>I simply want to have the system popup a dialog informing a user that the record they are in is already open but I do not want to lock it unless changes are made.
>
>>Um, I may be missing your point...but if that's an issue, why not use pessimistic buffering?
>>
>>>If a table has OPTIMISTIC ROW BUFFERING how can the system check if a record is open (i.e. being displayed on someonese screen but not necessarily being changed)?
>>>
>>>Unless someone changes data, the record is not locked so RLOCK() does not help.
>>>
>>>I am looking for something like USED() but relating to records (not tables.)

You'd have to write this info into some kind of "system table" for your application. As each form navigates to a new record, it would have to update this table to reflect what was going on at that workstation, ie: which form, what table, which record, etc.