Why do you need editing mode in the cloud? How to use iCloud wisely to collaborate on documents

The world around us is changing. If earlier remote work seemed something completely exotic, but now it is already considered par for the course: according to recent studies, it turned out that by 2020 one fifth of all Russians will work remotely. And, for example, in the United States, more than a third of all Americans are already working remotely. My remote work was usually associated with MS Word documents. (And occasionally - with presentation files.) text editor Since the old versions of Word (at least twenty years ago), there were the most convenient means of reviewing and collaborative editing of documents, and in the document you could save the entire history of changes and you could always see which user made which changes. By the way, in my experience, the vast majority of users (and even professional editors) have no idea that such tools exist in Word, and when they have to work together on documents, they do it the old fashioned way: they make corrections to the text on the fly and write Detailed comments in notes. In the old days, when there were no cloud services, documents were sent via email(or transmitted on floppy disks) and this was not very convenient: some versions of files were lost in the process, new versions were replaced by old ones - and at the same time some of the corrections were lost. But over time, Microsoft developed two very significant ones that greatly facilitate collaboration on documents. And these innovations are as follows: an online version of the office suite MS Office, which allows you to work in the usual Word, Excel and Power Point from any computer with Internet access, and the cloud service OneDrive, with which you can easily organize the storage of documents on which you are working together , directly on the Internet: in this case, users are no longer tied to specific computers at all and can have access to the necessary documents from anywhere. Due to the nature of my work as editor-in-chief on several projects, I often have to explain in detail the scheme of joint remote work on documents to new authors, so I decided to present it all in a separate article: it will be useful for new authors, and, quite possibly, some of them. you, dear readers, will find this useful. How is this all done? First you need to register in the OneDrive cloud service, which is useful for collaboration, for archiving important data, and for remote access to your documents and media files. If you already have an account Microsoft entry, then you can log into OneDrive with this account, and if not, just create this account: for this you will need to indicate some working e-mail to which you have access.
Operating principle cloud service OneDrive is about the same as, for example, Dropbox: you have access to your personal storage on the Internet (on the OneDrive website) and this storage can be synchronized with the corresponding storage on your work computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone. To synchronize with the cloud, install the appropriate OneDrive app, in which synchronization settings are made.
You specify the folder where the OneDrive folders will be located, indicate which of them should be synchronized - and that’s it, then OneDrive will do everything on its own. OneDrive can also automatically send photos and videos that you take with your smartphone or tablet to the cloud. Free by default you are allocated 15 GB of space in the cloud, which is enough for photos and documents. However, if you use the Office 365 plan (and I have been using it literally from the first day of its appearance - it is very convenient), where for 286 rubles per month or 2874 rubles per year you are provided with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access, and you can install them for five users on five computers, five tablets and five smartphones, then with this plan, as much as 1 TB is allocated for each user in OneDrive, and you can stuff an elephant there.

My OneDrive

However, the cloud capabilities of OneDrive are convenient and useful, but now we are interested in this service primarily from the point of view of organizing collaborative remote work. And here OneDrive, of course, noticeably outperforms Dropbox, because MS Office applications are well tailored for OneDrive. And it works very, very simply. Look. For example, let’s say you created an article in MS Word. You then need to send this article to the editor (boss, colleague) so that he can make his comments and edit the article. To do this, you need to save this article not in a local folder, but in the corresponding OneDrive folder. This can be done literally in one click: in Word, when saving a document, simply select your OneDrive. (The first time you access, OneDrive will ask you to provide your account information - email and password.)

Well, then save your document, for example, in the “Office Live Documents” folder. Or you create some other folder in OneDrive for this - as is convenient for you. OneDrive integrates with Windows, and the operating system works with its folders in the same way as with local folders computer.

Now what needs to be done? Give access to this document to your editor (boss, colleague). This is done very simply. In Word, click File - Sharing . A window like this appears.

There, enter the address of the person(s) who should read and edit your article, then click the “Share” button.

He will receive a corresponding notification by e-mail that looks something like this.

And all the subscribers you invited will appear in your document data.

Next, your subscriber just needs to click on the link - and this article will appear for him to read in the online version of Word.
There is a link “Edit document”: with its help you can open the document for editing in the online version or in MS Word.

It is more convenient, of course, to work with a document in Word, however, if you are on someone else’s computer, the online version may be a way out.

