Phil Simon's Virtual Soapbox » Lawson

Avoiding Lawson Absence Management Mishaps

philsimon — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:32:36 +0000

My friend John Henley recently ran this article in his Lawson Guru newsletter.

Introduction

Many Lawson clients will soon be faced with upgrading from Time Accrual (TA) to Absence Management (LP). According to my less-than-scientific methods, a great many clients have not yet made the plunge. The plank is burning; Lawson is decommissioning TA at the end of May 2010.

To be sure, LP offers a great deal more functionality compared to its predecessor (including proper FMLA leave plans that I discussed a while back). However, many people don’t understand a few interdependencies among the codes. In this article, I discuss one of the most commonly made mistakes made during LP projects.

Codes Galore

LP offers clients the ability to set up the following types of codes:

Reason codes
Service codes
Reason classes
Service classes

This can be overwhelming. What’s more, service codes should be linked to pay codes on PR20.4 to ensure that only certain hours count when calculating eligibility for leave (via LP251).

Reason codes

The major point of the reason code is to decrement balances, but this can only happen with the proper connections, as we will see. Reason codes (set up on LP09.2) need to be established before they can be linked to service codes, although you can do this on the fly.

Service Codes

After establishing reason codes in the previous step, it is now time to link them to service codes. On LP08.2 Service Code, service codes can be tied to reason codes.

Note how the REG service code (linked to the REG Regular pay code on PR20.4) is left blank. Why? Because employees paid regular hours do not have those hours decrement any plan balances. Service code SICK, however, is the opposite; its hours decrement employee sick balances.

Service Class and Code Relationships

It’s imperative to link service codes and classes via LP08.3. This (along with the previous two screens) will decrement employee leave balances for LP time used. In the screen shot below, I have done this for the LOA service code and class. These need to be set up for each plan—if balances need to be decremented.

Payroll Rule

Along with the proper service class on the PR rule, it is imperative to link the service class to the payroll rule.

LP03.5 enforces the payroll rule (see below) for the time records entered. LP03.5 determines if an employee can “go negative”, one of the nice features of LP.

Time Record

Let’s look at the example of Mike Portnoy, the real-life drummer of Dream Theater but a fictitious employee here. Mike has several types of pay on PR36.

The PR140 shows the gross to net for this pay period:

Next, his LP140 shows the hours taken (transaction type = 61):

Look at the second page of the LP140 output:

Now, let’s see the third page:

And, finally, the fourth page:

It’s absolutely essential that you see Type 61 transactions.

If you don’t, then employee balances will not decrement.

Summary

LP can be a beast with all of its codes and interdependencies. Listen to experienced and knowledgeable consultants (like me, on most days) and test, test, test before going live.

Lawson FMLA Plans: Setup

philsimon — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:44:53 +0000

Guest Spot: FMLA Plan Setup in Absence Management

Originally published in Lawson Guru Newsletter, February, 2008.

Lawson’s Absence Management (LP) allows organizations to do a superior job of reporting on employee leaves of absence compared to its predecessor, Time Accrual. This article shows you how to set up a Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) plan in LP. There may be other ways to do this, but I have found this way to be very effective in tracking employee leaves.

Set up LP Plan

Note here how the plan is not set to auto-enroll:

Create Employee Group

While anyone can be eligible for a plan, organizations typically should do a personnel action on PA52.1 to move the employee into a leave status (as well as populate intermittent leave and leave start date user fields). Using a group in this fashion makes identifying employees on leave much easier.

Add Service Rule

The service rule determines when the employee service date is calculated. While other plans such as sick or vacation might use hire or adjusted hire date, the date that an employee goes out on FMLA could occur multiple times during an employee’s tenure. As such, we will use a user field and ensure that that field is tied to the personnel action on PA50.

Now that we have added the user field, we can tie it to the service rule.

Add Accrual Rule

We need to allot the employees 480 hours of time once s/he enters the plan for full-time employees. Let’s start by adding the calculation for 480 hours of job protection. Note that this calculation is tied to FTE; an employee with 0.5 FTE would receive 240 hours of leave:

Next, add a cycle based allotment table, and tie the allotment table to the calculation.

Then add the Accrual Rule, tying it to the Allotment Table:

Add Eligibility Rule

Typically, organizations allow employees to take FMLA leave immediately. Note that this is very different than determining employee eligibility via the LP51 and the LP251!

In English, these parameters just mean that employees enrolled in the plan can take their time immediately.

Add Limit Rule

Now, we don’t want employees to take more than 480 hours (12 weeks X 40 hours/week) in a given year. As such, let’s set up the limit table on LP04.4. The problem with using an FTE-based calculation here is that employee FTE values may change during the year and it’s simpler to just use the 480 number.

We tie this table to the limit rule. Now, we are ready to add the Limit Rule.

Add Payroll Rule

Note that LP gives clients much more flexibility for printing employee LP balances relative to its predecessor, Time Accrual. Note that you have to use the PMTOUT file via the PR160 for balances to appear on pay checks. This may be a change for some clients who used the PR160.prt output in TA.

