Interactive Briefing Q&A – Infor LN Report Designer -

Design, Distribute and Store.

Q1. Are developer permissions required to use the Generate Reports feature?
Ans1: Yes, a generated report will be created in the tx package and for that functionality
LN requires the user to have developer authorizations. Without developer authorization
the generated report cannot be linked to an Extensibility Activity by the user at the
moment of creation.

Q2. Do the generated reports consider user permissions? E.g. if a generated report is
supposed to show sales orders as in your example and this report is executed by a user
without permissions for the sales module - does the report show data then?
Ans2: No, at this moment generated reports are not aware of the data authorization
concept. We are aware of this issue and the topic is on our roadmap to be added in the
logic of the session: Generated Reports.
Keep in mind that a generated report is always created in the tx package, so defined
authorizations for the sales module, via AMS authorizations, will not control who is able
to run the corresponding print sessions and see these reports. In the AMS module, user
authorization must be setup for the tx package too!
Q3. What additional components does a Report Designer create internally? So, as a
software developer, what additional components should I be delivering besides the
native report s/w component?
Ans3: LN Report Designer produces Report Personalizations, which can be
administered and viewed in session: ‘Report Personalizations (ttadv9507m000)’. And be
exported to an (Additional) File via session: ‘Export Personalizations (ttaad7201m000)’.
Cloud: So, a developer should create a PMC solution for delivery towards a production
tenant holding the report personalization in the form of an ‘Additional File’ and optionally
add extended components like a report extension, a session extension or any other
required extension, created via the Extension Modeler (which is accessible via the
session: ‘Extensions (ttext1500m000)’. Even a newly build session, created via LN
Studio, can be added to the PMC solution when following the extensibility philosophy.
On Premise: When running on an On Prem environment, it is also possible to create
custom reports and leave the look & feel of that report up to the LN report Designer.

Q4. Is this feature also available in the 10.4?

Ans4: No, the LN Report Designer is built in LN Enterprise Server 10.6, and the LN
Application is ‘aware’ of the LN Report Designer from LN version 10.5 onwards.
For LN version 10.5 to be able to run the LN Report Designer, obviously the LN
Enterprise Server version running ‘under’ the LN Application must be ES 10.6 or higher.
My personal advice is, when you want to work with LN Report Designer and/or LN
Document Output Management (DOM); make sure you are running the most actual
version of the LN Enterprise Server to benefit from the most powerful features of the LN
report Designer. At the moment of writing this Q&A document the latest version is:
ES 10.7.2.1 (LN CE 2020.04). But the next release provides you again with useful new
features, as I have shown in my presentation.

Q5. How are modified reports stored in a multi company / multi location setup so that
not all reports are available to all companies?
Ans5: LN Report Designer produces “report personalizations”. Same as for “session
personalizations”, the report personalizations are initially only linked to the user creating
a report personalization. However, this report personalization stored on user level can
be copied to (DEM) Role level and to Company level; providing all users linked to that
role or company with the same look & feel of a report / form.
This functionality provides your organization with the option to differentiate in the look &
feel of reports and forms over companies or even roles within your organization.
Q6. Does LN Report Designer also have the constraint of maximum 255 characters as it
was in LN Reports or can that be extended beyond 255 characters?
Ans6: The limitation of 255 characters on a single line no longer exists when you
convert the report personalization from the initial ‘Columns & Rows’-modus into the
‘Exact Positioning’-modus. (This last modus is available from LN Report Designer
version: 10.7). There is still a limitation on the maximum amount of characters per field;
and that is still the existing 255 characters.
But by placing multiple fields behind each other in one line the maximum amount of
characters depends on the readability of the resulting report or form. So, settings like
the page orientation, font size and type etc. do influence the possibilities of the
designer.

Q7. In the report is there a feature like 'go to position..' for example, to create a box at
the bottom of the page (like in Baan 4/5/early LN skip.to.spool.lenght )
Ans7: LN Report Designer has the option to fully control the vertical position of a report
layout, when running the report in the so called ‘Exact Positioning’-modus. That way you
can fully control where the data of that layout must be printed.
This feature overrules the presence of position determining functions in the report script
like for instance the ‘skip.to.xxx’ function.

Q8. If a finance company linked with multiple logistic company can be bring the logistic
company data creating report using finance company ?
Ans8: I am sorry to say that I do not understand this question…

In general, any report for which the look & feel is changed via the LN Report Designer
still follows the standard report logic. So, if the standard report is not capable of
performing the actions as asked in this question the straightforward answer will be: no.
However, possibly the required functionality can be realized making use of extensibility.
Or when extensibility is not implemented in your On Prem environment, optionally via a
customization.

Q9. Can we create sub report or drill down report?

Ans9: I consider the first part of this question to be report logic so you should look for
the options there (Extension Modeler or LN Studio) and not in the LN Report Designer.
The second part of this question is in my opinion related to analytical reporting, for
which I have said that this is part of LN Birst® and not part of the Infor LN operational
reporting as it is supported by LN Report Designer.
Q10. Can we modify report script of any standard report?
Ans10: Not via the LN report Designer!
But there are options depending on the location where your organization is running LN.
Cloud: Not possible due to the shared use of standard software in the cloud.
Via extensibility the behavior of the report can be changed without changing the
standard report definition!
On Prem: You need to make use of the LN Studio to copy the report into the own layer
before making the required changes. Or via extensibility to change the behavior of the
report without changing the standard report definition and be better prepared for an
optional changeover towards the Infor LN Cloud when the time comes!

