Progress of an object, including modification of its associated file(s), is in three stages: check out, editing, and check in.

It is important to understand each step.

Check Out:  Essentially, extracting the object with the intention of editing it.

Editing: Modification of the new version of the object (form and associated files) by the person who checked it out.

Check In:  Making the new version available to other users.

The indexing system ensures that all modifications can be traced. Index management is partly automatic, depending on the status of the object. For example, an object whose status is «validated» will have its index automatically incremented at checkout. On the other hand, an object whose status is «not validated» may have its index unchanged.

When a file attachment is checked out for editing, the file is locked for changes by other participants until it is checked back in.