Article in the online editor

Whether or not to display these corrections on the screen is enabled in the corresponding menu.

The person who edits the document usually does not display all the corrections on the screen - this is inconvenient for editing. But when the author receives the document after editing, he turns on the “All corrections” mode - and perfectly sees in all the details what the editor did with his text: corrections, deletions, reformatting, and notes.

Screenshot is clickable

You can reply to comments, and you can always see who made what notes.

The author makes the required corrections, edits something there, and sends it back to the editor. He also clearly shows how the document has changed since its last editing, and the changes and additions made by the author are shown in a different color - this is very clear. (In general, each user chooses a different color for their corrections.)

Screenshot is clickable

Moreover, it is enough to select the display mode “Without corrections” - the article will be shown as it should look in its finished form.
Similarly, above a document (spreadsheet, presentation, database, schedule) dozens of different people can work. MS Office will carefully record all additions and changes, and there you can always roll back to some previous versions. Moreover, the system works quite normally in multi-user mode, that is, when several people are working on a document at the same time. And you can always see who is currently working on this document with you.

The ability to edit a document may be limited: for example, some users will only be allowed to add notes, others will only be allowed to read only. You can also limit the set of styles allowed for use.

By the way, it is highly desirable to remove all revision history and comments from the final document, especially if it is intended for use by some other people. This is quite simple to do: you need to save the document under a new name and in the menu Review - Accept select "Accept all corrections and stop tracking" - then you will receive the final text (table, presentation, etc.) without any unnecessary information.

Otherwise, I know of cases when users very much regretted that they had not erased the entire history of changes in a document, and especially comments. This is somehow how remote work of several people on one document is organized. As you can see, everything is very simple, easy and convenient. Account Microsoft, using OneDrive, using online or offline versions of MS Office, tracking changes, different types of viewing changes. And your joint work on documents will be extremely convenient, and you will always be able to track any steps to change the document. It seems that all these are well-known things, but, oddly enough, I very often come across the fact that when, for example, they are supposed to send me my article with some edits, people send the document without tracking the changes and I have to compare their text with mine to understand where and what they corrected. Yes, this is just some kind of wildness: why should they have turned on change tracking - and then I would have seen everything instantly?!! So don’t neglect such opportunities, they allow you to save a lot of time and very efficiently collaborate remotely on some files .

Sharing in Microsoft Excel makes it possible for several users to work with one file at once. Ten to twenty people per different computers simultaneously enter some data into one document. Where certain information is located, certain formulas work.

The “main user” has the ability to monitor the actions of the working group, add/remove members, and edit conflicting changes. How to set up collaboration in Excel.

Features of working with a shared file

Not all tasks can be performed in a shared Excel workbook.

Create Excel tables.
Create, edit or view scripts.
Delete sheets.
Merge or split cells.
Work with XML data (import, add, update, delete, etc.).

Exit: disable sharing - perform a prohibited task - enable access again.

Sharing also limits a number of tasks for participants:

Unacceptable	Really
Insert or delete a group of cells	Add a row or column
Add or change conditional formats	Work with existing formats
Enable or change the Data Validation tool	Work with existing scan settings
Create or edit charts, summary reports	Work with existing charts and pivot tables
Insert or edit pictures and graphics	View existing pictures and graphics
Insert or change hyperlinks	Follow the available hyperlinks
Assign, edit or delete passwords	Existing passwords work
Put or remove protection for sheets and books	Existing protection works
Group, structure data; insert sublevels	Work with existing groups, structures and sublevels
Record, edit, or view macros	Run existing macros that are not associated with unavailable tasks
Change or delete array formulas	Use existing formulas
Add new information to the data form	Search for information in data form

How to share an Excel file?

First, we decide which book we will “open” for editing by several participants at once. We create new file and fill it with information. Or open an existing one.

Go to the “Review” tab. Book Access dialog box.
File access control - editing. Check the box next to “Allow multiple users to edit the file at the same time.”
Head over to the More Info tool to configure your multi-user editing options.
Click OK. If we open public access to a new book, we choose its title. If sharing is intended for an existing file, click OK.
Open the menu Microsoft Office. Select the “Save As” command. We select the save file format that will work on all user computers.
As a saving location, select a network resource/network folder that will be opened by the intended participants. Click “Save”.

Attention! You cannot use a web server to save the shared file.

