Table of Contents

• TITLE


• 1 OVERVIEW


• 2 USE CASE OVERVIEW
• 2.1 CREATE NEW DOCUMENT USING A TEMPLATE
• 2.2 CREATE NEW DOCUMENT WITH NO TEMPLATE
• 2.3 SAVE EXISTING OFFICE FILE
• 2.4 SAVE OUTLOOK EMAIL


• 3 BASIC OPERATION OF THE OFFICE CONNECTOR
• 3.1 ARAS RIBBON AND COMMANDS
• 3.2 LOGGING IN TO ARAS
• 3.3 HELP
• 3.4 LOCAL FILE MANAGEMENT
• 3.5 ARAS ITEM TYPES USED BY THE OFFICE CONNECTOR


• 4 CREATING AND SAVING DOCUMENTS
• 4.1 CREATING A NEW ARAS DOCUMENT
•   4.1.1 Manual File Naming Option
• 4.2 SAVING AN EXISTING DOCUMENT TO ARAS
• 4.3 UPDATE SAVE
• 4.4 SAVE AND CLOSE
• 4.5 SAVE AS TO ARAS


• 5 SAVING E-MAIL MESSAGES
• 5.1 SAVING E-MAIL MESSAGES FROM OUTLOOK
• 5.2 SAVE SUCCESSFUL MESSAGE


• 6 OPENING DOCUMENTS FROM ARAS
• 6.1 SEARCH DIALOG FOR DOCUMENTS
• 6.2 VIEW AND EDIT OPTIONS


• 7 EDIT CONTROL
• 7.1 DOCUMENT LOCKING AND UNLOCKING
• 7.2 CREATING DOCUMENT VERSIONS
• 7.3 OPENING OLD VERSIONS
• 7.4 UPDATING AN OUTDATED VERSION
• 7.5 DOCUMENT CHANGE PROCESS


• 8 DOCUMENT TEMPLATES
• 8.1 CREATING DOCUMENT TEMPLATES


• 9 OTHER CAPABILITIES
• 9.1 PROPERTY MAPPING AND IMBEDDING
• 9.2 ITEM LINKS
• 9.3 VIEWABLE FILES
• 9.4 LOCAL FILE OPERATIONS AND DETACHING FROM ARAS
• 9.5 OFFLINE USE

7.1 Document Locking and Unlocking

In Aras terminology, when you "Lock" an item like a Document, you reserve it such that only you can edit it. Only one person at a time can lock any given item. When you "Unlock" the item, you make it available for others to potentially lock and edit. The ability to lock items is controlled by Aras permissions. For example, permissions for most users are set such than when an item is in Preliminary (in-work) state, it can be locked, but when it is in Released state, it cannot be locked and therefore cannot be edited.

The Office Connector uses the lock and unlock function to control who has the rights to edit files. The lock status is indicated by the "Locked by" field in the ribbon; if this is showing a name, then the Document is locked, and if not, it is unlocked. If it is showing your name, then you have edit rights to the file.

The Office Connector automates much of the lock and unlock behavior in ways that is intuitive when working on your Office files. This includes:

• When you use Open from Aras in Edit mode, the Document is automatically locked
• When you use Open from Aras in View mode, the Document is not locked. If you later attempt to use Save to Aras, the connector will prompt you if you want to lock the Document at that time.
• When you use Save to Aras, the Document is kept locked afterwards, the assumption being that you are continuing to work on the file.
• When you use Save and Close, the Document is unlocked, the assumption being that you are done working on the file.

So if you just remember to use Save and Close when you are done editing, the system will basically take care of proper locking and unlocking.

At any time you can also use the Lock or Unlock commands in the ribbon, depending on the current state of the Document. If currently unlocked, you may use Lock and this will give you editing rights. If currently locked, you may use Unlock and this will remove editing rights. Note that if you have made local changes to a file and then use Unlock, the system will prompt you if it is OK to lose local changes or not.