Close the record or change to view mode

[BrandonShopay]

I am not a programmer and know nothing about javascript so please bear with me.

In several apps, we have users who create records which then needs to be edited by another team/user.  However, the record creator often leaves the record open in edit mode on their end which prevents the other team from making edits until the record creator closes the record. 

We have been asked to look into ways to minimize this whether it be a custom object that forces the record to close once saved and moved in AWF or to force a change to view mode.  The save and close button does not actually close the record for some reason.  Reading through discussions I think this may be due to the AWF process that runs once the record is saved.

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.  I have read quite a few posts that seem similar to this, but nothing really seemed to solve the issue we are experiencing.

Thank you!

[dmerrick_256]

@BrandonShopay It sounds like you may be using the New enrollment method to enter records into AWF.  In that case, the Save/Close option doesn't close the record as it results in enrollment. There sis an option for the user to exit the AWF, but it doesn't happen by default, the user actually has to choose it.

You could use a Manual enrollment vs. New record enrollment. This allows the Save/Close function to behave as expected as the record is already enrolled in AWF. This only addresses the Save/Close problem however.

I'll leave it to the Custom Object folk to determine if there is a way to force a record to View mode. It might be possible to leverage a AWF Eval/Wait loop at that point as you can set a timer on the Wait node, and if the CO also set a flag, AWF could force the record to the next layout node.

Or you could be obnoxious and use the Eval/Wait node to send nag messages to close the record every 5 minutes after the record exceeds a set amount of time.   If you were truly evil you would nag the users' boss. You are trying to solve a personnel problem not a technical one after all.  

[DavidPetty]

@BrandonShopay a custom object to do any of this is problematic in that if there were uncommitted changes to the record and it puts the record in view mode or closes the record, the user would get a warning about unsaved changes.

You could try putting a text box at the top of the record and only viewable once the record is saved  (checking for last updated being populate) with a gentle reminder to the user to close out of the record once done so others can edit the record.