Getting the most out of the Microsoft Excel Add-in - Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide - page 255

Locking the data
We wonder if you can't guess what this function does.

Well, when you click Essbase | Lock , Essbase locks all of the data blocks in the
database that are needed to represent the data on your Microsoft Excel worksheet.

Again, be careful as the data will remain locked by your ID until you unlock it
by clicking on Essbase | Unlock .

Essbase will remember a database lock, even if you logout of the
system. You will either need to remove the lock yourself or have
an administrator manually remove the database lock using the
EAS tool.

Unlocking the locked data
The Essbase | Unlock function is used to unlock data blocks in the database
that have been locked by you.

Always remember, the Essbase | Unlock function will only unlock
data blocks for the data represented on the immediately active
Microsoft Excel worksheet. If you have other data blocks that have
been locked by you, you will need to open the worksheet you used
to lock them and use it to unlock the locked cells.

Sending your data to the database
This function sends data back to the database. In a relational database this would
be known as an Insert or an Update .

To insert or update data in an Essbase database it is as easy as pulling data into your
formatted Microsoft Excel worksheet by performing an Essbase | Retrieve, then
adding new values or updating existing values. When finished, perform an Essbase
| Send to save the new values to the database.

It is very important to note that the actual steps to use the Essbase | Send function
are follows:

1. Perform an Essbase | Lock . Essbase will not write to data blocks that are

not previously locked.

2. Perform an Essbase | Send . The only time that Essbase will automatically

unlock the data cells you have locked is after an Essbase | Send .