Work Item Lock Service

Locking

A "shared" work item is created when a workflow assigns work items to more than one user in a single work item step. By locking the work item, the user can indicate that he/she has started working on it and other users should wait for him/her to complete or unlock the work item. This applies to scenarios when work items are assigned to a pool of users, all of whom cannot work on the task in parallel.

If a work item is locked by a user, other users can see the work item in the Inbox but cannot open it. A work supervisor, however, can lock the work item for any user. A work supervisor can see the work item in the inbox, open it, and make changes to records within the work item even if it is locked by another user. However, such work items cannot be submitted.

Work item locking only applies to actionable work items, and has no impact on notification work items.

When a work item is locked through a web service, the UI shows the lock status. Also, the work item query and get services return the details of the lock in the response.

A locked work item can be reassigned. Reassignment of a work item, generally, releases the lock on that work item.

Work item locking is enabled by default.

Relocking

Relocking allows you to renew an already existing lock. Expiry parameters such as interval and so on are renewed based on the defaults specified in the Configurator.

If the Default Work Item Lock Expiry Method is set to None in the Configurator, a relock attempt from web services is ignored and success is returned.

The Work Item Query service returns the Lock status for a work item in response to the state of the work item. For more details, refer to Work Item Query Service.