Data tab. "Connections".
Change links/change links. If this button is missing, there are no associated files in the sheet.
Go to the “Status” tab to check the existing connections. The OK button indicates that the connections are working.

Open a shared workbook

Open the Microsoft Office menu.
Click “Open”.
Select a shared book.
When the book is open, click on the Microsoft Office button. Go to the “Excel Options” tab (at the bottom of the menu).
"General" - " Personal setting" - "Username". Enter identification information (name, nickname).

All. You can edit information or enter new information. After work - save.

It happens that when you open an Excel workbook with shared access to a file, the message “File locked” appears. Can't save. When you open it again, it turns out that sharing is disabled. Possible reasons problems:

Several users edit the same part of a document. For example, they enter different data into one cell. A blockage occurs.
While using a shared file, a log of changes is kept (who entered, when, what they did). The book is growing. It starts to glitch.
They removed one of the users, but so far they have not told him about it. Then the blocking can only appear on his computer.

What can you do if file sharing is blocked:

Clear or delete the change log.
Clear file contents.
Cancel and then reactivate sharing.
Open xls workbook in OpenOffice. And save it again in xls.

It has been noticed that the entry “File locked” appears less frequently in latest versions Excel.

How to delete a user

On the “Review” tab, open the “Book Access” menu.
In the “Edit” section we see a list of users.
Select a name and click “Delete”.

Before deleting, verify that users have finished working with the file.

How to turn off sharing mode in Excel

“Review” tab - “Corrections” - “Select corrections”.
Set the “Corrections” parameters. In terms of time – “everything”. The checkboxes opposite “User” and “In range” are unchecked. On the contrary, “make changes on a separate sheet” is worth it. Click OK.
The Change Log will open. It can be saved either.

To disable sharing of an Excel file, on the Review tab, click Workbook Access and uncheck the box next to Allow multiple users to edit the file.

There should be one user left on the list - you.

I have long wanted to write about a useful and often little-known function - Excel sharing. This feature allows multiple users to work on a file simultaneously. At the same time, the history of operations with all cells from users is stored; if data is entered in parallel, changes are shown when saved. In general, I’m sure you will find this function useful, the only thing you need is a shared network folder.

I’m sure many have encountered the message “The file is locked by another user” if another user is already working on a working document (located in a network folder). If you need to enter data into the same file at the same time, it is better to set up file sharing. My experience shows that people can work on the same file in parallel for months. The amount of data entered can be quite large, so make a distinction between who enters what, where and what. If everything is done correctly, the shared file works stably.

How to create an Excel share?

Sharing existed back in the legendary Excel 2003. In modern versions, collaboration has become more reliable, and enabling sharing is still just as easy. First, place the file on a network folder that the desired users have access to. Then go to the Review tab on the toolbar - Changes section.

The File Access Control window opens. Check the box “Allow multiple users to edit the file...”. In the same window you can see who is currently working in the file (currently User). Click OK. That's it, general access is given and now several people can work on the file at once. Comfortable.

Sharing history or “I didn’t add anything to this cell”

Anyone who has worked with a database at least once has caught themselves thinking, “I think I’ve already made these changes, but they’re not here.” After such doubts, work begins with the IT service, why the information disappeared from the database. To avoid bloody disputes, large accounting programs have the so-called. “History of changes” or “Registration log”, where actions performed by users are visible. Excel sharing is no exception - you can either show the history of changes made both inside the file and display them in a separate table.

To get the changes, click on the Corrections button - Select corrections

In the window that appears, configure what and how to output

If you leave all the checkboxes as shown in the picture above, then the changes created since the last save will be highlighted directly in the table something like this:

If you check these boxes:

The program will display the changes on a separate sheet. Quite convenient if you need to forward this information.

You also choose the desired user or the range in which changes need to be looked for

My advice. Do not select both checkboxes at once. Select corrections on the screen and make changes on a separate sheet. Anyway, the changes will be shown on separate sheet. And if there is a lot of data, it can cause the program to freeze.

It is possible to configure and even disable this function - see below.

To delete your change history, turn sharing off and on again.

What else do you need to know about file sharing? File access control

In the File Access Control window, there is a Details tab, where you can find a lot of interesting things.

The first point, Registration of Changes, regulates the storage of changes, which we discussed in the previous section. You can disable storing changes in the journal or configure the number of days to save changes.

Next Update changes. As you noticed, if you save the file, it will show what changes the co-editors of the file made. It is possible to increase the frequency. Even make updates almost online, every 5 minutes (minimum).

