“Do you or your customers have peak hours when all the sales orders and invoices need to be posted at the same time? Or do you have large numbers of postings that need to be run without blocking other users?” – I loved the way NAV Team introduced new locking functionality of NAV 2013. But they also left a way of using old functionality – by enabling field “Use Legacy G/L Entry Locking” in General Ledger Setup.
The field “Use Legacy G/L Entry Locking” has been around for a long time (since NAV 2013), but it is something I haven’t paid special attention to. The field name sounds menacing, but what does it actually do?
According the documentation, field “Use Legacy G/L Entry Locking”
Specifies when G/L Entry table should be locked during sales, purchase and service posting. By default, the check box is cleared to leave the G/L Entry table unlocked at the start of posting. The table remains unlocked until the lock is needed. This can improve performance in multiuser environments.
Sounds good. Now, what does it mean for a developer?
When I want to understand something in more detail, I start by asking – where is it used?
We can see that there is a field in General Ledger Setup, but let’s crawl through the code and learn more.
The field “Use Legacy G/L Entry Locking” is used only in a few places:
- OBJECT Table 98 General Ledger Setup, PROCEDURE OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv
- OBJECT Table 313 Inventory Setup, Automatic Cost Posting – OnValidate
- OBJECT Page 118 General Ledger Setup
Nothing ground-breaking yet, let’s continue and have a look at where function OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv is used.
OBJECT Codeunit 80 Sales-Post
LOCAL PROCEDURE LockTables
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
LOCAL LockTables()
SalesLine.LOCKTABLE;
ItemChargeAssgntSales.LOCKTABLE;
PurchOrderLine.LOCKTABLE;
PurchOrderHeader.LOCKTABLE;
GetGLSetup;
IF NOT GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN BEGIN
GLEntry.LOCKTABLE;
IF GLEntry.FINDLAST THEN;
END;
[/code]
LOCAL PROCEDURE SortLines
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
GetGLSetup;
IF GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN
SalesLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document Type","Document No.",Type,"No.")
ELSE
SalesLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document Type","Document No.","Line No.")
[/code]
OBJECT Codeunit 90 Purch.-Post
LOCAL PROCEDURE LockTables
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
PurchLine.LOCKTABLE;
SalesOrderLine.LOCKTABLE;
GetGLSetup;
IF NOT GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN BEGIN
GLEntry.LOCKTABLE;
IF GLEntry.FINDLAST THEN;
END;
[/code]
LOCAL PROCEDURE SortLines
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
GetGLSetup;
IF GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN
PurchaseLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document Type","Document No.",Type,"No.")
ELSE
PurchaseLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document Type","Document No.","Line No.");
[/code]
OBJECT Codeunit 900 Assembly-Post
LOCAL PROCEDURE LockTables
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
AssemblyLine.LOCKTABLE;
AssemblyHeader.LOCKTABLE;
GetGLSetup;
IF NOT GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN BEGIN
GLEntry.LOCKTABLE;
IF GLEntry.FINDLAST THEN;
END;
[/code]
LOCAL PROCEDURE SortLines
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
GetGLSetup;
IF GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN
AssemblyLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document Type",Type,"No.")
ELSE
AssemblyLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document Type","Document No.","Line No.");
[/code]
LOCAL PROCEDURE SortPostedLines
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
GetGLSetup;
IF GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN
PostedAsmLine.SETCURRENTKEY(Type,"No.")
ELSE
PostedAsmLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document No.","Line No.");
[/code]
OBJECT Codeunit 5980 Service-Post
LOCAL PROCEDURE LockTables
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
ServiceLine.LOCKTABLE;
GLSetup.GET;
IF NOT GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN BEGIN
GLEntry.LOCKTABLE;
IF GLEntry.FIND(‘+’) THEN;
END;
[/code]
OBJECT Codeunit 5988 Serv-Documents Mgt.
LOCAL PROCEDURE SortLines
[code lang=”Cside” title=”C/AL Code” collapse=”true”]
GLSetup.GET;
IF GLSetup.OptimGLEntLockForMultiuserEnv THEN
ServLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document Type","Document No.",Type,"No.")
ELSE
ServLine.SETCURRENTKEY("Document Type","Document No.","Line No.");
[/code]
Interesting! According to my understanding, the main difference between using “Use Legacy G/L Entry Locking” and not using it, are these lines:
Which means, if we have a checkmark on “Use Legacy G/L Entry Locking” field, we ask the system to lock the G/L Entry table very early in the posting process. For example, in Codeunit 90, we would be locking G/L Entry table before we even started inserting purchase receipt header, posting receipt, etc. When we don’t have a checkmark, we allow system to decide when the table should be locked (which would happen at the end of the posting process, when table needs to be updated).
According to NAV Team blog, this small change results in:
– “Use Legacy G/L Entry Locking” field ticked (or NAV 2009) – G/L Entry is locked >90% of the time during sales/purchase post
– “Use Legacy G/L Entry Locking” field not ticked (or NAV 2013 and newer) – G/L Entry is locked <10% of the time during sales/purchase post
That is stunning!
Two other differences would be – the way lines are sorted, and how Automatic Cost Posting is being (or not being) run.
Further Reading:
