Where is the CANCHK option in CA Service Desk Manager r12?

Products

• CA Service Desk Manager
• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

The "CANCHK" option has been present in all versions of CA Service Desk and CA CMDB up to r12. However, in the r12 releases it is no longer present in the Options Manager. How has record locking changed in r12 and higher?

Environment

Release:  11.2 and higher
Component: CA Service Desk Manager

Resolution

The CANCHK option has only ever been applicable to the Java client GUI interface of CA Service Desk and CA CMDB. With the move of the architecture entirely to web clients, this feature is no longer required and has been removed from the product.

There is still a reference to this variable in the NX.env file, which enables accommodation of upgrades from earlier releases. However, it will be remarked out and has no impact at all on the locking functionality of the current product.

NX.env entry:

# Create an entry for cancelling record lock held by other user.
! @NX_CANCHK= 

Locking on all CA Service Desk Manager components is handled by the web interface architecture. A message similar to the following will be received in the event of a record lock.

AHD05021: Someone else is editing this so you won't be able to make changes. Locked by 'List, Anna'. (00) 0 1234 5678'.

Some sample screenshots below show record locking, one showing an option to clear the lock and one without.

Figure 1. Record lock without a clear locks option.

Figure 2. Record lock with an option to clear the lock.

Additional Information

The option to clear the lock is most typically presented when the same logged in user holds (or held) the record lock.

If a different user holds the record lock, then typically there will not be the option to clear the lock.

CA Service Desk Manager has a good history of handling record locking well. Cases where a record is locked and where it cannot be cleared through regular interface actions are exceptionally rare.

In such a case, a recycle of CA Service Desk should address the issue. If it does not, contact your database administrator and CA Support. A recycle of the database server will probably resolve the issue, although not identify root cause. The fundamentals of all record locking are handled by the database server, and not at the application level.