A frequently asked question is “What changes will be made, mine or a neighbor’s in the file?” In the settings there is an item for conflicting changes - you are asked whose changes to keep. If you select “Request...”, then before saving there will be a question “Whose changes to keep”; for the second item, those changes that were made earlier will remain.

Well, the last but not least important point is Include in a personal presentation. Personal view - settings that the user creates for himself in a common file. If you are the owner of the process and do not want anyone to change the printing parameters (you have configured them in advance) or add additional filters, uncheck these boxes.

What should you not do if the file is shared?

Yes, there are still restrictions when working with shared access. First of all, the lack of conditional formatting and the fact that you cannot insert a chart or pivot table are inconvenient.

Excel sharing is designed primarily for recording data, so we must be sensitive to the limitations of the feature.

You can't do the same:

Managing and changing macros
Add pictures and other objects
Group or hide columns or rows
Merging cells (you won’t have to unmerge them later :))
Use the Data Validation tool, for example, create a drop-down list.
Protect the sheet
Cannot work with array formulas

There are many more buttons located in one shared section; they are described in more detail in the article: How to protect Excel from editing?

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In one of the articles, we studied techniques for converting Excel sheets to HTML. Today everyone seems to be moving to cloud storage, so why are we worse? New technologies for sharing access to Excel data via the Internet is a simple method that provides many opportunities and advantages that you can use.

With the advent of Excel Online, you no longer need cumbersome HTML code to place spreadsheets on the Internet. Simply save your workbook online and access it from literally anywhere, share it with others, and work together on the same spreadsheet. Using Excel Online, you can insert Excel sheet to a website or blog and allow visitors to interact with it to get exactly the information they want to find.

Sending Excel 2013 (local) workbooks to the Internet
Create online sheets in Excel Online
Sharing Excel Online sheets
How to lock editing of selected cells in shared Excel sheets
Embed Excel Web App into a website or blog
Excel Web App Mashups

How to send Excel 2013 sheets to the Internet

All Excel Online sheets are stored in the OneDrive web service (formerly SkyDrive). As you probably know, this online storage has been around for a while now and is now integrated into Microsoft Excel as a one-click interface command. In addition, guests, i.e. Other users with whom you share your spreadsheets no longer need their own Microsoft account to view and edit the Excel files you share with them.

If you don't yet have a OneDrive account, you can create one right now. This service is simple, free and definitely worth your attention, since most applications in the Microsoft Office 2013 suite (not just Excel) support OneDrive. After registration, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Microsoft account

Make sure you are signed in to a Microsoft account from Excel 2013. Open an Excel workbook and look in the top right corner. If you see your name and photo there, then proceed to the next step, otherwise click Sign in(Entrance).

Excel will display a window asking you to confirm that you really want to allow Office to connect to the Internet. Click Yes(Yes) and then enter your Windows Live account information.

2. Save the Excel sheet to the cloud

For your own peace of mind, make sure that the correct workbook is open, that is, the one that you want to share on the Internet. I want to share the book Holiday Gift List so that my family and friends can watch it and contribute

With the desired workbook open, go to the tab File(File) and click Share(Sharing) on the left side of the window. By default the option will be selected Invite People(Invite other people), then you need to click Save To Cloud(Save to Cloud) on the right side of the window.

After that, select a location to save the Excel file. First on the list on the left is OneDrive, and it is selected by default. All you have to do is specify the folder to save the file on the right side of the window.

Comment: If you don't see the OneDrive menu item, it means you don't have a OneDrive account or you're not signed in to your account.

I have already created special folder Gift Planner, and it is shown in the list of recent folders. You can select any other folder by clicking the button Browse(Browse) below area Recent Folders(Recent folders), or create new folder by right-clicking and selecting context menu New(Create) > Folder(Folder). When the desired folder is selected, click Save(Save).

