Managing concurrent access to a case

Set a locking strategy for top-level cases types to reduce the risk of lost updates to a case when users are working concurrently.

In most configurations, use the default locking strategy to preserve transaction integrity among cases. If you do not use default locking, the user can lose work when actions, such as bulk processing or escalation actions in a service-level agreement, are performed by other users or your application.
  1. In the Explorer panel of Dev Studio, click Case types, and then click the case type that you want to open.
  2. On the Settings tab, click Locking.

    Only top-level case types support this option.

  3. Click a locking strategy.
    • A case is opened — Allows one user at a time to open and work on a case.

      This default strategy locks the case for 30 minutes or until the user submits or closes the case, whichever comes first.

      Use this approach to ensure that data can be updated, and transaction integrity maintained, in both parent cases and child cases. For example, the parent case may contain properties that count or total values in the child case. Locking both parent and child cases at the same time helps to keep the counts or totals in sync.

    • An action taken on case — Allows multiple users to work on a case at the same time.

      This optimistic strategy allows the first user to submit the case to succeed. All other users who are working on the case are notified and must review the changes before they can submit their own updates.

      Use this approach if multiple users need to open and review cases simultaneously but do not have to update the cases.

  4. Optional: To override the default timeout value, enter a number of minutes in the Release lock after field.
  5. Click Save.
The locking strategy is applied to new and existing cases.
If you have different concurrent-access requirements for descendants of a top-level case, override the locking strategy in the relevant child case types.