Hi there. Thanks for the hints. I could take care of problems myself, but that's still toward the end of the data entry. What the users want is to ensure that two people can't accidentally be working on the same record. I mean, at the point the second one starts to work on the record they should be told that they can't get to it because someone else has it.

I guess I could use the val functions and do something with a timer. That way they would find out about it perhaps 10 seconds after they start instead of after they've already done all the research and checking. Thanks.

And you're right. It's unlikely that they will have two people pulling the same record for review. But the first time that it happens they're going to say something, I just know it :)

>Denise,
>
>Optimistic buffering does not require that the user ever see a problem. You can resolve confilcts down to the field level using CURVAL() OLDVAL() and the current buffer value and only involve the user when they have changed the same field that someone else has changed.