3. Share an Excel sheet saved on the Internet

Your Excel workbook is already online and you can view it in your OneDrive. If you need to share Excel sheets saved on the Internet, then you only have one step left to do - choose one of the sharing methods offered by Excel 2013:

Invite People(Invite other people). This option is selected by default. Simply provide the email address of the contact(s) you want to share the Excel sheet with. When you start typing it, Excel AutoFill will compare what you typed to the names and addresses in your address book and show you a list of matching options to choose from. If you want to add multiple contacts, enter them separated by semicolons. In addition, you can use the search for contacts in the address book, to do this, click the icon Search Address Book(Search Address Book).You can configure viewing or editing permissions by selecting the appropriate option from the drop-down list on the right. If you specify multiple contacts, the permissions will be the same for everyone, but later you can change the permissions for each person individually. You can also add a personal message to the invitation. If you don't enter anything, Excel will add a general prompt for you.
Finally, you need to choose whether the user should log into their account Windows entry Live to access your online Excel sheet. I don't see any particular reason to force them to do this, but it's up to you.

When everything is ready, press the button Share(Public access). Each invitee will receive an email containing a link to the file you have shared. To open your Excel sheet online, the user just needs to click on the link

After pressing the button Share(Sharing), Excel will show a list of contacts to whom you have shared the file. If you want to remove a contact from the list or change permissions, right-click on the name of this contact and select the appropriate option in the context menu.
Get a Sharing Link(Get link). If you want to provide access to an online Excel sheet to a large number of people, then more quick way– send them a link to the file, for example, through an Outlook mailing list. Select an option Get a Sharing Link(Get link) on the left side of the window, two links will appear on the right side of the window: View Link(Link to View) and Edit Link(Link to Edit). You can send one or both of them.
Post to Social Networks(Publish on Social Networks). The name of this option speaks for itself and hardly requires additional explanation, except perhaps one remark. If you choose this method, you will not find a list of available social networks on the right side of the window. Click the link Click here to connect social networks(Add Social Networks) to add your accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, etc.
Email(Send by email). If you want to send an Excel workbook as an attachment (like a regular Excel file, PDF or XPS) or via Internet fax, select this method on the left side of the window and the appropriate option on the right side.

Advice: If you want to limit the area of an Excel workbook that can be viewed by other users, open the tab File(File) section Info(Details) and press Browser View Options(Browser viewing options). Here you can configure which sheets and which named elements can be displayed online.

That's it! Your Excel 2013 workbook is now online and accessible to selected users. And even if you don't like to collaborate with someone, this method will allow you to access Excel files from anywhere, no matter whether you are in the office, working at home, or traveling somewhere.

Working with workbooks in Excel Online

If you are a confident inhabitant of the Cloud Universe, then you can easily master Excel Online during your lunch break.

How to create a workbook in Excel Online

To create a new book, click the small arrow next to the button Create(Create) and select from the drop-down list Excel workbook(Excel workbook).

To rename your online book, click the default name and enter a new one.

To load an existing workbook into Excel Online, click Upload(Upload) in the OneDrive toolbar and specify required file, saved on the computer.

How to Edit Workbooks in Excel Online

Once you have opened a workbook in Excel Online, you can work with it using Excel Web App (the same way as with Excel installed on personal computer), i.e. enter data, sort and filter, calculate using formulas, and visualize data using charts.

There is only one major difference between the web version and the local version of Excel. Excel Online doesn't have a button Save(Save) because it saves the book automatically. If you change your mind, click Ctrl+Z to cancel the action, and Ctrl+Y to redo the undone action. For the same purpose you can use buttons Undo(Cancel) / Redo(Return) tab Home(Home) in the section Undo(Cancel).

If you try to edit some data, but nothing happens, then most likely the workbook is open in read-only mode. To enable editing mode, click Edit Workbook(Edit book) > Edit in Excel Web App(Edit in Excel Online) and enter quick changes right in your web browser. To access more advanced data analysis capabilities, such as pivot tables, sparklines, or to link to an external data source, click Edit in Excel(Open in Excel) to switch to Microsoft Excel on your computer.

When you save a sheet in Excel, it will be saved where you originally created it, that is, in the OneDrive cloud storage.

Advice: If you want to make quick changes in several books, then the best way is to open the list of files in your OneDrive, find the desired book, right-click on it and select the required action from the context menu.

How to share a sheet with other users in Excel Online

... and then choose one of the options:

Invite People(Send access link) – and enter the email address of the people you want to share the book with.
Get a link(Get link) – and paste this link into email, post it on your website or social networks.

You can also set access rights for contacts: the right to only view or give permission to edit the document.

When multiple people are editing a worksheet at the same time, Excel Online immediately shows their presence and the updates they've made, as long as everyone is editing the document in Excel Online and not in local Excel on their computer. If you click the small arrow next to a person's name in the upper right corner of the Excel sheet, you can see which cell that person is currently editing.

