Lock Record when being updated

[sprasad]

On SupportWorks, where a request was being updated, it would Lock that record so that no other person could update it.
Could the same be applied to HCP?
We have found that it seemingly allows 2 people to update the request at the same time but as soon as the 1st person finishes and clicks on the Update button, the 2nd person will lose all their work.

Having a system Lock and/or an "Alert" will help to avoid the 2nd party writing up their update all over again and hope no one else updates that request, when they try and update the request on the 2nd attempt.

Copy of how this function worked on SW is attached, where lock message appears as a Pop Up.

[sprasad]

@James Ainsworth Hi James,
Could you get one of your Product Team members to review this post please as we are still having issues with updates being wiped out, if a another analyst has gone in to the Request, to update the information?  Thanks.

 

[James Ainsworth]

Hi @sprasad

Sorry about not responding sooner to this request.  I may have overlooked it as it has been posted in the Collaboration workspace.  Can I just first confirm that you are referring to the Details section of a request in Service Manager?

One approach for this might be to remove or change the edit button into a lock icon when someone else is editing the details.  Possibly a tool tip to mention that it is currently being updated by someone else.  Is this the type of functionality that you are looking for?

Regards, 

James

[Guest Ehsan]

Hi @sprasad,

Have you explored the option to achieve this through an Automated Task in the Business Process designer?

You can lock the Details section of a Request within a stage in your Business Process and then choose to unlock the Details section, through another Automated Task some stage later in your Business Process.

The following is an example where the Details section is locked through the Business Process.

Provided that an Analyst is not granted the "Full Access" Role for the corresponding Request type (i.e. "Incident Management Full Access" Role for Incidents), then they'll not be able to edit the Details section.

I hope this helps.

Ehsan

[Martyn Houghton]

@Ehsan

The main areas we experience this in is where analysts are in the process of typing/submitting an update or email on the request, so locking the details screen will not help in this situation. Also as the updates from email, customer portal etc are in parallel to the BPM process and not within it, having this controlled via a BPM action would not work.

Cheers

Martyn 

[Guest Ehsan]

Thanks for clarifying @Martyn Houghton

[sprasad]

@Ehsan @James Ainsworth Hello gents, any further updates on this please?  I am still getting uses complaining that when they are in the middle of composing an email but then another analyst will apply an update to the same Request, it will cause the whole draft email to be lost.  It is causing a lot of inconvenience as well as additional/duplicated work.  Thanks.

[Guest Ehsan]

Hi @sprasad,

That's surprising. That should not be happening following one of the previous Service Manager updates. In addition, in the next Service Manager update, we're looking to further improve this area.

Thanks,

Ehsan

[sprasad]

@Ehsan Morning - thanks for getting back to me.  Happy to  do a screen share a demo the issue, if that helps you to see me replicate the issue on our Live instance.

 

[sprasad]

@Ehsan @James Ainsworth Sorry to chase but has there been any movement on this issue please?  I've just had the below email from the user base:-

"Hi Shalesh – can you please chase Hornbill again about the progress on getting this feature added?

Harry has just had a detailed update wiped out because I was updating at the same time and is now having to re-write it all over again and just pray/hope that no-one else updates this request in the meantime."

 

[Guest Ehsan]

@sprasad Unfortunately this has proved to be more challenging than previously envisaged but we're still working on it and development is still ongoing. There are up to 15 Action Bar Tabs in a Request and each deliver a different requirement - We've to ensure that as part of this, we undertake the appropriate measures to prevent or allow the switching of Tabs in the Action Bar. There are up to 20 Suspend operations that have been addressed. We had previously introduced a solution that then caused a performance concern, so we had to back it out. We will update you when this has made more progress but unfortunately it will not be in the next Service Manager update.

Ehsan

[Guest Ehsan]

@sprasad @Martyn Houghton

I have good news. This is in progress and will be considered in the next Service Manager update, following reviews and testing. I recorded a quick video to demonstrate how this will work, apologies for the quality!

 

[sprasad]

@Ehsan - Good morning, many thanks for the update and the video.  From what I see, it seems the system will now "allow" multiple updates, is that right?  So rather than locking the record, it will apply both updates (from you as well as from Stever) but a prompt appears with a link which then refreshes/updates the timeline with most recent changes.

