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Letter: The user can generate longer-form documents that dynamically pull in fields from the related Grant Request; these are called Letters. These letters can be a big time saver; for example, in the past Partnership Program staff might have needed to manually write up the whole Grant Award Letter, but with the Letter functionality we can automate the generation of the Grant Award Letter from data we already have.
Record Locking
Record locking is the technique prevalent across computing software platforms of preventing simultaneous access to data in a database (such as Fluxx), to prevent inconsistent results.
The classic example of what can occur without the use of record locking is demonstrated by two bank clerks attempting to update the same bank account for two different transactions in a system lacking record locking. Clerks 1 and 2 both retrieve (i.e., copy) the account's record. Clerk 1 applies and saves a transaction. Clerk 2 applies a different transaction to his saved copy, and saves the result, based on the original record and his changes, overwriting the transaction entered by clerk 1. The record no longer reflects the first transaction, as if it had never taken place.
A simple way to prevent this is to lock the file whenever a record is being modified by any user, so that no other user can save data while the first holds the lock. This prevents records from being overwritten incorrectly, but allows only one record to be processed at a time, locking out other users who need to edit records at the same time.
To allow several users to edit a database table at the same time and also prevent inconsistencies created by unrestricted access, a single record can be locked when attempting to edit or update it. Anyone attempting to edit the same record
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is denied
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edit access because of the lock (although they are be able to view the record without editing it). Once the record is saved or edits are canceled, the lock is released. Records can never be saved so as to overwrite other changes, preserving data integrity.
What It Looks Like in Fluxx
In Fluxx, all records are always readable. However, when you go to "Edit" the record, you may encounter a message stating that the record you are attempting to edit is locked and will also say which user is locking the record. An example of the message can be seen here:
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