Release date: 6/4/2018

In the past, when a user brought up an item master record in Item File Maintenance Change mode, the item record would be locked.  Any other users who tried to update that item record -- including quantity on hand, on order, or allocated -- would receive an Item Record Locked message.  In many cases, the user who brought up the item master record in Change mode -- and who without realizing it, had locked the record -- could stay in the Change mode for an extensive period of time, and thus cause operation problems for other users.

In this update, we introduce "phantom locking" logic to the Item Master Maintenance program to reduce locking conflicts.  That is to say, the system now does not lock the item master record after a user brings up that item in Change mode.  Instead, the system will check if the changes to the item master can take place.  If no other user changes the item master in between, then the changes are updated back to the item master.  Otherwise, a conflict message will be displayed.  The user will need to make their change again.  This mechanism also nudges the user to finish their change in item master quickly without hogging that record.  This is good behavior that we like to encourage for other areas where "phantom locking" is not yet applicable.

There are new situations where updates of the record will not be possible and an error message will show the reason.

Item File Maintenance (IM0101) error posibilities:

1) "Record Locked By Another User. Update Aborted. Try Again." - If an update or delete

of an item is attempted but the record is locked by another user.

update or delete of an item is attempted but the record has been changed by another

user.

3) "Record Locked By Another User. Try Again" - If an item number is entered and that

item is currently locked by another user attempting an update.

Modified program: IM0101

DLM