Workspaces locking policies

Locking policies in workspaces allow you to control how changes are made and who is able to make the changes. A locking policy determines if managed assets are locked to a workspace, task group, or task, or if they are not locked at all. The locking policy applies to the entire WebSphere Commerce site and is not configurable by store.

Workspaces locking policies affect all workspaces, task groups, and tasks on the authoring server. Workspaces locking policies do not affect the production-ready data. Authorized users can change production-ready at any point.

There are four possible locking policies initially available in WebSphere Commerce:

Workspace locking

With this locking policy enabled, a managed asset is locked to the workspace when the first change is made to the asset within the workspace. Workspace Content Contributors assigned any task in the workspace can make changes to the locked managed asset.

Users working in any task group and tasks in the workspace where the managed asset is locked can make changes. Users working in other workspaces cannot change the locked managed asset.

Task group locking

With this locking policy enabled, a managed asset is locked to the task group in which a Workspace Content Contributor first changes the asset. Only Workspace Content Contributors assigned tasks in the same task group can make changes to the locked managed asset.

Task group locking is the default locking policy for workspaces.

Users working in other task groups cannot change the locked managed assets. Only users assigned tasks within the task group where the managed asset is locked can change the managed asset.

Task locking

With this locking policy enabled, a managed asset is locked to the task in which a Workspace Content Contributor first changes the asset. Only Workspace Content Contributors assigned to the same task can make changes to the locked managed asset.

Only users assigned to the same task where the managed asset is locked can change the managed asset.

No locking

With this locking policy enabled, there are no restrictions on changing managed assets in a workspace. Any user in any workspace can change managed assets. Users could make changes to the same managed assets in different workspaces which can cause problems when those workspaces are committed.

Once locked, managed assets remain locked until a workspace, task group, or task is completed or canceled, depending on the locking policy. For example, if you cancel a task group when using the task locking policy, all managed assets locked by all tasks in the canceled task group will be unlocked. When you cancel a task group, all changes made through tasks in the task group are lost.

Before deciding on the locking policy to use on your authoring server, review the Considerations when selecting a locking policy topic carefully to understand the implications of each locking policy.

Related Concepts

Workspaces, task groups, and tasks
WebSphere Commerce configuration file

Related tasks

Change the workspaces locking policy

Related Reference

Considerations when selecting a locking policy