Granular Locking in Salesforce: Enhancing Performance & Reducing Contention

Granular locking in Salesforce is a powerful feature designed to minimize record lock contention, particularly in high-data-volume environments or those with complex automation processes. By refining traditional locking constraints, this mechanism allows Salesforce to manage simultaneous updates more efficiently, improving system performance and reducing errors.

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What is Granular Locking?

Granular locking is an advanced record-locking mechanism that applies locks at a more detailed level, preventing unnecessary locking of parent or related records. This is especially useful in scenarios where multiple records are updated concurrently, reducing row lock contention in parent-child relationships.

Key Features:

✅ Fine-Grained Locks – Prevents excessive locking of parent or related records.
✅ Enhanced Concurrency – Allows multiple simultaneous updates to child records without conflicts.
✅ Improved Performance – Minimizes errors like “Unable to lock row” by reducing contention.

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Why is Granular Locking Important?

1️⃣ Concurrent Record Updates

• Traditional locking mechanisms often create conflicts when multiple users or processes update related records.
• Granular locking isolates locks to specific child records, preventing system-wide slowdowns.

2️⃣ Optimized Automation

• Automated processes (e.g., Flows, Triggers, and Process Builder) often modify both parent and child records.
• Without granular locking, these processes can trigger record locks that impact system performance.

3️⃣ Scaling High-Volume Transactions

• Organizations handling large datasets benefit from granular locking’s ability to reduce database contention, improving overall throughput.

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How Granular Locking Works

Granular locking ensures that:
🔹 Parent records remain unlocked when child records are updated.
🔹 Locks apply only to the specific records being modified instead of affecting entire datasets.

Example:

🚫 Without Granular Locking: Updating an Opportunity record locks the parent Account and all related child records.
✅ With Granular Locking: Only the specific Opportunity record is locked, allowing the Account and other child records to remain accessible.

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When Does Granular Locking Apply?

🔹 Master-Detail Relationships – Prevents parent records from being unnecessarily locked during child record updates.
🔹 Campaign Hierarchies – Ensures that updates to child campaigns don’t lock parent campaigns.
🔹 Sharing Recalculations – Reduces locking issues when Salesforce recalculates sharing rules for parent-child data relationships.

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Benefits of Granular Locking

🚀 Reduced Lock Contention – Minimizes conflicts in multi-user environments.
📉 Fewer Errors – Decreases “Unable to obtain exclusive access to this record” errors.
⚡ Faster Automation – Improves workflow and trigger execution speed.
📊 Better Scalability – Enhances performance in high-transaction environments.

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Best Practices for Using Granular Locking

✅ Optimize Relationship Design: Avoid complex parent-child structures that could lead to unnecessary locking.
✅ Minimize Simultaneous Updates: Reduce concurrent updates on the same parent record.
✅ Use Asynchronous Processing: Implement Batch Apex or Queueable Apex for large data operations.
✅ Test in High-Volume Scenarios: Simulate real-world data loads in a sandbox environment.
✅ Monitor Locking Issues: Use debug logs and Event Monitoring to track and resolve locking conflicts.

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Common Issues & Solutions

❌ Error: “Unable to Lock Row”
🔹 Cause: Simultaneous updates to related records.
🔹 Solution: Redesign workflows or use asynchronous processing to reduce contention.

❌ Slow Performance in Campaign Updates
🔹 Cause: Hierarchical campaign relationships triggering excessive locks.
🔹 Solution: Ensure campaigns are structured to take advantage of granular locking.

❌ Automation Conflicts
🔹 Cause: Multiple automation tools acting on the same records.
🔹 Solution: Consolidate triggers and workflows to minimize overlaps.

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How to Enable Granular Locking for Campaign Hierarchies

Although granular locking is enabled by default for most Salesforce operations, certain features (like hierarchical campaign locking) require manual activation.

🔹 Steps to Enable Granular Locking in Campaign Hierarchies:
1️⃣ Navigate to Setup.
2️⃣ Go to Campaign Settings.
3️⃣ Check the box for Enable Improved Campaign Management (Granular Locking).
4️⃣ Save your changes.

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Conclusion

Granular locking is a vital feature in Salesforce that optimizes record management by reducing contention, minimizing errors, and improving system performance in high-transaction environments. By implementing best practices and leveraging fine-grained locks, organizations can scale efficiently while ensuring smooth automation and record updates.

For teams handling complex data relationships, granular locking provides the flexibility, scalability, and reliability needed to maintain a high-performing Salesforce environment.