Also note that it’s best not to set the negative balance edit to ‘error’, as the LP140 can be processed for manuals and events only (option #4) to save time. If the employee time records are not in the system, then LP140 won’t pick them up (unless you add them separately via LP53, in my view an unnecessary step). I recommend letting employees go negative here and then creating a simple Crystal, Access, or MS Add-in report for auditing purposes. You don’t want employees taking more than 480 hours of LOA time.

One final note: Make sure to have your service class and code relationships defined for proper tracking of service history:

Add Structure

Having added your rules separately, you’re now ready to add your Plan Structure!

Conclusion and Summary

Compared to Time Accrual (TA), Absence Management (LP) does a superior job of tracking employee leaves of absence. It also gives Lawson clients a compelling reason to upgrade to Lawson 9.0 Applications. If the carrot isn’t enough of an incentive, then consider the stick. Lawson has announced the decommission of the TA module, effective June 1, 2009 (since moved). By following these steps, you can ensure accurate tracking of employee FMLA balances in Absence Management.

1. Guest Spot: FMLA Plan Setup in Absence Management

Originally published in Lawson Guru Newsletter, February, 2008.

Set up LP Plan

Note here how the plan is not set to auto-enroll:

Create Employee Group

Add Service Rule

Now that we have added the user field, we can tie it to the service rule.

Add Accrual Rule

Next, add a cycle based allotment table, and tie the allotment table to the calculation.

Then add the Accrual Rule, tying it to the Allotment Table:

Add Eligibility Rule

Typically, organizations allow employees to take FMLA leave immediately. Note that this is very different than determining employee eligibility via the LP51 and the LP251!

In English, these parameters just mean that employees enrolled in the plan can take their time immediately.

Add Limit Rule

We tie this table to the limit rule. Now, we are ready to add the Limit Rule.

Add Payroll Rule

Note that LP gives clients much more flexibility for printing employee LP balances. Note that you have to use the PMTOUT file via the PR160 for balances to appear on pay checks. This may be a change for some clients who used the PR160.prt output in TA.

One final note: Make sure to have your service class and code relationships defined for proper tracking of service history:

Add Structure

Having added your rules separately, you’re now ready to add your Plan Structure!

Conclusion/Summary

Compared to Time Accrual (TA), Absence Management (LP) does a superior job of tracking employee leaves of absence, and gives Lawson clients a compelling reason to upgrade to Lawson 9.0 Applications, In addition, Lawson has announced the decommission of the TA module, effective June 1, 2009. By following these steps, you can ensure accurate tracking of employee FMLA balances in Absence Management.

Using Microsoft Access for Data Validation

philsimon — Sun, 29 Jun 2003 13:49:32 +0000

Originally published in Lawson Guru Newsletter, June, 2003.

I recently finished a six-month new HR 8.02 implementation at an organization with about 4,000 employees. Lawson HR was replacing the old AS400 and Kronos was being implemented simultaneously. What’s more, Lawson Benefits went live on 1/1/03 and PR went live on 4/1/03. This added an entirely new level of complexity, as Access had to supplant basic Lawson functionality (such as BN145–removing flex credits for employees who have no other time records).

This article highlights how I used features in Microsoft Access 2000 to provide key audit reports, obviate the need to use vendors for custom reports and benefit election forms, and do a host of other things that were critical to successfully going live.

Comparison queries to map old data to new

This is pretty standard but absolutely critical to compare mainframe data to new Lawson data. MS Access facilitated keeping track of AS400 data and Lawson data in multiple product lines.

Comparison queries to spit out differences in data

Once created, basic Access queries identified discrepancies such as:

Employees who had rate of pay X in the old system and rate of pay Y in the new system
Employees in one system but not the other
ACH account and setup discrepancies
Strange position dates (HR users know full well the issues with PA13.2 and these record. This issue does not disappear in version
Employees with ‘odd birthdates’ (1 year old) or hire dates.
Employees missing critical values altogether, since HR10 had not been turned on yet to require fields
Employees missing flex

Access to data during system downtime

During the implementation, the migration to different servers and different system problems left many times in which access to data through normal Lawson channels was not possible. Regularly importing data into Access allowed for an important backup. The client had purchased MS Add-ins, which facilitated importing data from Lawson to Access. ODBC was not enabled and access to tools such as dbdump and rngdbdump was not available.

Macros to automate emailing of audit reports as attached spreadsheets

Through some VBA and macro functionality, Access allowed these audit reports to be generated and automatically emailed to end-users.

“eBroadcasting”

In addition, I inserted VBA code to ‘burst’ complicated payroll distribution and overtime reports to 180 people broken down by department. Each department head now receives an email with an attached Word document containing the pay period, quarterly, and YTD information for only the employees in his/her department. Lawson’s eBroadcasting product was not available and no Lawson report produced the data in the format that the client wanted.

