Is my draft fully saved or not?

Question

It is a bit annoying when the program tells you two different things. I attempt to get out of a profile edit screen and I am warned that I may have unsaved changes (great, I need that reminder) and I'm given the option to leave or cancel. So I hit cancel, but when I go down the page to save, I get a message to tell me my draft is fully up to date. Happens all the time. Are they taking their cues from different places?

Answer 1

Dave, it sounds like what you're doing when you "go down the page to save" is only saving the draft.  If you click the button to do a full save, you will be warned that you have to provide a comment with the reason for the change.  After you do that, you can do a full save.

The unsaved changes that you're being warned about when you try to leave the edit screen is ok to leave.  That is about changes that you did not do a full save on, but the draft has been saved.  The next time you (or anyone else) tries to edit the profile, you will get a warning about draft changes that have not yet been saved (meaning not yet been fully saved, although the draft has been saved) and you can compare the changes to the original to decide whether or not you want to start editing from the draft or original version.

I agree that it is very confusing when this happens and the messages you see could certainly be better worded to eliminate the confusion.

Comments

Thanks for that, Gaile. Actually, when I go down the page, I'll usually select Minor corrections as the reason (because I don't know what I haven't saved!) and when I attempt a full save, the program tells me it's already up to date. That's the real frustration.

Answer 2

There are three sets of objects, (1) the current edit content, (2) the draft, which is a copy of the current edit content, and (3) the fully saved and committed profile content.  When you first start an edit session, all three objects are the same.  When you make a change the current contents no longer match the other two (but the draft and profile still match each other until the first draft save).  Once you do a draft save (auto or manual), the current edit session will equal the draft but the draft no longer matches the actual profile contents.  After the draft is saved, any future changes in the edit session will make the edit contents differ from the draft until the next draft save.  A full save will commit the current edit session contents (not the draft) to the profile and any draft is deleted.

One can see the current differences between the latest draft and the profile by clicking the link "compare draft with saved information' that is found below the 'save draft' button.  Nota Bene: this does not show the current differences between your edit session and the draft (or the edit session and the profile for that matter - although one can save the contents to the draft before clicking the link to effectively see any changes since the start of the edit session).  PS, if using the Web Browser Extension an access key can be configured for use instead of clicking on the link.

Comments

So my question remains: why do I get a warning that I may have unsaved changes (when I attempt to get out of the edit screen) but then when I attempt to do a full save, I am told that my draft is fully up to date?

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When you save a draft - or when WT does an auto save of a draft - then no-one else can edit the profile for 30 mins.  It stops two people accidentally working on the profile at the same time.  

If you leave the profile with only a draft saved then the changes you made don’t show up on the profile itself. And after 30 mins someone else can make changes which would override yours. When you do a full save, your changes show up on the profile and anyone else making changes will be adding to what you’ve done not overwriting it.