You may have found at one time or another that you try to open a job, only to find that you cannot. There are two specific such instances that you should be aware of, related to two different states a job can be in – locked and packed. Both of these two states can occur either intentionally or unintentionally. Fortunately, whatever the underlying cause or reason, the solutions to either are relatively simple.
A job may be locked by simply clicking the lock icon in iCommand, but it also becomes locked when in use by another user. Note here that a job does not have to be the active job to be locked as in use, though the active job will be locked as well. If one user is viewing job in iCommand it will be locked from other users. This is to prevent potential errors in the database from multiple users attempting to make changes at the same time. The locked job will permit the second user to view the job details, but the job cannot be modified or opened in iModel. A job which is locked by the icon can be unlocked by the same icon, but if the job is locked due to being in use the lock icon will not be active. At this stage, the primary user navigating away to another job will unlock the job, as will setting a different job as the active job. If for any reason that is not possible, or due to some error the job remains locked even after this is done, there is another recourse.
In the Administration menu of iCommand, there is a selection entitled “Job Locks”. As the name suggests, this gives access to be able to manually unlock jobs that are locked due to being in use. Jobs locked via the icon are not listed in this window, since they are able to be unlocked also via the icon by any user.
The jobs listed under “Locked iCommand Jobs” are all locked jobs, whereas the jobs listed under “Locked Jobs” are only those which are locked due to being active jobs. It is very important to note that it is possible in this way to unlock jobs which other users have open in iModel and even that they are actively working on, and one should take the proper precautions to ensure that work is not lost. That said, this is a useful tool if a user has a job locked but is not at their workstation, or if they have closed their software but an error has held the lock still.
The other job state mentioned above is a job being packed. Similar to locking, a job may be intentionally packed via the icon on the toolbar, but there are other ways that it can occur by accident. There is a very straightforward solution to it in any case. When a job is packed, it is zipped up and the contents of the job folder are removed. Nothing is lost, since it is present still in the zip file which will be found in the job folder. If a job is packed via the icon, simply click the icon again to unpack. Do not attempt to unpack the job “manually” by extracting the zip file, since that will cause other errors due to the job still being in a packed state in iCommand.
If you should ever find when attempting to open a job that the software tells you that the job is packed, but you see from the icon still appears as a closed box (indicating it is in an unpacked state already), this is due to the presence of a zip file of some sort in the job folder. In addition to the job state held in iCommand, the program will also see a job as packed if there is any zip file present in the job folder for any reason. Thusly, relocating or removing any such zip files will resolve this issue and allow the job to be opened once more.
Hopefully these tips have helped you to understand the locking and packing of jobs, and will be useful if you should ever find yourself with any job which is unexpectedly inaccessible due to being locked or packed!
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