MULTI-USER CONSIDERATIONS

INTRODUCTION

EstimatorVJ inherently supports more than 1 user working on the same project(s).

EstimatorVJ will prevent certain operations from taking place however, to provide data integrity, some of which are listed below:

1 concurrent user per Estimate Section

The following operations can only be done when nobody else is editing the project:

Editing the Resource Library or Estimate Section Names

Recalculating the Project (except background recalculations)

Printing Certain Project Reports

Deleting the project

ENABLING MULTI-USER ACCESS

The only requirement to enable multi-user access on a Project is to Create (or copy to) that project in a Project Working Folder ("Estdata8") which is common to the users requiring access (normally a disk server).

If not already, you create this Project Folder from within VJ via the "New Loc" option . DO NOT CREATE THIS FOLDER OUTSIDE OF ESTIMATORVJ.

HOW DOES IT WORK

Every time a user performs some action in a Project, the appropriate Project Data File associated with this action is "registered" to the user generating the action.

If another user performs an action in the Project requiring one of the Project Data Files already "registered" to another user, and the action requires "exclusive" use of that Project Data File, VJ will issue a message "ANOTHER USER PREVENTS THIS OPERATION", or words to that effect, and blocks the action.

Once an action requiring "exclusive" use of a Project Data File(s) terminates, then the appropriate "registrations" are removed.

These "registrations" are more technically called 'locking' and occur at Project and/or Section/Library/Section Names level.

CONSIDERATIONS

Sometimes "registrations" on files are not removed due to an action by a user not completing normally. e.g.

A user starts editing a Section, and forgets to exit

A computer/program malfunction causes an action to terminate prematurely

Under such circumstances the appropriate "registrations" will be permanently remembered by VJ.

Removing these registrations can be achieved by one of the following methods:

The same user completing the same action that caused the "registrations"

The same user "Unlocking" the Project at the Project Window - this removes only this user's "registrations"

Anybody "Unlocking" the Project after the Project has been closed - this removes "ALL REGISTRATIONS" for that Project

NOTE: THE LAST TWO METHODS MUST BE PERFORMED ONLY WHEN YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON WITH THE PROJECT OPEN.