Lock Manager
Setup Guide — Seeing and Clearing Live Edit Locks
Module: Data Update › Config | Last updated: August 2026
Contents
- Overview
- Key Concept: What Row Locks Are
- Finding Your Way Around
- Rows Being Edited
- Force-Releasing Locks
- Recent Lock Activity
- Who Can See and Do What
- Quick Reference
1. Overview
When two people edit the same data at the same time, one person's changes can quietly overwrite the other's. To prevent that, Data Update locks a row while someone is editing it, so nobody else can change that row until they're done. Most of the time this happens invisibly in the background.
The Lock Manager is the window into it. It shows, in one place, every row being edited right now — which table, who's editing it, and when their hold expires — plus a running log of recent lock activity. It's a transparency and governance page: helpful for answering "why can't I edit this row?", and for letting an administrator clear a lock that's stuck (for example, because someone left a screen open and went home).
What you can do here
- See every row currently being edited, grouped by table and by the person editing it.
- See how long each hold has left before it expires on its own.
- Force-release someone's locks on a table when you need to (administrators only).
- Review recent lock activity across all editable tables.
WHERE TO FIND IT — This page lives under Data Update → Config → Lock Manager.
2. Key Concept: What Row Locks Are
A row lock is a temporary, automatic hold that Data Update places on a row while someone edits it in the Edit Data grid. It exists so two people can't change the same row at once.
A few things are worth knowing about how locks behave:
- They're created automatically. When someone starts editing rows, Data Update locks exactly those rows for them — no one does this by hand.
- They expire on their own. A lock isn't permanent. It stays alive only while the person's editing session is active, and lapses automatically a short time after they stop — so locks left behind by a closed browser clear themselves without anyone stepping in.
- They're per-row. Locking one row doesn't stop anyone else editing other rows in the same table. Two people can work on the same table at once, as long as they're on different rows.
- Someone can request a locked row. If a row you need is held by someone else, you can register a request for it, which shows up here as a pending request.
The Lock Manager doesn't create or hold locks itself — it simply reports on the locks Data Update is already managing, and gives administrators a way to clear them when needed.
3. Finding Your Way Around
The page has two stacked sections:
- Rows being edited — a live table of every current lock, grouped by table and editor.
- Recent lock activity — a feed of the latest lock events (acquired, released, and so on).
At the top right, a Refresh button reloads both sections on demand. The page also refreshes itself automatically every few seconds, and the "Expires in" countdowns tick down live, so what you see stays current without you doing anything.
4. Rows Being Edited
This table lists everything being edited right now. Each row groups together the locks one person holds on one table, so a single line means "this person is editing this many rows in this table".
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Table | The editable table the locks are on. |
| Held by | Who's editing. Your own locks are marked You; everyone else shows by name. |
| Rows | How many rows this person has locked in this table. If others have asked for some of those rows, it also notes how many are requested. |
| Since | When the earliest of these locks was taken. |
| Expires in | A live countdown to when the soonest lock in the group will expire if the person's session doesn't keep it alive. |
| Actions | A Force release button, when you're allowed to use it (see the next section). |
A heading above the table sums it up — the total number of locked rows across all editor-and-table groups. When nobody is editing anything, the section simply says so.
5. Force-Releasing Locks
Sometimes a lock needs to be cleared before it expires on its own — most often when someone has left rows open and is unavailable, and another person needs to get in. Force release drops all of a person's locks on a single table at once.
Steps
- Find the editor-and-table row you want to clear in Rows being edited.
- Click Force release on that row.
- Confirm when prompted. The prompt tells you how many locks will be released and whose they are.
The locks are released immediately, and the table refreshes.
UNCOMMITTED EDITS ARE LOST — Force-releasing drops the locks on those rows before the person has saved. Any changes they'd made but not yet committed on those rows are discarded. Use it when a hold is genuinely stuck or blocking urgent work — not as a routine way to hurry someone along. Every force-release is recorded in the activity log below, with who did it and to whom.
YOU CAN'T FORCE-RELEASE YOUR OWN — The button only appears for other people's locks. To clear your own, simply finish or cancel your edit in the Edit Data grid.
6. Recent Lock Activity
Below the live table is a feed of recent lock events, newest first. It's a plain-language audit trail of what's been happening with locks across all editable tables. Each entry shows when it happened, what kind of event it was, who did it (and, where relevant, who it affected), the table, and any note.
The event types you'll see:
| Event | What it means |
|---|---|
| Acquire | Someone started editing rows and took a lock on them. |
| Release | Someone finished and gave their lock back. |
| Takeover | A lock passed from one person to another. |
| Request | Someone asked for rows that another person is currently holding. |
| Force release | An administrator cleared someone's locks (as in the previous section). |
A GOVERNANCE RECORD — Because it captures who did what and when — including every force-release — this feed is useful for answering questions after the fact, such as who was editing a table around a particular time.
7. Who Can See and Do What
The Lock Manager separates seeing from acting:
- Anyone with Data Update access can view the page — the live locks and the activity feed. Visibility is the point, so the whole team can understand what's held and by whom.
- Only administrators can force-release. The Force release button appears only for accounts with the right permission; everyone else sees the same information but without that control.
NO PERMISSION TO FORCE-RELEASE? — If you can see locks but there's no Force release button on other people's rows, your account has view-only access to this page. An administrator can force-release on your behalf, or grant the permission.
8. Quick Reference
A fast lookup for the most common actions.
| I want to… | Do this |
|---|---|
| See who's editing what right now | Open Lock Manager → Rows being edited |
| Find out when a lock will clear on its own | Check the Expires in countdown on that row |
| See if my rows are being requested by someone | Look for the · N requested note in the Rows column |
| Clear a stuck lock so someone else can edit | Force release on that editor-and-table row → confirm (administrators only) |
| Release my own lock | Finish or cancel your edit in the Edit Data grid — don't use Force release |
| See who released or took a lock recently | Read the Recent lock activity feed |
| Make the view current immediately | Click Refresh (it also refreshes on its own) |
Source: OnCoor Data Update product documentation, written for end users. For the latest screens and options, always refer to the in-app interface.