On March 1, 2019, Infor will no longer support LS/STS authentication configuration for Lawson applications. The Infor recommended configuration will be to use Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) for Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication. To learn more about ADFS, check out our other articles on the topic:
If your organization chooses not to move to ADFS at this time, you have two other temporary options.
Use Kerberos for authentication
Kerberos is another authentication type provided by Windows, and also works with your Active Directory. This authentication type is supported in Infor Lawson 10.
Stay in an unsupported authentication configuration
As of March 1, 2019, Infor will no longer be releasing Lawson patches that take LS/STS authentication method into account. This doesn’t mean your current versions of Lawson applications will stop working if you fail to move to ADFS at this time. It just means that you won’t be able to upgrade past a specific ESP for each product (10.0.9 for Lawson). When Infor sunsets the product versions that allow LS/STS, you will then be on an unsupported product version. It is looking like this will happen sometime early 2021.
Have more questions? Contact us and setup a free, no obligation call with our installer to answer all your questions.
On March 1, 2019, Infor will no longer support LS/STS authentication configuration for Lawson applications. The Infor recommended configuration will be to use Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) for Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication. To learn more about ADFS, check out our other articles on the topic:
Here are some pro tips to help you prepare for your ADFS implementation.
Version compatibility is important
Before you begin your ADFS implementation, it is important that you verify component compatibility. Check the Lawson compatibility matrix for which version of ADFS is compatible with your versions of Lawson and Ming.le. You must also verify that the version of ADFS you are installing is compatible with your version of Active Directory. Additionally, you will need a minimum Windows Server version of 2012R2 on the server that is hosting ADFS and your domain controllers.
You might need a new server(s)
The ADFS installation for Infor Lawson applications also requires Infor Federation Services (IFS) to be installed on the same server. If you are not prepared to host IFS on a shared ADFS server, you will need to stand up a new Windows server dedicated to ADFS/IFS for Infor applications.
There will be small changes in user maintenance
ADFS is an authentication method, and user maintenance will change slightly. For instance, you will be able to disable users right in ADFS rather than having to do it in Lawson Security. Also, there will be a new identity to maintain in Lawson Security. When you implement ADFS, you will need to import all your users into IFS. However, implementing ADFS will not change the user authorization tools. You will still use Lawson Security Administrator (LSA) or Infor Security Services (ISS) to maintain users and roles, and those roles will work the same.
SSL is required for Infor Lawson applications
All of your Lawson web applications must use HTTPS to be able to implement ADFS. If your web applications are not currently using HTTPS, it is recommended that you make this change prior to implementing ADFS. You will need to choose a certificate authority (CA) and install certificates at each endpoint.
You need a SQL Server to host IFS databases
IFS will create new SQL Server databases, so you will need to have a SQL Server to host those. You can use a shared database server for this, such as your server that hosts Ming.le data or the server that hosts your Lawson data.
Have more questions? Contact us and setup a free, no obligation call with our installer to answer all your questions.
https://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Five-Things-You-Need-to-Know-About-Implementing-ADFS-For-Your-Infor-Lawson-Applications.jpg451495Angeli Mentahttps://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/logo-with-slogan-good.pngAngeli Menta2019-02-20 07:23:302019-02-21 16:43:40Five Things You Need to Know About Implementing ADFS For Your Infor Lawson Applications
With the positive outcome at HIMSS 2019, Infor continues to be successful in the healthcare sector. With the continued adoption of Infor CloudSuite Healthcare growing over the past fiscal year and with expanding relationships with applications specific to healthcare, customers are seeing a wealth of success upgrading their systems to the newest iteration of Infor CloudSuite™ Financials & Supply Management. Infor also plans to release its next major update to the Infor Cloverleaf Integration Suite in Winter 2019. The newest iteration, version 19.1, will help healthcare organizations, health information exchanges (HIEs), medical device manufacturers, and hospital information system vendors handle their most complex integration and information exchange challenges. Mark Weber, senior vice president at Infor Healthcare, comments of their continued success and growth, “Organizations continue to choose Infor because, above all else, we understand that the healthcare industry is ever-evolving, and that our software solutions need to evolve with it. We listen to the needs of our customers and are constantly updating our solutions to make them relevant to their current and future needs, so we can help them provide the highest level of patient outcomes while facilitating business sustainability.”
