Has anyone used a "vacant" field on a table (PRSYSTEM or other table) to indicate that payroll is processing (payroll lockout) and then used the flag to prevent actions from happening?

For example - The ESS Taxwithholding program could be modified to prevent changes while payroll is processing if this flag was set to "LOCK". Such that the first manual step of the payroll process would be to "LOCK" the flag and the last step of the payroll process would be to "UNLOCK" this flag.

Thanks

Mike Drischler

We simply change the Bookmark Access for the Everybody group from "Allow" to "Deny" when we don't want our employees in certain tasks because of processing, installing updates, etc.

Hope this helps,
Geri Gradl
Payroll Manager

Geri,

Who changes the bookmark access, you or your Lawson Security Admin/Systems Admin?

Do the employees question why a bookmark goes away and the reapears?

Thanks

Mike

Mike--
It's much more efficient if I handle turning on and off the permissions so that we don't have to delay processing while we hunt down somebody from the IT team. Giving us that admin access to the "Information Services" tasks has made a huge difference in ESS down time.

We use the "Daily Message" on the "Admin Skin" task to announce what is unavailable and -- if space permits -- why. It's not a huge field, but adequate for most communications. We also post reminders in the daily afternoon e-newsletter a day or two ahead.

Hope this helps,
Geri

I had a question in the Database forum but it also fits for this topic.

Ok I figured out what needed to be in my batch file in order to run an SQL script.

In case anybody else needs to know here is my bat file:
CD %lawdir%\scripts
isql -E -i PR_ESS_LOCKOUT.sql

Here is the SQL script I created:
Update logan.lawson.LOBKMARK
Set ACCESS =
case
when ACCESS = 'A' then 'D'
when ACCESS = 'D' then 'A'
else ACCESS
end
where BOOK_MARK in(292, 296, 314, 320, 321, 322, 330)


The SQl script contains the update command to the Logan table LOBKMARK that will
deny/allow access to the ESS bookmarks that we want to lock ESS users out of while payroll is running.

The other thing we had to do was to give specific select/update rights to the LOBKMARK table in SQL.

Ok - We found another way to lock employees out of specfic ESS tasks while payroll is running.
This way doesn't require a cache refresh. Also if the employee is already logged in it will still keep them out which was a problem with the allow/deny bookmarks script.

The new script renames the existing .htm file then renames a custom .htm to the Lawson .htm
They will then get a message that the ESS function is unavailable while PR is running.

Here is the lock out script, the unavailable.htm is our custom.

The xhrnet$ is a share setup for C:\Lawson\IOSRE\lawson\xhrnet on the web server. This gives our PR staff rights to rename the htm's.

rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\w4\taxwithholding.htm taxwithholding.htm.save
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\directdeposit\ddmain.htm ddmain.htm.save
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\homeaddress.htm homeaddress.htm.save
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\w4\unavailable.htm taxwithholding.htm
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\directdeposit\unavailable.htm ddmain.htm
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\unavailable.htm homeaddress.htm


Here is the allow script we will run after payroll is completed:

rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\w4\taxwithholding.htm unavailable.htm
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\directdeposit\ddmain.htm unavailable.htm
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\homeaddress.htm unavailable.htm

rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\w4\taxwithholding.htm.save taxwithholding.htm
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\directdeposit\ddmain.htm.save ddmain.htm
rename \\Lawson Web Server\xhrnet$\homeaddress.htm.save homeaddress.htm

We have used that type of rename ourselves. It worked fine -- until under our cluster environment we switched nodes.

If you're working in a cluster, it's better to keep all files, both working and "dummy", in a source folder. Then you copy in the ones that you want. In this way, you always can find your originals, and there won't be any problems with things getting out of synchronization.

Just for ha-ha's, I've attached one of the scripts that we use. It's way too long for putting into a message. They actually use 2 different lockout screens, making the coding quite lengthy.

Here's the other script. Enjoy! :D