Spring in Workbrain - Part 1 - Introduction

Well, I've been away for a while. I got busy figuring out how to integrate custom Spring modules into Workbrain. I'll share this knowledge with you in a new Spring in Workbrain series I'm starting today. I'll get you through basics of implementing a Spring module in Workbrain, so keep up with the next several posts if this interests you. And do note this series will be purely technical!

Hiding Options in Workbrain Form Approvals

When working with forms and workflows in Workbrain, defining the workflow is as easy as drawing a line between two nodes in the Workflow Editor. We call this a branch. A text caption must also be defined for each branch, as that will be the command used to direct the workflow down that branch. When user input is required at a node in the workflow, such as an approval or rejection, these text captions are displayed to the user as options. The options typically would be "Accept" or "Deny".

Occasionally, we will need additional branches that the workflow could take. One example could be "Escalate", in which we want the form to route to a different user if no action is taken after a set time. I won't address how to actually time the form out in this scenario, but we certainly don't want that "Escalate" option to be displayed to the user. While there is not a configurable field for this in the Workflow Editor, it is a quick Javascript hack to hide this from the user. Let me explain how.

Workbrain in IE 8 and now 9

Infor is diligently working on the next big Workbrain release that will address many rendering issues seen in the Internet Explorer 8 and now Internet Explorer 9. Many enterprise customers using Workbrain (4.1 or 5.0) haven't switched from Internet Explorer 6. Just see this article: Old and Insecure, IE6 Still Popular in the Enterprise. Nine years after the IE6 release, many customers are ready to move forward.

Resetting a Scheduled Task After it Stops on Failures

 By default, a Scheduled Task will run and fail up to 10 times before it stops running on its own.

The No. Of Failures column turns red and the Task State is Disabled.

In order to reset the task, user intervention is required at this point. There is not an obvious way to reset the No. of Failures column. I actually used to reset this directly in the database because it was not intuitive to me!

My colleagues shared with me that all you have to do is hit the Pause button for the task, and then hit the Resume button to reset the No. Of Failures column and resume the task. Simple Workbrain Hack for today!

Alerts Based on EMP_ID

Rarely can we create a Workbrain Alert without joining database tables in SQL. When we want to send the alert based on an an employee, we must select EMP_ID in the SQL, the EMP_ID has to be selected first, and as of now in the software, the column name has to be strictly EMP_ID. Not doing this and selecting an option that requires EMP_ID, the Workbrain application will throw the following error:

EMP_ID must be one of the columns if recipient roles are populated or self is checked

Auto Recalc Part 2: Weekly Overtime and Holidays

To compound the requirement from the last blog post of paying a premium at the beginning of the week based on the remaining week’s work, an additional requirement was also included. The premium to be paid would actually be based on the overtime, if any, inserted by the weekly overtime rule. This is not a big deal if the overtime is actually added on the last day of the week (Saturday in our case). As discussed in Part 1, when the user inputs clocks onto Saturday, Saturday would be recalculated first, followed by the auto-recalculation of the full week, starting with Sunday, so the premium rule would easily see the overtime that had been inserted by the weekly overtime rule on Saturday.

But suppose this overtime was rolled back to Friday. The client requires that in the scenario that Saturday is a holiday, that the overtime not be applied on the holiday (since the employee is already receiving the holiday rate), but rather be rolled back to the day before. Additionally, the time worked on Saturday count towards the weekly overtime.

Auto Recalc

I received a question today about pay rule possibilities in Workbrain. The requirement was to cause a premium to be paid at the beginning of the week, based on employee's work completed in the remaining portion of the week. Without extra configuration, anyone familiar with the pay rule engine knows that each day's pay is calculated individually and only when changes such as clocks or other overrides are made to that day. And additionally, the pay rule engine can only edit the pay (i.e. work details) on the current day it is processing. So how could we cause the first day of the week to recalculate pay for the week, without actually having to make such changes to that day? The Auto-Recalculation functionality of course.

Welcome to the Workbrain Hacker

Welcome to the Workbrain Hacker. Through this blog, I'll demystify many of the technical questions, difficulties, and nuances of the Infor Workbrain Workforce Management application.

The views and opinions in this blog are solely my own and do not reflect the opinions of people, institutions, companies or organizations with which I am affiliated. This blog is not affiliated with, neither does it represent the views, position or attitudes of my employer or any organization, their clients, nor any of their affiliated companies.

Got questions? Post them in the comments and I'll use them in future blogs. Thanks and enjoy!

Justin