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- JillianK
- Sep 11th 2009
We have multiple users making changes to tasks everyday. However, I have found that if two users have a task open at the same time and are making changes, usually one person's changes get deleted. Is there some way to avoid this? We have also found that if one person has a time running for a task, and someone else opens the task to make changes and saves it appears the changes have been made. However, if you close the task and open it again, the changes are deleted.
Anyone have any insight as to why this is happening? It's frustrating because we are losing data and forced to find other ways to track time. -
- jreeve
- Sep 11th 2009
Jillian,
Unfortunately, this is one of the faults of using online software. The web browser works in such a way that when one user is entering a task, it is essentially editing a copy of the task data. When the save button is clicked, the data on the screen is what is submitted to the database. In the event that another person has that same task open, their current copy of the task will subsequently overwrite the previous one. In technical terms, this is known as a race condition. The best way to avoid this condition is to make sure no one else has the task open when you are editing it. We have found this condition to be rare. We ourselves have over 20,000 tasks we've managed via Intervals and have rarely had this come up.
However, if we hear back that this is happening to a lot more people, we'll throw around some ideas for locking tasks when they are being edited.
I'm not clear on what is happening with the timers. The timers should not be affected by changes made to the task at any time. Although they are linked to tasks, they run independently of them. If you are having problems with the timers, please submit a bug via the Intervals application so we can troubleshoot the issue further.
Regards,
John -
- Michael
- Sep 11th 2009
One other tidbit on the task portion. If two users add comments at the same time they will both be added to the task. Comments are each uniquely added to the task history. If two users update the top ½ of a task (title, status, summary, etc.) at the same time the second save will be the most current update since technically it happened after the first update. In essence, the task is updated twice. If you view the action history on the task it should show that the task was updated twice. -
- JillianK
- Sep 15th 2009
I have found out it really has nothing to do with the timers.
However this has become a REAL big problem for us.
There have even been instances where we have had user A only VIEWING the task and user B updating the task and user B's updates not be recorded because user A was simply viewing it.
I know this is a flaw with most online software. However, we also use Google Docs. It has a features that let you know when another user is viewing and updating the doc AND lets multiple users update and save simultaneously, which is nice. -
- Michael
- Sep 15th 2009
Thanks for the update. In the example above if someone is just viewing a task and someone else updates the task the update should indeed go through. Would it be possible to submit a bug via your account and our development team will take a look?
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