Working with the content lock

The page lock feature protects a page from being edited by another CMS user while you have it locked.

If you have locked a page, it will stay locked until:

• you manually unlock it
• the lock period of 4 hours has elapsed
• a site administrator or approver unlocks it
• the page has been published

When and how a page/node gets locked

Once you have entered Edit mode on a page, the lock is applied and you will see this message:

This content is now locked against simultaneous editing. The content will remain locked if you navigate away form this page without saving or unlocking it.

Once you've completed your changes, you can save as Draft or Needs Review (if the content is ready to go live).

If you've completed what you had to edit but the page is not ready for publishing (eg you've shared a preview link to get approval before setting to Needs review), you should unlock it. See how to unlock a page below.

What happens when you try to edit a page locked by someone else

If another content editor is editing a page you want to work on, you'll see the following message:

This content is being edited by [username of content editor updating page] and is therefore locked to prevent other users changes. This lock is in place since [x min x sec].

This means that you can't edit a page at the same time as another content editor.

You will have to return to the page later to make your edits or get the lock lifted.

How you can get a page unlocked

Unlock a page you're working on

To unlock a page you have locked, go to the Unlock button at the bottom of the page when you're in edit mode.

Ask another content editor to unlock a page they locked

To find out which editor has the page locked, you can go to Content > Locked content.

Here you can see which editor has locked the page under the Lock owner column.

Content editors can unlock a page that they previously locked, but they can't unlock other editors' pages.

Site administrators and approvers can unlock pages locked by other users.

Unlock pages that other users have locked (site administrators and approvers only)

You need to be on the Locked content page. You can find this by clicking Content > Locked content.

1. Select the page/s to be unlocked.
2. On the dropdown about whether the user is logged in, choose 'No'.
3. Ensure 'Break lock node' is the option selected on the Action dropdown. (It's currently the only option.)
4. Click the Apply button.

Note that if the user who has locked the page is actually working in the page at the moment, breaking the lock will cause them to lose edits.