On March 1, 2019, Infor will no longer support LS/STS authentication configuration for Lawson applications. The Infor recommended configuration will be to use Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) for Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication. To learn more about ADFS, check out our other articles on the topic:
Active Directory Federation Services is a Single Sign-On service provided by Microsoft. It runs on Windows Server, and provides users with the ability to sign on with one set of credentials across applications.
How does ADFS work with Lawson?
Why change our authentication method?
Although there will be some work up front to modify your configuration from LS/STS to ADFS, using ADFS for SSO authentication is actually beneficial to your organization. It is more secure because Infor applications will never have access to a user’s password. It is also a bit easier to maintain your Infor users in ADFS, in that you can enable/disable the users right within Windows instead of having to do it in Lawson Security. Additionally, implementing ADFS will open up other Microsoft security components, such as two-factor authentication.
Busting Myths
There are some common misconceptions revolving around the implementation of ADFS for your Infor Lawson application. Hopefully these explanations will help dispel the confusion.
MYTH: We can use our organization’s current ADFS installation
Infor Federation Services (IFS) must be installed on the same server as ADFS. So, you may need to have a dedicated server for ADFS for Lawson. Also, your Infor Lawson applications cannot be hosted on the same server as ADFS. If you are installing a new instance of ADFS, make sure that it is compatible with your current version of Active Directory
MYTH: We don’t need SSL to implement ADFS
ADFS requires all of your Infor Lawson applications to use SSL (Secure Socket Layer). You will need to select a Certificate Authority (CA), and install certificates at each web endpoint. If your current Lawson web applications are not using SSL, you will need to convert them before you begin the ADFS installation/configuration.
MYTH: Our organization has to begin using ADFS for everything
The ADFS implementation is limited to Lawson and does not need to be part of any other application in your organization. A Windows server will host ADFS solely for Lawson and can be segregated to just this specific use without affecting anything else within the organization.
MYTH: The change is transparent to users
The look & feel of your Lawson web applications will remain the same, but the way users log in will change. LS/STS username format is currently “username”. When you switch to ADFS, users will log in with format “username@domain.com”. Also, keep in mind that if you have to update to a compatible ESP in any of your applications, there may be some slight changes in what the users see on the forms they use. Make sure this is done well in advance so the ESP can be tested thoroughly.
MYTH: Infor won’t support us after March 1, 2019
As of March 1, 2019, Infor will no longer be releasing Lawson patches that take LS/STS authentication method into account. This doesn’t mean your current versions of Lawson applications will stop working if you fail to move to ADFS at this time. It just means that you won’t be able to upgrade past a specific ESP for each product (10.0.9 for Lawson). When Infor sunsets the product versions that allow LS/STS, you will then be on an unsupported product version. It is look like this will happen sometime early 2021.
MYTH: User maintenance in Lawson Security is going to change
ADFS is an Authentication Method, while Lawson Security is an Authorization Method. So, you will continue to use Lawson Security Administrator (LSA) or Infor Security Services (ISS) to maintain users and roles. The ADFS authentication will not impact these roles at all.
MYTH: We use IPA, so we will have to update Landmark too
Infor Lawson products are actually the only products that allow LS/STS authentication method. So, you will not need to make any updates to your Landmark products, including IPA.
Contact us when you are ready for your move to ADFS. Our expert installers at Nogalis can make the process simple and pain-free.
https://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Seven-Myths-About-Implementing-ADFS-For-Infor-Lawson.jpg450495Angeli Mentahttps://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/logo-with-slogan-good.pngAngeli Menta2019-02-18 08:28:062019-02-21 16:42:51Seven Myths About Implementing ADFS For Infor Lawson
Infor is not only making strides by growing partnerships with notable businesses, but has expanded their own business by opening a new office in Charleston, West Virginia. This office will run cloud applications for U.S. Government Agencies at the federal, state, and local level, as well as with government contractors in the public sector. The company already has ties with the state, as Infor’s Coleman Artificial Intelligence Platform is named after the inspiring physicist and mathematician Katherine Coleman Johnson, whose trail-blazing work at NASA helped U.S. astronauts land on the moon. Coleman earned her bachelors in mathematics and French with the highest honors from West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University). Additionally, Infor is partnering with Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and with West Virginia State University in Institute, West Virginia (just northwest of Charleston), to build a pipeline of skilled talent that is trained in software engineering, cloud operations, and support services related to Infor products. These universities are part of Infor’s Education Alliance Program (EAP), which provides member organizations access to free software used in business computing, as well as hands-on technical training. U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is pleased to have the software giant selecting the Mountain state to establish a regional office, bringing more than a hundred job opportunities to the state. The 12,000 sq/ft office anticipates bringing in 100 technical jobs to the Charleston area in software engineering, cloud operations, and consulting and support services to support its public sector customers. It is located on the 6th floor of the 18-story Laidley Tower building at 500 Lee Street East in downtown Charleston – one block away from the Charleston Transit Center and next to numerous downtown businesses.
