Record locking (was: commitment or journaling)

Good morning all,

The past discussions brought about by Tim's notes data entry problem
pointed up some decent update control techniques, but IMHO anything that
lets a user key away to their hearts content only to be told afterwards
that there efforts were for not, isn't "user friendly".

I've always found it best to let the user know up front that someone
else is updating a record and that they have to try again later.  Two
reasons:

1. The newly updated information may change what the second person will
enter.
2. Often these changes are made while on the phone with the party whose
records are being updated and there is no hand written record of the
changes to be made and to receive a "no can do" message after one has
keyed and hung up their phone leaves them in an unpleasant situation.

The only way to do this cleanly is to lock something, anything, relating
to the entry being updated.

I've seen techniques where a separate file is kept of the key fields and
user obtaining the lock, which is checked, and record deleted after lock
released.  Has same inherent problem as updating a "in use" flag in the
record if program abends.  Solvable, but requires manual intervention.

A variation of the theme is to maintain a file of just key values and
lock the record.  But this creates a maintenance problem and do you want
to keep everyone out of a customer/vendor/employee's records just
because the notes are being changed?  Or do you want to keep multiple
key value files for each segment of information? I don't like either
choice.

By changing the record wait time and starting with TAATOOLS lock message
routine, one could lock the record in question and when anyone else
wants to update they can be informed that the record is in use at this
time, be shown a display only version of the information, and write down
the information to be changed.

Come to think of it, a timer could be set on the display only panel and
the program could test for lock release every few seconds, or a notepad
could be brought up where user #2 could take notes and automatically be
reminded to update the records every 10 minutes or so.

Just my 2 cents.

James W. Kilgore
qappdsn@ibm.net
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