Reports to generate BN election statements

BN245 provides employee benefit choices in a very confusing format. Again, this does not change in version 8. To replicate the client’s current form (and avoid paying another vendor to do the same), BN245 output was written to CSVs that Access imported through a macro. The end result provided a much more coherent BN election form (virtually identical to the original, which the client liked very much).

Daily HR Needs

By providing unlimited ability to link tables, complicated HR reports could be easily created and distributed during the implementation. HIPPA requirements, for example, could be addressed by a report that took a relatively short time to create. Access’ flexibility and power saved an enormous amount of time and HR users’ needs could be met.

Combining Lawson standard reports and overcoming limitation of the Excel Add-ins

The client found Lawson’s standard reports wanting in many respects. While the Add-ins are fairly straightforward and powerful, crashes made reporting from them inconsistent. What’s more, Add-ins do not let you link every table. The client wanted certain reports that combined seemingly disparate tables. Access does not have the same limitation.

Generating SQL for potential conversion to Crystal

At the end of the project, the client began to consider recreating the reports in Crystal. Access facilitates this by allowing you to see queries in SQL that can be literally pasted into the Crystal Reports SQL designer.

Pivot table reports for easy auditing

For those of you not familiar with Excel Pivot Tables, you are missing out. Essentially cross tabs that allow you to slice and dice data, these were critical in identifying odd data: employees who “snuck through” Lawson benefit entry rules, specific payroll issues, and the like. Access 2000 integrates pivot tables and 2002 takes it a step further.

Creating Lawson Conversion programs and superior reports

Very easily, old data was prepared for the conversion files. What’s more, Access was able to replicate the clients’ old reports, obviating the need for expensive programmers.

Summary and Conclusion

The project faced many challenges. Without the Access-based application, these challenges would have been greater and more internal and/or external resources would have been needed to go live. The client intends to use the application, at least in the interim, instead of Crystal for a whole host of reporting needs. At a bare minimum, it allows for easily auditing data and provides non-HR-end-users with key business data through email bursting.

Originally published in Lawson Guru Newsletter, June, 2003.

This article highlights how MS Access 2000 was used to provide key audit reports, obviate the need to use vendors for custom reports and benefit election forms, and do a host of other things that were critical to successfully going live.

Comparison queries to map old data to new

This is pretty standard but absolutely critical to compare mainframe data to new Lawson data. MS Access facilitated keeping track of AS400 data and Lawson data in multiple product lines.

Comparison queries to spit out differences in data

Once created, basic Access queries identified discrepancies such as:

Employees who had rate of pay X in the old system and rate of pay Y in the new system
Employees in one system but not the other
ACH account and setup discrepancies
Strange position dates (HR users know full well the issues with PA13.2 and these record. This issue does not disappear in version
Employees with ‘odd birthdates’ (1 year old) or hire dates.
Employees missing critical values altogether, since HR10 had not been turned on yet to require fields
Employees missing flex

Access to data during system downtime

Macros to automate emailing of audit reports as attached spreadsheets

Through some VBA and macro functionality, Access allowed these audit reports to be generated and automatically emailed to end-users.

“eBroadcasting”

Reports to generate BN election statements
BN245 provides employee benefit choices in a very confusing format. Again, this does not change in version 8. To replicate the client’s current form (and avoid paying another vendor to do the same), BN245 output was written to CSVs that Access imported through a macro. The end result provided a much more coherent BN election form (virtually identical to the original, which the client liked very much).

Daily HR Needs
By providing unlimited ability to link tables, complicated HR reports could be easily created and distributed during the implementation. HIPPA requirements, for example, could be addressed by a report that took a relatively short time to create. Access’ flexibility and power saved an enormous amount of time and HR users’ needs could be met.

Combining Lawson standard reports and overcoming limitation of the Excel Add-ins
The client found Lawson’s standard reports wanting in many respects. While the Add-ins are fairly straightforward and powerful, crashes made reporting from them inconsistent. What’s more, Add-ins do not let you link every table. The client wanted certain reports that combined seemingly disparate tables. Access does not have the same limitation.

Generating SQL for potential conversion to Crystal
At the end of the project, the client began to consider recreating the reports in Crystal. Access facilitates this by allowing you to see queries in SQL that can be literally pasted into the Crystal Reports SQL designer.

Pivot table reports for easy auditing
For those of you not familiar with Excel Pivot Tables, you are missing out. Essentially cross tabs that allow you to slice and dice data, these were critical in identifying odd data: employees who “snuck through” Lawson benefit entry rules, specific payroll issues, and the like. Access 2000 integrates pivot tables and 2002 takes it a step further.

Creating Lawson Conversion programs and superior reports
Very easily, old data was prepared for the conversion files. What’s more, Access was able to replicate the clients’ old reports, obviating the need for expensive programmers.

Summary and Conclusion
The project faced many challenges. Without the Access-based application, these challenges would have been greater and more internal and/or external resources would have been needed to go live. The client intends to use the application, at least in the interim, instead of Crystal for a whole host of reporting needs. At a bare minimum, it allows for easily auditing data and provides non-HR-end-users with key business data through email bursting.