WORKING WITH DOCUMENTS

Locking documents
If you have Author access or higher to a document, and document locking is enabled for the database, you can lock the document on any replica while you are working in it. Locking a document allows you to lock out others who have editing access so they cannot modify the document at the same time you are, even if they are working on a different replica. This prevents two or more people from making changes to the same document and then saving it at the same time causing replication and save conflicts, where Notes doesn't know which edits to save. Even Managers of a database cannot edit a locked document. However, Managers can unlock documents that are locked.

When you are finished editing the document, you can then unlock it, allowing others to modify the document.

Note You must be using Lotus Notes 6 and Lotus Domino 6 to use the document locking feature. You must also have an administration server defined in the access control list (ACL). If you do not have an administration server defined in the ACL, you receive an error from Notes. For more information on naming an administration server, see To define an administration server for a database.

Click any of these topics:


To enable or disable document locking in a database

To enable document locking in a database, you must have Manager access.

1. Choose File - Database - Properties.

2. Click the Basics tab, and select (or deselect) "Allow document locking."

Database Basics

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To lock a document

1. Select the document you want to lock.

2. Do one of the following:

Note If you are working locally or offline, and you attempt to lock a document, Notes displays a message stating that the "Master lock database cannot be reached" and asks you if you want to proceed with locking the document. If you click Yes to proceed with locking the document, you are chancing whether or not your edits get saved. The "master lock" is the database that replicas refer to when a document is locked to make sure the edits get saved in all replicas. If that database cannot be found, and you and another person are editing the same document, the edits may not sync up. When this happens, you receive an e-mail containing your modified document along with a notification that your changes were not incorporated into the document.

Tip The status bar says "Document successfully locked" when you lock a document.

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To access locked documents

Open the locked document with the same User ID you used to lock the document. You cannot access a locked document without the User ID that locked it.

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To unlock a document

To unlock a document you have locked, you must use the same User ID you used when you locked the document.

1. Select the document you want to unlock.

2. Do one of the following:

Tip The status bar says "Document successfully unlocked" when you unlock a document.

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See Also