Master Detail forms are an excellent way of managing a one to many relationship between tables. When using the declarative Master Detail form clicking the edit link for a detail record does not save any changes that have been made to the Master Record. That is because clicking the edit link does not submit the page. A slight modification to the declarative Master Detail Form can fix this issue.

Have a look at my blog post Saving Master Before Viewing Detail to see how to do it.

1. Pick a department from the department report
2. Change the name or location of the department
3. Click the edit link for an employee
4. Click cancel to go back to the Department Details
5. The changes to the master record have been saved!