Q11. Does the LN Report Designer and DOM allow combining data from sources other
than ERP on the report?
Ans11: Yes, via a report extension it is possible to retrieve information from other
sources. I gave the example during my presentation of the images of items being added
to the report in runtime while these are stored in IDM instead of in the items table. It is
also possible to retrieve information from other resources then Infor applications while
making use of for instance webservices.

Q12. Is there anywhere existing a technical documentation including programming

syntax and available/callable functions?
Ans12: Yes, on the website of Infor Xtreme you can find, in the Documentation section,
the following guides:
1. ‘Infor LN Report Designer Development Guide (document #: 60665)’.
2. ‘Infor LN - Document Output Management User Guide (document #: 60685)’

Q13. Is it a straightforward process to deploy a newly created report or a modified report

from a Test environment to a Prod environment? Is it similar to creating a Solution and
migrating it to Prod?
Ans13: Yes, see my answer at question 3.

Q14. Will any of the new features of the LN Report Designer be pushed back to 10.6?
Ans14: No, the LN Enterprise Server is backwards compatible with previous versions of
the Infor LN Application, so there is no technical boundary to upgrade to the latest
version of the LN Enterprise Server and benefit from the new features.
Q15. Can the images retrieval from IDM be dynamic? Say, based on the Item Number
in the report?
Ans15: Yes, by making use of the existing trusted functions from DOM you can retrieve
an image from IDM and place this in runtime in a temporarily directory using a report
extension. The image is then retrieved from that location by the rendering engine which
will place the image in the report. This step is repeated for all lines of the document…

Q16. Can you integrate DOM to IDM and a third party DMS?
Ans16: Yes, I have briefly shown in the presentation the integration from LN Report
Designer to DOM and from DOM to IDM.
However, at this moment only Infor DMS systems are supported in LN Tools because
the DMS Document Hub, which is responsible for the communication with the DMS
systems, is not aware of the DMS specific connectivity aspects of other systems.
On the website of Infor Xtreme, you can find, in the Documentation section, the
Development Guide for DOM called: ‘Infor LN - Document Output Management User
Guide (document number: 60685)’ for more information related to DOM.

Q17. In the Cloud, what replaces LN SQL, specifically the ability to edit SQL
statements?
Ans17: In the cloud you can make use of the LN Report Designer to create new reports
via the session: ‘Generated Reports (ttadv3548m000)’. When this step, to create reports
based on the LN data model, is not enough you can add scripting logic to it via the
Extension Modeler or LN Studio.

Q18. Are there any restrictions on which tables to use in the report designer?
Ans18: No in general there is no limitation to the tables which can be used.
Cloud: Of course, tables which are reserved for the landlord are not accessible and you
can also only see your own records in tables which are related to multi-tenant
management.
On Prem: There are no tables reserved for the landlord.

Q19. My version of LN 10.3 has many customized reports. Can they be made aware
after installing latest ES?
Ans19: If the question is whether those reports can be made aware of the existence of
LN Report Designer, the answer is: No. See answer to question 4 for more details.
Q20. When you generate a report and run, a form was created with selection options.
Can we modify the form so that we can have our own search criteria?
Ans20: Yes, the search criteria are based of the filter options you define during the
creation of the generated report. So, in that way you have the freedom to add filtering
options based on your business requirements. However, only filtering based on data or
on direct calculations with that data is possible in the selections, so filtering based on
complex calculations or even scripting logic is not directly possible in the LN Report
Designer. The solution here is to add that additional logic to the report with LN Studio.

Q21. How to generate a new report without a table?

Ans21: That is only possible via LN Studio and not via the Generated Reports module of
LN report Designer. But it could be created in LN Studio completely following the
extensibility philosophy, so that makes it also possible in the Infor LN Cloud.

Q22. Photo has a preview in the RD, why not for a Barcode?
Ans22: We are still looking into that matter. For now, the barcode rendering is only part
of the runtime components and therefore it is not possible to show the barcode inside
the LN Report Designer.

Q23. If you print a batch of documents like 3 invoices. In the page counting it shows 1 of
3, where it should sub totalized paging by individual Invoice. Is this resolved now?
Ans23: Yes, this functionality will be completely supported within LN Report Designer
from version LN Enterprise Server 10.7.3 onwards. Including full control by the designer
based on which repeat of a layout the page number and the total number of pages
should be ‘reset’.

Q24. In Studio can we create a native report layout?

Ans24: Yes, in LN Studio you can add layouts to a report and add input fields to it etc.
Cloud: However, you cannot control the look & feel of the fields in that layout from within
LN Studio. You need to use LN Report Designer to do that!
On Prem: You can also control the look & feel of the fields in that layout using the well-
known report editor. Of course, you can also use the LN Report Designer to do that!