https://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/infor-headquarters-charleston-west-virginia-skyline.jpg342608Angeli Mentahttps://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/logo-with-slogan-good.pngAngeli Menta2019-02-13 07:54:232024-01-02 18:06:16Infor Opens New Office in Charleston, West Virginia to Serve U.S. Government Agencies
Find the name of the Form and the Business Class that you want to add the field to (Ctrl-Shift-Click on any field on the form)
Log into Rich Client and go to Start > Configure > Application (make sure that you have been granted access to Configuration Console)
Find your Business Class, and click “User Fields” under the class
Click the “blank paper” icon to add a new user field
Give your user field a meaningful name (no numbers or special characters allowed, and the field name must begin with an upper-case letter)
Next, go to configured forms and find the form name that you noted earlier
If this form has never been customized, you may need to click the blank paper icon to add it to the Configured Forms list
Once the form has been added as a configured form, click on the form name, then click “Configure”
Navigate to the location where you want to add the user field
Click the blank paper and select “User Field”
Configure the user field for the form
Click “Save” and verify that the user field is now on your screen
https://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Adding-a-custom-field-to-a-form-using-Configuration-Console.jpg448490Angeli Mentahttps://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/logo-with-slogan-good.pngAngeli Menta2019-02-11 07:23:342019-02-23 10:58:20Adding a custom field to a form using Configuration Console
Infor is making great strides in the education sector by recently signing a new research partnership with the University of Oxford and extended its partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, both to study machine learning. Infor is supporting an on-going work on in-database machine learning to the Factorised Databases (FDB) Project with the Computer Science Department at Oxford in the UK. Leading the project is Oxford professor Dan Olteanu who’s goal for the FDB project is to build a scalable system for training machine learning models over relational databases. Olteanu was a consultant on development of Infor’s LogicBlox – a core part of Infor Retail’s demand forecasting, allocation, replenishment, and assortment optimization capabilities. Infor began a similar partnership with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October of 2018. Head of the project at Carnagie Mellon is Professor Benjamin Moseley and his work on advanced algorithms for scheduling execution graphs of declarative languages. This research is expected to improve the task scheduler of the LogicBlox platform.
https://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/logo-with-slogan-good.png00Angeli Mentahttps://www.nogalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/logo-with-slogan-good.pngAngeli Menta2019-02-08 08:32:552024-01-02 17:50:18Infor partnering with Oxford and Carnegie Mellon on machine learning
Chris Dohl, CEO of The Alias Group, explores how to improve one of the most critical processes in sales strategy development, Customer relationship management (CRM). Dohl asks managers how important CRM is to their business and how critical it is to ensure that you are measuring and reacting to the correct information. It’s easy to point a finger at your CRM system for producing garbage dumps of customer data that will not benefit your business or strengthen customer retention. Although CRM systems may be the basket that holds all the information, often times it’s the data and the processes that are the root of the problem. Human error such as no lead generation, missing data, and lack of thorough analysis lead to bad data. To improve your CRM with structure and confidence, consider these four critical processes:
Input Lead Source
Populate Account Information/Profile Fields
Create Opportunities
Analyze Metrics
Growing B2B sales consistently requires structure to have confidence in the overall sales plan, and is measured year after year. Use these four processes to confidently improve your structured CRM processes.
Infor recently announced the latest enhancements to four of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems: Infor LN, Infor CloudSuite Automotive, Infor CloudSuite Aerospace and Defense (A&D), and Infor CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise. Speed, flexibility, and agility are driving forces to provide a more efficient experience when using any of these systems. These enhancements will greatly affect automotive, A&D, construction, high tech and electronics, industrial machinery and equipment, and industrial manufacturing industries to further align their business objectives with business processes, without sacrificing so much cost. “It’s a dynamic time for global manufacturing. Manufacturers need ERP systems that can quickly respond to market changes, fluctuating customer demands, and the rise of the mobile workforce,” said Edward Talerico, product director, Infor. “These recent enhancements will make it easier for manufacturers to move their business forward quickly and productively.”
