What Happens When Two People Edit the Same Record at Once

Argenta lets two people open the same record at the same time. It does not let the second save quietly wipe out the first, and this article is about the warning that stops it.

What You See

You press Save and, instead of the usual confirmation, you get this:

"Somebody else changed these settings while you had this page open, so nothing was saved. Reload the page to see their version, or press Save again to overwrite theirs with what is on your screen."

On most pages it arrives as a popup you dismiss with OK. On the Lead Scoring, Constituent Scoring and Giving Capacity pages the same sentence appears as a message on the page itself rather than a popup. The words are the same either way.

A record workspace protects you the same way, with different wording. When you press the Save All Changes icon in the record's title bar and someone else has saved the record since you opened it, a red banner appears and stays:

"Your changes were NOT saved. Somebody else changed this record while you had it open."

A popup carries the same refusal and waits for you to dismiss it. Behind it the banner stays on the page, so the refusal is still in front of you when you decide what to do. The banner carries a Reload This Record button. Reloading discards what you typed. To keep your version instead, press Save again.

The banner on a record workspace. It stays after you dismiss the popup.

The warning on the Constituent Scoring page. Nothing was saved, and the Save button is still there for when you decide.

What It Means

Nothing was saved. Your changes are still on your screen and the stored record still holds their version. Nothing has been lost on either side yet, which is the whole point of the warning.

It fires when the record was saved by somebody else between the moment your page loaded it and the moment you pressed Save. It also fires when that somebody else was you, in a second browser tab you had forgotten was open. In that case the warning names you rather than a colleague. It is headed "You changed this in another window" and reads:

"You saved a newer version of this record somewhere else, in another tab or window, so what is on this screen was NOT saved over it. Reload the page to bring up your newer version, or press Save again to replace it with what is on this screen."

What you do about it is the same either way. Only the wording changes, so you can tell at a glance whether the version you are about to overwrite is a colleagues or your own.

What To Do

1. Reload the page to discard what is on your screen and see their version. Take this one when you are not sure what they changed.
2. Press Save again to overwrite their version with what is on your screen. The second press goes through. The warning appears once, not every time.

There is no merge, so it is one version or the other. If their change matters as much as yours, reload, look at what they did, then put your change back on top of it.

Where You Will Meet It

It runs on records that are edited as a whole, where a save posts every field on the page rather than just the one you touched. That is the shape where a forgotten tab can rewrite a colleague's work without either of you noticing.

The Subscription Settings pages are the ones most teams hit first, because a whole team shares them: Email Settings, Our Dashboard Message, Lead Scoring, Constituent Scoring, Giving Capacity and Volunteer Settings. The public form design pages for campaigns, events, donations, email and text carry it too. Record workspaces carry it as well, from the Save All Changes icon in the record's title bar.

Discussions carry it as well, on a thread and on a reply. That covers Announcements, Board Member Discussions, Team Member Discussions and a project's own Discussions tab, which all run the same board. Editing a thread somebody else has saved since you opened it gives you:

"This discussion was changed by someone else while you had it open, so it was NOT saved. Reload the page to see their version, or press Save Changes again to overwrite it with what is on your screen."

A reply is protected the same way, worded for a reply and pointing at that form's Save button rather than Save Changes. Neither one is a wall: press the button a second time and your version goes in.

On Our Dashboard Message the warning names the message rather than the settings, and points at the button that page actually uses:

"This dashboard message was changed by someone else while you had it open, so it was NOT saved. Reload the page to see their version, or press Save All Changes again to overwrite it with what is on your screen."

That page matters more than most, because the message it holds is the one your whole team reads when they sign in.

The Subscription Settings pages that carry the warning, on the Subscription Settings menu.

Best Practices

• Close the second tab. Most of these warnings are one person with the same record open twice.
• Read it rather than pressing Save twice out of habit. The second press is a decision to overwrite somebody.
• On a settings page your whole team shares, say so in Chatter before you edit. The warning is a safety net, not a way of coordinating.