Example: Applying Data Locks to a Regional Forecast

In this scenario, you restrict changes to forecast data using data lock ownership.

Your company is preparing a sales forecast for 2018 Q4, and you want to allow regional sales executives to enter or import data for their own regions. However, you want to prevent users from changing any data that they are not responsible for, and you want to lock all data after the forecast deadline.

1. Open the model that contains the forecast.
2. Ensure that the Organization dimension has a Person Responsible column, with each sales executive assigned to the appropriate region. For more information, see Attributes of an Organization Dimension.
3. Select Model Preferences.
4. On the Access and Privacy tab, set Data Locking to ON, and choose Locked as the Default Lock State. Select OK.

   The model data will be locked by default.

5. Select (Save Model).
6. Select (Configure Data Locks).
7. In the Edit Driving Dimensions section of the Data Locking page, select +Add a new Driving Dimension and choose Organization.
8. Select the Enable Ownership and Copy Responsible Users checkboxes for the Organization dimension.

   These settings will create a Data Locking Owner column for the Organization dimension, and copy the users from the Person Responsible column to it.

9. Select Finish Editing.
10. Select Show Grid.
11. For the Forecast version, drill into the Date dimension to show 2018 Q4. In the 2018 Q4 Forecast column, set the lock state for all regions to Restricted.
12. Select Done.

    When working with the model data in a story, regional sales executives can now make changes to the data for the 2018 Q4 Forecast in their own region. All other changes to public versions are prevented.

13. When the forecast deadline passes, open the Data Locking page again and change the state of the 2018 Q4 Forecast cells from Restricted to Locked.

Any changes to the public model data are now prevented. Now that the data is locked, the sales executives won't be able to change the lock states, although data locking managers can still reopen the locked members if they need to.