>how about, a seperate tabe (as you suggested in the 2nd message), but no need for a flock or rlock, just fill a specific field with a specific value. as someone start the proccess they look first in the table/field. if the expected value is not there, they fill the field and are free to start the procedure. once they are done, they release that field.

Yes, this is what we are investigating presently as a mechanism. However, that will also require a RLOCK() on a specific record on that table in order to assure that we avoid two transactions at the same time doing the replace of that field value.