Checking Out Records

When users pull records down from your hosted solution, the record is marked as "checked out". You can simply set a field called "out" to 1, or record something more elaborate, like the name of the user who downloaded it, and when they did so.

(Remember, users can download just their own records, so it's not like it would be a surprise who downloaded the record, but seeing the name can give you an extra sense of reassurance, and can remind staffers – who may not know all the business rules – who owns which records.)

You'd then enforce the checkout--and lock the record--by crafting access privileges in your hosted solution that prevent checked out records from being edited. This is great because users on the hosted solution (users "in the office") can edit records up until the moment a mobile user checks them out. Imagine: updating trouble ticket details up until the moment a mobile technician actually begins heading to the customer's location, but being prevented from changing it after that. Users in the office would then know they need to call the mobile technician to communicate any new details about the now checked out ticket.

Once the ticket is resolved and the mobile user syncs their updated ticket back to the hosted solution, the ticket is "checked back in" and is now editable again by users in the office.

Watch this short video of checkout in action, along with a walkthrough of how we do it.

Todd Geist also demonstrates checkout as part of his "Three Favorite GoZync Features".

Checking out. Create a "checked out" field in your hosted solution. Feel free to add this to layouts, but don't add it to the layout used for Zyncing in GoZyncMobile as there won't be a matching field on the mobile side. Create a branch in the script "Custom Field Mapping: Transformation and Hooks" for your table-- you'll create a branch for both the push and the pull, that is for both "gzm_YourTable" and "gzh_YourTable".

Not that in both the push and the pull it is the hosted record we're editing when it comes to checkout. This may be a little different than other SetField() steps you have going on that script where on the pull you're often setting fields in mobile records.

Preventing edits of checked out records. In your hosted solution, use FileMaker's built-in access privileges to prevent editing of records where "checked out" is not empty (or zero). In relational solutions you'll want to apply this restriction to child records as well: one should not be able to edit an invoice line item if the invoice is checked out, for example.