We all know that the DB relationships in Lawson are not really on the Database level and they are actually stored in GEN.
Has anyone tried actually enforcing these relationships on the database itself? Does it break anything?
The reason I ask is that then I could actually view the Schema using a tool I have and it would make my life very easy when I make Crystal reports. Speaking of which how does anyone do reporting?
I wrote a set of scripts for a client to extract that data from GEN and then add it to a COPY of their production Oracle database, for data mapping and reporting.
I wouldn't run it on their production system as I don't know what ill effects it might have had as far a Lawsom was concerned.
I can tell you that it was time-consumng, expensive and it's certainly wasn't pretty, but it satisfied their needs. Had to be rerun whenever data was refreshed or patches added.
You can find a good database diagram on www.LawsonGuru.com to help visually see the relationships between the various Lawson tables. Also, between these two Lawson utilities you should be able to get to everything you need regarding what tables a form uses and what fields and relationships are in that table:
Seeing what database tables a form uses:
1) Open Lawson
2) Form transfer (F8) to LAENV
3) Select User Desktop --> Application Text --> Print Technical Text
4) Type in the System Code (HR,PR,MM,GL,etc)
5) Type in the form name (HR11, PR140, PA26, etc)
6) A description of the form will be displayed along with all of the tables that the form references and updates
Seeing what fields, indexes, and relationships are in that table:
1) Open Lawson
2) Form Transfer (F8) to DBDOC
3) Type in the System Code (HR,PR,MM,GL,etc)
4) Type in the database table name (which you got by using the above instructions)
5) A description of the table will be displyaed along with indexes and relationship information at the bottom (use Cntr + Down Arrow to skip to the bottom)
We abandoned the Lawson report writer for HR because it can't handle employees in multiple positions correctly. I wish we had Lawson Reporting Suite but we don't because of the cost, so we use Crystal Reports tied directly to the database.