Data Locking

The Data Locking page provides a way to specify data in one or more models that should be locked. Data locks protect data from being overwritten by data entry, Breakback, formulas, and calculations. Data locking differs from dimension security in the following ways:

• Data that is locked is visible to the user but cannot be modified by anyone. Data locking is global.
• Data that is protected with dimension security is not visible to the user and cannot be modified by the user. Dimension security is specific to the users for which it is defined.

Data Locking can be applied to Views, Reports, and Models.

Users with Contributor or Power access can use the Data Locking page. To access this page, go to Model > Model Administration > Data Locking.

Data Locking is a two-step process:

• Set up the data locking definitions via Model > Model Administration > Data Locking.
• Turn on or off all data locking in the application on the Manage > Application Administration > Application Settings page. This step must be done by a Power user.

To learn how to turn Data Locking on or off, see:

• Application-Level Data Locking for Views
• Application-Level Data Locking for Reports
• Application-Level Data Locking for Models

Spreadsheet Fields Described on the Data Locking Page

The spreadsheet fields on the Data Locking subtask are described. Navigate to Model > Model Administration > Data Locking.

Model - Select the model to apply data locks to. Select All Models to view all data locking definitions.

Data Locking in Views - Indicates whether Data Locking is turned on or off for Views. Application Level data locking globally applies to all the Views and all Models in the Dynamic Planning application and for all users. None indicates that data locking is not enforced in Views. This indicator is read-only. Only Power users can change this setting in Manage > Application Administration > Application Settings.

Data Locking in Reports - Indicates whether Data Locking is turned on or off for Reports. Application Level data locking globally applies to all the Reports and all Models in the Dynamic Planning application and for all users. None indicates that data locking is not enforced in Reports. This indicator is read-only. Only Power users can change this setting in Manage > Application Administration > Application Settings.

Data Locking in Models - Indicates whether Data Locking is turned on or off for Model actions. Application Level data locking globally applies to all model actions that modify data, such as maps, formulas, calculations, data loads, or API calls. This applies to all models in the Dynamic Planning application and for all users. None indicates that data locking is not enforced in Model actions. This indicator is read-only. Only Power users can change this setting in Manage > Application Administration > Application Settings.

The Data Locking table lists models with the names of their dimensions as column headings.

Populate the Data Locking table by selecting the member(s) in each dimension that user want to lock. If they select a parent-level member, all leaf level members under that parent will be locked, but the parent-level members will not be locked.

The following example locks all data in member combinations that include any leaf members in the 2021 hierarchy in the Time dimension.

The following example locks all data in member combinations that include any leaf members in the 2021 hierarchy in the Time dimension and locks all data in member combinations that include Actual in the Scenario dimension.

The following example locks all data in member combinations that include any leaf members in the 2021 hierarchy in the Time dimension and Actual in the Scenario dimension.

Data that is locked appears with a gray background in views and reports.

How Data Locking Works

Many different operations in Dynamic Planning can make changes to data. Data Locking lets user to specify which data cannot be modified when data locking is enabled. Application Settings let user to enable data locking.
Data Locking can be independently applied to:

• Views
• Reports
• Models. This is an opt-in feature. User must contact Planful Support to request this option.

Only leaf dimension members can be locked. However, user can specify to lock a parent-level dimension member as an easy way to automatically lock all of the leaf members under that parent.

Best Practices with Data Locking

• We recommend to set the data locking property for Views and Report to Application Level.
• For Model tasks, such as running a calculation, loading data from the interface or an API, the recommendation is to set to Application Level based on the need.
• Once data locking is enabled, the leaf combinations defined in the data locking user interface will not be modified.
• Once data locking for Model tasks is enabled, user can run an aggregation for a given year, even though it may contains some leaf members that are locked. When aggregation runs for that year, the locked leaf members are not modified, but it will rollup members will be aggregated in the model. This behavior is the same for other steps in the calculation.
• Users can select the root member for any dimension in the data locking user interface. When the setup is saved, the root member selection is ignored as this is explicit. Selecting a root member or not selecting a root member is the same as selecting all the leaf members for the selected dimension for locking. As an example Scenario: Actual, Time: All Time is defined in the data locking, there is no need to specify the root member ‘All Time’ on the Time dimension because the data is locked for all leaf members combinations for Actual Scenario.