Insulation from changes to the applications.  One product may be changed without directly impacting the other. So long as the system of record fulfills its obligation to “fill-out” the intermediate tables in the agreed-upon fashion, then the consuming application need not be concerned with “back-end” modifications.

·         Asynchronicity.  Updating does not require that the interfaced systems perform their tasks at the same time.  This means, for example, that preventive maintenance on one system will not cause a data transmission involving the other system to fail. Similarly, coordination is not necessary to avoid attempting an update during load peaks.

·         Ease of simulation and prototyping.  Because the applications only access intermediate tables, neither system must be there for the other to test import and export processes—the intermediate tables may be filled manually or by test scripting.

·         Simplification of multi-direction feeds.  Provision of updates to multiple modules can be accomplished through a single, central facility—the intermediate tables.

The interface supports a standard integration model identified later in this document. If clients implement this standard integration model there is no need for additional development effort. The standard integration effort would require the same tasks needed in any project; installation, training, configuration, prototyping and testing and end-user rollout.

Any client that wishes to implement an integration other than the pre-defined standard model will need to add to their project team either their own development resources or consulting resources to define and custom-code their changes to the standard model at their own expense. Databasics and Lawson resources can be used at the respective parties consulting rates to support any changes to the standard model.

The Lawson Databasics interface was designed so that Lawson could provide a full solution.  With that in mind, it was decided that a full solution included at minimum the Lawson HR and Financial Suites.  Therefore,

DATABASICS Time- requires Lawson General Ledger, Payroll and Activity Management.

DATABASICS Expense - requires Lawson General Ledger, Payroll, Activity Management, and Accounts Payable.

The data extraction/flow from Lawson into Databasics includes Employee information, Pay codes, and optionally Leave Balances. If a client does not purchase the Lawson HR Suite they can enter this data directly into Databasics.

The data load from Databasics into Lawson in 8.x was designed so that the data from Databasics would be passed to the ACBBTRANS file and be processed in the AC542 program where the processing logic accesses Payroll to get wage information and standard costs. If the client does not purchase the HR Suite they would need to setup AC Resources and load them into Databasics; then the data passed from Databasics would need to go into the ACTRANSREL file to be processed in program AC540.  AC540 validates resource information and uses standard costs maintained in AC.

Interface Specifics Overview

From the standpoint of the interface, Databasics’ data model consists of two major structures:  Organization and Work Breakdown.

Organizational Structure

DATABASICS Organizational Structure is comprised of the Operating Unit, Department, Employee, Function, and Location.   Also associated with Organization are Currency, Employee Types, Holiday, Vendor, Time Code (Pay Code), Time Code Validation Rules, and User Reporting Group elements.

The Operating Unit is the highest level within an organization.  Operating Unit can represent any type of cost center or company.  An Operating Unit is unique across the entire organization.  For example, Operating Unit may correspond to an organization’s "Divisions".   Operating Unit is a required level of the Organization Breakdown.

Operating Unit

Lawson Activity Management contains the master records for DATABASICS Operating Unit. In Lawson this is the Company, GLSYSTEM data element.   Databasics connects to the Lawson database through a utility called Remote Agent .  For example, the Lawson table GLSYSTEM, AC550 extracts data to intermediate table ACDBSYSTEM, which TEAim maps back by a V_DB_OPERATING_UNIT.  Then RemoteAgent loads/updates Operating Unit table in DATABASICS.

Department

Operating Units may be broken down into Departments.  Department represents an Employee’s administrative unit.   Department IDs can be duplicated across Operating Units.  For example, there can be an Accounting Department in each Operating Unit.  Each Employee is assigned to one department.  Lawson maps to Databasics’ departments through Lawson Accounting Units, GLNAMES data element.  AC550 extracts data to intermediate table ACDBGLNAME.

Location

The DATABASICS element Location is used to capture specific business sites or if specificity is not required, geographic or political consolidations.  For example, different work/business rules may apply per Location with respect to the length of the workday, weekdays verses weekends, etc.  Each employee is assigned to a default location, which can be changed during Time Entry on a per line basis.  Lawson 8.0.1 maps to HR Location, PCODES data element. This will allow ability to override the HR location field at time record entry.  Required for override of tax location for use with BSI tax locator feature in Lawson (drives tax calculation by location).  AC550 extracts data to intermediate table ACDBLOCATE.

Employee

Employee is the lowest level of the Organization Structure and as noted above, Employees are assigned to one and only Department.  This element is used to identify the actual users of the DATABASICS system.  Lawson maps to DATABASICS’ employee through EMPLOYEEà ACDBEMPLY.

Vendor

DATABASCS’s Vendor identifies time and expense reports from employees of outside organizations who are working under contract.  Rules and reports can be driven off of Vendor.  Lawson 8.0.1 maps to DATABASICS’s Vendor through ACEMPVEN → ACDBEEVEN.    Lawson interface does not support subcontractors or employees outside of an organization. The use of vendors for the Lawson 8.0.1 interface is strictly for paying internal employees via Accounts Payable.

Work Breakdown Structure
 

The standard interface supports these scenarios:

Scenario 1

• Activity (the posting level) in Lawson mapping to DATABASICS WBS Level 1.

• Account Category in Lawson mapping to DATABASICS WBS Level 2.

• In this scenario, the Lawson HR Job Code and Shift Code can optionally be mapped to DATABASICS Level 3 and Level 4 respectively.

Scenario 2

• Activity (levels 1 – 4) in Lawson mapping to DATABASICS WBS Level 1 – Level 4.

• Account Category in Lawson mapping to DATABASICS WBS function.

Scenario 3

• Activity (the posting level) in Lawson—varying levels and different activity groups—mapping to DATABASICS WBS Level 1 – Level 4.

• Account Category in Lawson mapping to DATABASICS WBS function.

For both scenarios, Account Category is optional.  The entry of the Account Category is determined by a flag on the Activity Group.  If no Account Categories are interfaced to DATABASICS, the Account Category will default from the Employee Master (HR 11) when running the Lawson interface program AC542.

Export Timesheets/Expenses to Lawson 7.2.2 Activity Transaction Relation File (ACTRANSREL)

DATABASICS exports timesheets/expenses to Lawson in two ways:

1. Direct link to ACTRANSREL:  Databasics exports the data to the Lawson interface table directly either using ODBC or Native drivers.

1. File Export:  Databasics exports the data to an ASCII file to be later imported into ACDBTRANS.  This method is used when there is no direct connectivity to the Lawson database server.

ACTRANSREL