# Record-level collaboration: Presence & locking

Our collaboration tools help you manage teamwork and ensure that no data is lost when switching between users.

DatoCMS manages modifications to records, assets, and models in real-time, without the need for other editors to refresh the page.

What it means is that every change you make is immediately visible to every user, from record creation to asset deletion. You can also add, edit or reorder fields in a model while others are working on affected records without losing their work.

## Presence Indicator

A presence indicator is visible when another user opens or edit a record, with a notification that tells you if the user is either looking or editing the record.

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## Locking and Unlocking a Record

To prevent two users from changing the same record at the same time, we have implemented an automatic lock.

When a user starts editing a record, it will be considered locked and therefore not editable by other users. The record will be available again as soon as the first user saves or closes the editor.

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You can forcefully unlock a record if your role on DatoCMS has the authority to do so. The other user will be kicked out from the editing session, and the record will be locked by you.

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To avoid the involuntary loss of content, you can recover the work done by the previous user and start from their unsaved changes.

To have an overview of all DatoCMS features, check this video tutorial:

[

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A gentle overview of all the features of DatoCMS

Play video »

](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALHwdztg0UQ)

## Related content in "General concepts"

- [What is DatoCMS?](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts.md)

- [Workspaces: Organizations and Personal Accounts](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/organizations-and-accounts.md)
- [Project collaborators, roles and permissions](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/roles-and-permission-system.md)

- [The content schema](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/data-modelling.md)
- [Organizing content](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/navigation-bar.md)

- [Record versioning](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/versioning.md)
- [Draft/published system](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/draft-published.md)

- [Scheduled publishing](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/scheduled-publishing-unpublishing.md)
- [Media Area](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/media-area.md)

- [Localization](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/localization.md)
- [Visual Editing](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/visual-editing.md)

- [Record-level collaboration: Presence & locking](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/collaboration-features.md)
- [Workflows](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/workflows.md)

- [Webhooks](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/webhooks.md)
- [Plugins](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/plugins.md)

- [DatoCMS Site Search](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/site-search.md)
- [Project Templates](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/project-starters-and-templates.md)

- [How your website and DatoCMS work together](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/how-your-website-and-datocms-work-together.md)
- [How to deploy](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/deployment.md)

- [Primary and sandbox environments](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/primary-and-sandbox-environments.md)
- [Project usages](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/project-account-usages.md)

- [Audit Logs](https://www.datocms.com/docs/general-concepts/audit-logs.md)