Implementing Data Locking

You use data locking in SAP Analytics Cloud to prevent changes to specific data at different stages of the planning process. Planning modelers can set up data locking and specify areas of model data to lock, restrict, and unlock, as well as delegate ownership of data locks to other planners.

Implementing data locking in a model allows you to apply set up locks on specific data intersections of a model. This prevents changes to the data by either data entry or by other planning operations in a story, such as allocations. There are some things to remember:

• Data locking must be enabled in the model preferences.
• You must have the proper permissions to configure data locking.
• In a story, locked and restricted cells for public versions appear as read-only.
• You can delegate ownership of the data locks to members of a dimension.
• Data locking owners can change the state of the locks that they own.

Go to Model Settings of the planning model and click Access and Privacy. Activate Data Locking and set the Default Lock State. The default lock state can be either Open or Locked.

In the example used in this lesson, the Organization Type dimension is Entity, however, this depends on the dimensionality of the model as to which dimension is the Organization Type. For example, in cost center planning, the Cost Center dimension would be the Organization Type dimension.

In the following example, you can see that Data Locking Ownership is enabled, with the following columns:

1. Hierarchy: A hierarchy is required so that statuses of parents can be inherited by children, for example. Children inherit the locks of parents.
2. Person Responsible: The Person Responsible property is used to determine the owners. Users here can be inherited from the Owner property.
3. Data Locking Owner: This property is created in the Organization dimension when data locking is enabled. The Owner property requires either teams or users, or both.

• Data Locking Owner: Can contain one or more teams and users.
• Person Responsible: Can contain only one user.

To configure the data lock dimension, you:

1. Select the Configure the Data Lock icon to open the Data Locking dialog.
2. If you are configuring data locking for the first time for this model, the Driving Dimensions are displayed. Otherwise, select Edit Driving Dimensions to show them. Add the required driving dimensions.
3. After you add the Entity dimension as a driving dimension, select the Enable Ownership option. This prompts the system to look up owners from the Entity dimension in the model.

You can apply data locks to sets of members from each driving dimension. In this example, you want to lock the Q1 (2025), Enterprise, and Forecast. To do this, you can use Version (mandatory), Date, and Entity as your driving dimensions.

Select Show Grid to display a grid of the driving dimensions where you can set the lock state of each intersection:

• Open: Values are unlocked for this combination of members in table, and can be changed by any users who have permissions to enter values for the model.
• Restricted: Values can be changed only by a user who has effective ownership of locks on this combination of members. Select the restricted cell and select Add Owner under a driving dimension and choose one or more owners for the selected member of that driving dimension.
• Locked: Values cannot be changed for this combination of members in a table.

When you change the state for a parent member in a dimension, the same state is applied to its children. For example, if you lock Enterprise, then all of its regions are also locked.

More information on data locking, including required permissions and restrictions, can be found in the Configuring Data Locking section of the SAP Help Portal.

In a story, you can set and view data locks by cell.

The statuses include:

• Open: Any user with the appropriate authorization can change the data.
• Locked: No one can change the data.
• Mixed State: A combination of open and locked statuses, for example, a parent will have a mixed state if one of its children has a different status.

Turn the indicators on or off in a story by going to More Actions→Show/Hide→Data Locks from the story table.

If a user is logged on as the owner, they can change Restricted data.

If a user is logged on as a non-owner:

• Assuming they have the Planner Reporter role, they can’t change the data lock status.
• They can set the cell to ignore data locks and change the data but they can't publish it.

In order to use data locking, non-owners require a role that includes Read access to the Data Locking activity (in a role).

Visit the SAP Help Portal for more information on Permissions.