Overview
This article explains the application setting that controls what happens when two different staff members try to edit and save the same record – such as the same Student, Teacher, or Parent (Guardian) – at the same time. It is designed to help you understand what the setting does, where it applies, and how to configure it for your institute’s way of working.
What This Setting Does
Classter keeps track of the exact version of a record every time it is saved. When a staff member opens a Student, Teacher, or Parent (Guardian) record to make changes, Classter remembers which version was loaded on screen at that moment.
If, before that staff member saves their changes, someone else has already saved a change to the very same record, Classter can detect that this is a conflicting, concurrent edit. This setting decides how Classter reacts when that happens. There are three options:
- Allowed – Classter does not check for conflicts at all. Whichever change is saved last is kept, and neither user is warned about the other one’s changes.
- Warning – Classter warns the user who is about to save that the record has already been changed by someone else, and lets the user decide whether to continue (and overwrite the other change) or stop and review the up to date record first.
- Not Allowed – Classter blocks the save completely. The user must close the record, reopen it to load the latest version, re-apply their changes, and save again.
The default option is Warning.
This setting works independently and does not require any other setting or field to be configured beforehand.(Main Settings / General Settings / Basic Customization / Controls, Filters & Checks / Entities editing at the same time)
You can select here if Classter is going to forbid or warn end users from modifying an entity when another user also is editing the same entity.
The options are:
(a) No Check
(b) Warning , i.e. Classter will just warn the user if this happens but it will allow the end user to save any change
(c) Forbid , i.e. Classter will not allow the end user to save the entity when this entity is already being edited by another user at the same time.
Setting – > Active -> Warning (Figure 1)
Figure 1
*FYI: When the setting is inactive the default value is set to Warning.
Where It Is Used
This setting is applied automatically, in the background, whenever a staff member saves changes on the main profile/edit screen of:
- A _Student_ record, including the Student edit form, status-change actions, and re-registration screens.
- A Teacher record.
- A Parent (Guardian) or Contact record.
The check takes place at the exact moment the Save button is clicked, comparing the version of the record that was on screen with the version currently stored, right before the new changes are written.
The setting itself is configured once for the whole institute, from:
Administration > Application Settings > Basic Customization > Controls, Filters & Checks
under the label “Entities editing at the same time”. It applies to all academic periods; there is no need to configure it separately for each period.
Business Logic / Behavior
- The comparison Classter performs is invisible to the end user – staff members simply see either nothing (Allowed), a warning message (Warning), or a blocking message (Not Allowed); they never need to understand how the comparison itself works.
- With Allowed selected, records can always be saved, even if another user has changed the same record moments earlier. The most recently saved change always wins, silently.
- With Warning selected, the user attempting to save sees a message stating that the record has already been changed by another process, and that continuing will cause those other changes to be lost. The user can choose to continue and overwrite, or cancel and refresh the record first.
- With Not Allowed selected, the save is blocked outright with a message that the record has already been modified. There is no way to override this from the same screen; the user must reload the record and re-enter their change on the up to date version.
- The check is specific to each individual record. Saving changes to one Student, Teacher, or Parent (Guardian) never affects, or is affected by, edits happening on a different record at the same time.
Example(s)
Example 1 – Warning option: At Northfield Academy, the setting is configured to Warning. Two registrar staff members, Maria P. and George S., both open the same Student record for a Student named Alex Roberts within a few minutes of each other. Maria P. opens the record first and updates the Student’s home address, then saves successfully. A few minutes later, George S., who opened the same record before Maria saved, updates the Student’s mobile phone number and clicks Save. Because the record has changed since George S. opened it, Classter shows him a message warning that the record was already changed by someone else, and asks if he wants to continue. If George S. confirms, his phone number update is saved, but Maria’s address update is lost unless he first refreshes the page and re-applies it. If he cancels, he can refresh the record, see Maria’s update, and then re-enter his own change safely.
Example 2 – Not Allowed option: Southbridge College prefers a stricter approach and configures the setting to Not Allowed. Using the same scenario, when George S. clicks Save, Classter blocks the action completely and displays a message that the record has already been modified by another process. George S. cannot proceed until he reloads the Student record to see Maria’s update, and then re-enters his phone number change on the up to date version. This way, no change is ever lost, but staff must remember to refresh records more often when working on the same cases.
Example 3 – Allowed option: Riverside Institute has a very small administrative team where the same record is almost never edited by two people at once, so the setting is configured to Allowed. If two staff members do happen to edit the same Contact record at the same time, whichever one saves last simply overwrites the earlier change, with no warning shown to either person.
When to Use
When to Select “Warning”
Select Warning when several staff members regularly work on the same Student, Teacher, or Parent (Guardian) records, and you want Classter to alert them to a possible conflict without stopping their work outright. This gives staff the flexibility to decide, case by case, whether it is safe to overwrite another person’s recent change. This is the recommended option for most institutes and is the default configuration.
When to Select “Not Allowed”
Select Not Allowed when data accuracy is critical and you want to guarantee that no update is ever accidentally overwritten – for example, in larger institutes where multiple registrar or admissions offices may work on the same Student or Parent (Guardian) records throughout the day. This option adds an extra step for staff (reloading the record before saving again), but removes any risk of silently losing a change.
When to Select “Allowed”
Select Allowed only if simultaneous editing of the same record is rare in your institute, or if you prefer that saving is never interrupted by conflict messages. With this option, be aware that if two staff members do edit the same record at the same time, one of their changes can be silently lost without any warning.
Notes
K-12 Mode and Higher Education Mode: This setting works exactly the same way in both modes. Whether “Enable Configuration for Higher Education/Xrisi_parametropoihshs_kolegiou” is turned on (Higher Education Mode) or off (K-12 Mode), the same three options (Allowed, Warning, Not Allowed) apply, and they protect Student, Teacher, and Parent (Guardian) records in the same way in either mode.
This setting works independently and does not require any other setting or field to be configured beforehand.
