Multiple users editing documents simulatneously over the internet

[boehm330]

Hi,

I've been looking on an answer of how to do this, and most of what I've found regards what I CAN'T do, vice what I CAN.

Problem:
I have multiple users that need to edit an excel file simultaneously, I'm want to maintain one copy instead of sending everyone an email with the document to avoid piecing all the updates together at the end. Right now our company is using Sharepoint server 2010, but this doesn't have the capability to allow sharing like a local network, so only one person can edit at a time. All of us are engineers going from jobsite to jobsite, so each person operates from whatever internet connection is available on a work issued laptop (Everyone has Office Pro plus 2010 or 2007).

Goal:
To set up a solution that allows me to have one copy of an excel file that people I choose can access from all over the country and work in an save at the same time. I know excel has the capability to allow multiple user editing when on the same network, and want to be able to use this feature. Documents that require this kind of work everyone is providing responses to the answers on the issues they generated, so I'm not concerned with multiple changes to a single cell (shouldn't happen, but if it does, I'd like to see the prompt of which changes to keep)

Have any of you run into this problem? If so, did you find a solution?

Thanks in advance!
Josh

 

[Smitty]

Check out www.SkyDrive.com, which is Microsoft's free file-sharing service. It allows multiple user collaboration with Excel workbooks. It's not real-time, but it's pretty good.

www.Dropbox.com is also pretty good.

If you're logging into a network, then you can also use a Shared Workbook, but their limitations (check the helpfile) can often be more than it's worth.

HTH,

 

[boehm330]

I like the way you think, those were the first two other sites I tried using (I tried box.net instead of dropbox since we all already have an account) Unfortunately they have the same issue as Sharepoint, where multiple people can access the file, but can't edit simultaneously. If someone tries to access the file while another is using it, it gives the the below options:
1. Open read only (and a check box to notify when the file is available)
2. Save as and edit (which creates another file and loses the point of what I'm trying to accomplish, since they have to copy their data to the other spreadsheet when the file is available)

I thought of creating a FPT server, but I don't have the IT knowhow to do that... (Downloaded FileZilla and then FAILED...) Unfortunately we don't have an IT department, since we're a fairly small company. We have "power users", which is basically younger guys that know more about computers but are by no means experts.

 

[boehm330]

To add on to what I wrote above -

I tried opening read-only and made my edits, once the file was available I chose to open "Read-write". Tried to save the changes, but excel prompts saying you've made changes and another user has as well, so you can wither discard changes or save as a new file.

 

[Smitty]

See this article from the MS Excel Blog:

http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft...ollaborative-editing-using-excel-web-app.aspx

It discusses how to set up collaborative workbooks.

 

[boehm330]

Thanks for the link, definitely some good info in there. Do you know where would I store the file to allow everyone to access it with the Excel Web App?

It states in the article " (since permissions work differently whether you’re talking about SharePoint 2010 or Windows Live SkyDrive or SharePoint Online, I’m not going to go into those details here)"

 

[Smitty]

If you already have Sharepoint, then I'd probably start there.