Working with Locked Documents

• Users with a lock on a document (either individually or as part of a group) can perform all document model operations that they have permission for. Users without a lock cannot perform any document model operations on the locked document that affect lockable fields or the structure of the document, including versioning.

The structure field is a significant field. As a result, when a document is locked, users or groups without a lock cannot make structural changes to that document.

• The reference mode of a content node is independent from locking. It does not matter whether the mode is Share, Reuse, or Author because the document and content items are locked not the shared items.

• When you add new content to a locked document, the new content is locked immediately with the same lock attributes as the rest of the document.

• When you include or insert another document in a locked document, the referenced document is not locked but the content item referencing the including or inserted item is locked.

• You cannot lock a versioned document; however, you can version a locked document.

• Any user can copy content from a locked document. If locked content is pasted into another unlocked document, the pasted content is now unlocked.

• Any user can branch, baseline, or export a locked document.

• When a content item is removed from a locked item, that content item becomes unlocked.

• Locking is not a historical operation. Viewing items historically does not show any lock information. Similarly, locking and unlocking operations do not appear in the history information of an item.

• Field relationships (constraints) as well as editability and relevance rules still apply to locked documents. When a field relationship is such that the target field is a lockable field in a locked document, a user without a lock cannot modify the source field to invalidate the target field.

• When working with documents that has a node with the Author, Reuse, or Share reference mode, only the node in that document is locked. The share item is not locked. The shared item branches if needed for an Author or Reuse reference, if there is a lock on either or both nodes.

• A node that has a Share reference mode cannot modify any of the fields that are shared and significant. If this node is locked, significant fields are not editable, however shared significant fields still reflect the changes made by the author. However, any fields that are significant on only the node are locked and modifiable by the user or group who owns the lock.