Concurrent Alerts

There are two types of concurrent alert in CommTrak:

Concurrent alerts can be enabled / disabled for all users in Settings > General Settings > Miscellaneous Settings.

Concurrent Viewer Alerts

The purpose of the concurrent viewer alerts is to warn you that someone else may be modifying a CommTrak record at the same time as you, which can aid in avoiding duplication of work. For example, when multiple users attempt to complete the same tasks on the same record, the alert enables them to communicate before proceeding.

The concurrent viewer alerts have been implemented across all major CommTrak modules:

  • Customers
  • Jobs
  • Leads
  • Projects
  • Tickets
  • Workflow

The behaviour of the alerts is as follows:

  • Notifications are displayed instantly to a user who opens a record that is currently being viewed by someone else
  • Notifications are displayed within a few seconds, to a user who is currently viewing a record, when another user subsequently opens that record
  • If more than one other user is concurrently viewing the record, the name of each other user will be listed in the alert message
  • A user can dismiss the notification by pressing the close (X) icon in the alert. The alert will not be displayed again for the currently-open record unless the other user leaves and reopens the record, or another user subsequently opens the record

Concurrent viewer alerts are only displayed when another user is viewing the same record in an active browser tab. If a record is open, but the tab is not active, an alert will not be shown to other users.

Concurrent Modification Alerts

Concurrent Modification Alerts are designed to advise you against unknowingly overwriting updates that were made by another user whilst you were editing the same record:

It is vital to be aware that if a Concurrent Modification Alert is displayed, your changes have not been saved!

You must press the Save button again to confirm that you wish to overwrite the other user's saved work. If you do not press the Save button again, your changes to the record will not be saved.

The following image is an example of a Concurrent Modification Alert that is displayed when you press the Save button on a CommTrak record such as the Customer screen:

The alert shown in the previous image was displayed when the following events occurred:

  1. Initial Record Access: I opened the Customer record screen to view the customer's information.
  2. Subsequent Access by Another User: After I opened the screen, Isabella Wilson accessed the same record. She received a Concurrent Viewer Alert, indicating that another user (me) was currently viewing the record. However, Isabella proceeded to edit fields such as Company Name and Address, and then saved her changes.
  3. Receiving and Ignoring the Viewer Alert: Simultaneously, I also received a Concurrent Viewer Alert when Isabella accessed the record, but I ignored it and made my own changes to the record.
  4. Attempt to Save Changes: After Isabella had saved her changes, I attempted to save mine. This is when CommTrak's Concurrent Modification Alert was triggered, warning me that my changes would overwrite Isabella's.
  • Available Options: Faced with this alert, I have two choices:
  1. Navigate away from the record, losing my changes, or...
  2. Press Save, potentially overwriting Isabella's changes.

Best Practice Recommendation:

In the given scenario, ideally, I should have heeded the Concurrent Viewer Alert initially. The recommended course of action would be to contact Isabella to understand her changes and discuss the impact of potentially overwriting them. Alternatively, waiting for Isabella to finish (indicated by the clearance of the viewer alert) and then refreshing my screen to see her updates before making my own, would have been a prudent approach.