[Guest Ehsan]

@sprasad That's right - Request record will not be locked, instead you'll be prompted with the choice to refresh the Request page.

Thanks,

Ehsan

[sprasad]

@Ehsan- thanks for confirming.  Great news and 1 that I'm sure will really appease all our staff.  Strangely enough, we had started to see that behaviour in our Live instance already so we now have an explanation as to why that prompt was appearing.  Cheers.

 

[Guest Ehsan]

@sprasad Yep, you'll notice some improvements already and the rest will be delivered in the next Service Manager update.

Ehsan

[Martyn Houghton]

@Ehsan

Would it be possible to extend this so that you can refresh the page but carry your unsaved changes, so that you can view the update prior to then deciding to save the changes you had started to make?

Cheers

Martyn

[Guest Ehsan]

@Martyn Houghton,

Just so that I understand this better...

Which of the following scenarios do you've in mind?

• I have typed away some text in the Update Action Bar tab without clicking on the Update button. I then chose to click on the Assign Action Bar tab and perform an assignment.  If I then click back on to Update Action Bar tab, I would like the text that I had previously written (without saving) to be pre-populated in the box.
• I have typed away some text in the Update Action Bar tab without clicking on the Update button. I may accidently click on the refresh button in the browser. I would like a prompt, to confirm that I do indeed intend to refresh the page.

[Martyn Houghton]

@Ehsan

Point one, I prefer it to prompt before opening the 'other' action about unsaved changes on the current actions, but having it retained would also be a useful option. I think this would come down to personal choice so might be something that could be configurable. My view is that the analyst could forget about the unsaved update and therefore lose it, hence the prompt prior to changing action.

Point two, yes, but the triggers are not just the refresh of the page, but you can lose a partial update when you do other actions such as the timeline 'View Email'', click on a notification alert, popup desktop alert.

Cheers

Martyn

[Martyn Houghton]

@Ehsan

Just had another occurrence now, where I as typing an email on a case and my colleague sent an email, completed a BPM activity and the BPM put the call on hold, triggering the email I was typing on the request to be lost, the request screen updated losing the update and then displayed the blue warning update text.

I  am wondering if the process of preserving the action only works for certain actions or number of them?

Cheers

Martyn

[Martyn Houghton]

@Ehsan

Thinking about this more, I think it is the action of putting the request on hold causes the data loss as you cannot email when a request is on hold.

Cheers

Martyn

[Guest Mohamed]

1 hour ago, Martyn Houghton said:

@Ehsan

Just had another occurrence now, where I as typing an email on a case and my colleague sent an email, completed a BPM activity and the BPM put the call on hold, triggering the email I was typing on the request to be lost, the request screen updated losing the update and then displayed the blue warning update text.

I  am wondering if the process of preserving the action only works for certain actions or number of them?

Cheers

Martyn

Hi @Martyn Houghton

With regards to the issue, was the request in question raised prior to the latest update going out?

Regards

Mohamed

[Martyn Houghton]

@Mohamed

Yes it would have been before SM 1073 was applied.

Cheers

Martyn

[Guest Mohamed]

@Martyn Houghton

The update will have fixed the issue for new requests created here on out, for currently existing requests created prior to it unfortunately may have the message 

Regards

Mohamed

[sprasad]

 

@Ehsan @James Ainsworth Our users are still losing unsaved work so I wonder if the this could be explored further and a prompt displayed prior to the current page being closed and.or a new page loaded.  Another example case provided to us had the below scenario:
 

It was noticed by 1st tier from the site's response to their chasing email that Robin had put support call IDXIN00272038 on hold without sending an email and this has happened sometimes for me as well.
One of the possible reasons for this (which for a couple of my support calls, I am certain has been the cause) is where you prepare an email but forget the final Send (or get distracted and when you come back to the support call you think you have sent it) and then you set the call On-hold, closing the tab with the support call (or open the Request List in the same tab or if at the end of the day you close the browser).
Jira recognises that a Comment that you have started has not been saved if you close the tab or browser and you get a message asking whether you definitely want to come off the page as this would be lost (this has helped me a few times when getting distracted whilst doing a Jira Comment).
So can we ask Hornbill if they can do similar for Emails?