Understanding Work Isolation Mode

Work Isolation Mode is the ability of a vault to hide (isolate) documents that are under change from the view of all users except the user that has the documents under change. This can be useful if you do not want information consumers to see documents that are undergoing change and you do not want to use work areas to isolate work in progress. Instead, everyone but the current editor of a document sees the last released revision of the document. When the editor is finished changing the document and submits it, all users can then see the new revision.

Work Isolation Mode also affects the workflows available for documents that must be changed. If Work Isolation Mode is enabled, only a simple check-out/check-in workflow is available. This workflow uses the commands Create Working Copy and Submit Working Copy. If Work Isolation Mode is cleared, documents may follow the default workflow configured for their document type (document type workflow) or custom workflow definitions that you can configure, as described in Creating and editing workflow definitions.

The Work Isolation Mode of a vault affects its Main area only. Each work area can have its own Work Isolation Mode setting. Work Isolation Mode is initially set when a vault is created but may be changed, as described in Configuring vault settings.