The purpose of locking a building is to prevent other users from accessing the building and making changes to its data. This will prevent other users from adversely affecting a process or task that you are carrying out, which has a building-wide impact. For example, when you are performing a Resubdivision, a change of GST Reporting Style, or after you have just created a new building, but still need to enter Opening Balances.
When a building is locked, no other user can access the building and it will stop any scheduled tasks from completing until the lock is removed. For example SCM banking downloads, payment process or any global reporting. There is a field to enter the Lock Reason to inform users why the building is locked.
Key facts to keep in mind:
- Locking a building prevents access by other users.
- You may lock more than one building.
- The lock stays in place until it is manually unlocked by either the person who locked it, or a StrataMax Administrator (more on this below)
- When you have locked a building in StrataMax and closing the application, you will see this prompt to review and remove the lock.
How to lock and unlock a building
- From the Building Selector Tool, click the Lock button to lock the building. The button label will change to Locked with a pad lock icon.
- A Lock Reason can be entered to inform users why a building is locked. If the building is locked by a system process such as Month End Rollover, this will also be noted. The reason will be displayed on the Lock Manager screen which can be accessed by clicking the ellipses beside the Lock option.
- To unlock the building, click the Locked button.
In the building selector list, the building will also have a padlock icon in the left column. Hovering over this icon with your mouse cursor will confirm the user and the date & time it was locked. If the padlock has a blue person on it, a different user has locked it. A padlock without a blue person means the currently logged-in user locked it.
Review all locked buildings
- Click on the More (three dots) button next to the Locked button.
- In this window you can also tick the box Include locks by others, which will display all locked buildings in the portfolio on this StrataMax drive.
- If a property is locked and that staff member is available, you can ask them if they can remove the lock so you can work in the property. If the staff member is not available, and you need to unlock the building, it is important to identify if the staff member was in the middle of completing a process (refer to the Lock Reason or discuss with user or Supervisor); if they are not you can remove the lock yourself if you are a member of the Administrators group in Security Setup - or refer to your administrator to unlock.
Unless you are a StrataMax Administrator, you cannot unlock buildings that have been locked by another user. Your office appointed StrataMax Administrator can click on Unlock to remove the lock.
Show Users
The Show Users screen can be accessed from most menus in StrataMax by clicking File > Show Users. This screen displays any properties that have been locked, and who in your office has locked them, even if they aren't logged into StrataMax at that moment in time.
Lock All
- Under Options > clicking Lock All displays the User Lock Manager window with a list of every building in the portfolio.
- To select multiple buildings separately, press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard whilst mouse clicking on each building.
- To select a range, click the first building then press and hold the Shift key, and click the last building.
- To select all buildings press Ctrl + A keys on your keyboard
- Click OK and the building(s) will now be in the list of locked buildings.
Unlock All
- Under Options > clicking Unlock All will unlock all buildings that have been locked with your user name under the User Name column.
