Multi user collaboration

The Synchronize pane in the scheduling environment allows you to comment on and commit your changes, monitor and download changes by other users, and resolve conflicts.

If you get an error while trying to synchronize data, some common causes are the following:

• Your local database and the server selected in the current profile are not compatible. Edit the profile and make sure you have entered the correct data.

• You are not signed in with the correct credentials. Check that the expected user name is shown near the top right corner of the Model Explorer window. If you are using CONNECT authentication, make sure you have signed in with the correct credentials.

• Another user has locked the model your scheduling case belongs to. The name of the user who locked the model is included in the error message:

  

To open the Synchronize pane, click Synchronize in the Sharing group of the Home ribbon tab.

Commit changes

The Outgoing tab of the Synchronize pane lists the changes to the scheduling pane you have not yet uploaded to the server. You should add a comment for your changes that will be shown to the other users when they are notified of your changes. You can see the number of pending changes next to the tab label, and also in the status bar, near the bottom right corner of the window.

Note: When opening a scheduling case after upgrading AVEVA Unified Supply Chain to a new version, you may notice a large number of pending outgoing changes. These are changes made by Schedule to support the upgraded collaboration workflow. Commit these changes as described below and continue working as normal.
If conflicts prevent you from committing the changes, in the Conflicts tab choose Overwrite mine in all cases. This ensures you do not overwrite another user's changes when they have already committed the migration.

To commit these changes, click the Synchronize button at the bottom of the pane. Note that this action also downloads any changes made to this model by other users.

Monitor and download changes

You can monitor in real time who else is working on the model you have open, and what changes have been committed to the server and are ready for you to download.

In the status bar, next to the bottom right corner of the window, you can see how many other users are working on the model you have open. Hover the mouse pointer on the icon shown in the next image to display a tooltip with the names of the users working on the model.

The icon in the status bar changes color to yellow if there are changes on the server ready to be downloaded. In addition, server changes are listed in the Incoming tab of the Synchronize pane.

To download changes uploaded by other users, click the Synchronize button at the bottom of the pane. Note that this action also uploads to the server any changes you have made to the model.

Resolve conflicts

When you and another user change the same item of a model in different ways, Schedule cannot reconcile the changes. This is known as a synchronization conflict.

Suppose you and another user both changed the default flow rate of a process unit, entering different values:

• If the other user synchronizes before you, you will have to download their change to the flow rate, while simultaneously trying to upload a different change to the same value. The synchronization process is aborted and Schedule signals a conflict.

• If you synchronize first, the other user will get a conflict when trying to synchronize.

The Incoming tab displays a warning for every set of changes causing a conflict with your outgoing changes. Double-click the changeset or click the ellipsis button () to open the detailed view.

In the detailed view, the changes causing conflicts are highlighted in red.

Click the Synchronize button if you decide to go ahead with data synchronization. You must then resolve the conflicts in the Conflicts tab.

For each conflict you have two choices:

• Overwrite Theirs: Keep the change you have made locally, and discard the change made by the other user. Your change will be uploaded to the server. The other users will get an incoming change added to their Synchronize pane.

• Overwrite Mine: Overwrite your local change with the one made by the other user.

Make your choices by selecting the relevant check box for each conflicting item. You can also click the check box in either the Overwrite Theirs or Overwrite Mine column header to make this choice for all conflicting items. Click Synchronize to resolve the conflicts by downloading and uploading data according to your decisions.

From the Conflicts tab, right-click a conflict and choose Show conflicting changeset to open the Incoming tab and highlight the changeset that is causing the conflict.