Getting Your Edits Back in Turn

File edited out of turn, its something that has haunted users through the ages (previous Vault versions), files which have been downloaded to the local machine and without obvious reason, "mysteriously" modified.  The mystery here usually being a system enforced change or an update inadvertently caused by a user response to a prompt, but either way the result is the same – the file requires a save and the user can't check anything in.  A simple 5 minute change becomes an ordeal.

Subscription Release 1 here provides two important changes to help users through the dirty file maze.  First is improved communication about what is happening with the local file – with new browser filter options and status details.  The second is to change the methods we have to deal the problem.

Lets look at the browser changes first, from the Vault browser menu, selecting the filter option you can now isolate local file status and pinpoint any "edited out of turn files", or those edited in memory, so we can decide what to do with them.  

To help users better understand the status and resolution options, the file status icon has also been updated removing some of the uncertainty around what has happened to your file.  Instead of the traditional "i" icon each file displays its most recent (at download) Vault status prior to any local modification and users can now add the Vault status modifier "+" to highlight those files changed on disk.

With these local file changes identified what to do next?  If you are not worried about local changes, simply save over them and check your file in – no problems.  

If you think these changes are valid we can check out the file, save and check it in, noting in Workgroup and Professional that any file with a solid green status icon indicates that the downloaded file was latest before the local change and is eligible for check out.

Remember too we added the ability to change state / check out modified components in the last release, so updating these files is easy as pie too.  

If your modified file was not latest on download, no problems, users can revert to latest which will check out the affected file if latest is NOT downloaded regardless of the local status..  

More detail on these important changes can be found in the help resource for sub users and if you haven't already downloaded to try it out – you probably should be doing that now!

-Allan