Update Collision Detection

Have you ever wondered what happens when two people try to modify the same record in salesforce.com?

For example, what would happen in this scenario?

1. Sales Rep Bill Smith has a Contact, Jesse Cochran.



2. Sales Rep Bill learns that he needs to update Jesse's last name to Katsopolis.



3. At the same time, another Sales Rep, Roger Jones, learns that he needs to update the company that Jesse works for and that Jesse has a new title.



4. Sales Rep Bill saves his changes.



5. Sales Rep Roger tries to save his changes - and fails.



This is due to a feature called Update Collision Detection that was introduced in the Summer '07 release of salesforce. It's not a super glamorous bit of functionality, but it should let some folks sleep better at night knowing that it's there.

Also, if you're interested in why Jesse changed his last name from Cochran to Katsopolis, you'll want to check out his wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Katsopolis.