How to block editing of certain cells in a shared worksheet

If you're sharing online sheets with your team, you may want to give them editing rights to only certain cells, rows, or columns. Excel document. To do this in Excel at local computer you need to select the range(s) you allow to be edited, and then protect the sheet.

Select the range of cells that your users can edit, open the tab Review(Review) and in the section Changes(Changes) click Allow Users to Edit Ranges(Allow changing ranges).
In the dialog box Allow Users to Edit Ranges(Allow changing ranges) click the button New(New), make sure the range is correct and click Protect Sheet(Protect sheet). If you want to allow your users to edit multiple ranges, then click the button again New(Create).
Enter your password twice and upload the secure sheet to OneDrive.

For more information about this, please read the article Locking and unlocking specific areas of a protected sheet.

How to Embed an Excel Sheet into a Website or Blog

Open the workbook in Excel Online, click Share(Shared) > Embed(Embed), then click the button Generate(Create).
In the next step, you determine exactly how the sheet should look on the Internet. The following options are available to you:
- What to show(What needs to be shown). In this section, you can specify whether you need to embed the entire workbook or just part of it, for example, a range of cells, a pivot table, and so on.
- Appearance(Appearance). Here you can configure appearance books (show or hide grid lines, column and row headings, include download link).
- Interaction(Interaction). Allow or not allow users to interact with your table - sort, filter and enter data into cells. If you allow data entry, changes made by others to cells online will not be saved in the original workbook. If you want a specific cell to be open when opening a web page, check the box Always start with this cell selected(Always start from this cell) and click the desired cell in the area Preview(Preview), which is located on the right side of the dialog box.
- Dimensions(Dimensions). Enter the width and height of the table window in pixels here. To see the actual window dimensions, click View actual size(Actual view size) above the window Preview(Preview). Remember that you can set the size to be no less than 200 x 100 pixels and no more than 640 x 655 pixels. If you need to get a different size that goes beyond these restrictions, then later you can change the code in any HTML editor, directly on your website or blog.
All you have to do is click Copy(Copy) below section Embed code(Embed Code) and paste the HTML (or JavaScript) code into your blog or website.

Comment: The embed code is an iframe, so make sure your site supports this tag and your blog allows it to be used in posts.

Implemented Excel Web App

What you see below is an interactive Excel sheet that demonstrates the described technique in action. This table calculates how many days are left until your next birthday, anniversary or other event and colors the intervals in various shades of green, yellow and red. In Excel Web App, you simply enter your events in the first column, then try changing the corresponding dates and look at the results.

If you are curious about the formula used here, please see the article How to set up conditional date formatting in Excel.

Translator's note: In some browsers, this iframe may not display correctly or may not be displayed at all.

Mashups in Excel Web App

If you want to create greater interaction between your Excel web sheets and other web apps or services, you can use the JavaScript API available on OneDrive to create interactive mashups of your data.

Below you can see a Destination Explorer mashup created by the Excel Web App team as an example of what developers can create for your site or blog. This mashup uses the Excel Services JavaScript API and Bing Maps to help site visitors choose their travel route. You can select a location on the map, and the mashup will show you the weather in that location or the number of tourists visiting those locations. The screenshot below shows our location

As you can see, working in Excel Online is extremely simple. Now that we've covered the basics, you can continue to explore its features and work with your worksheets with ease and confidence!

The lesson was prepared for you by the team of the site office-guru.ru

Very often there are situations when it is necessary to collect data from several people in one Excel file. If you all work in the same organization and you all have access to some shared network folder, then there is no problem. But what if there is no such possibility, and there is no time for consistent filling? In this case, the SkyDrive cloud service will help us, which allows you to store documents on the cloud, allow several users to work simultaneously in one document, limit access to certain people, and much more.

How will we proceed? To begin, we will create a template Excel file with a table that will need to be filled out. Then we will place the file on the SkyDrive cloud. And finally, we will send a link to the file by mail to all event participants and wait until everyone fills it out.

In our example, the table looks like this, where the key indicators are located horizontally, and the districts to which we will distribute the table are vertically.

When the file is ready, you need to save it to the cloud; to do this, click on the tab File, choose Save as –> Username in SkyDrive. Please note that to save to the cloud, you must have a Microsoft Live ID account.

Now that our file is on the cloud, we can give modification or read-only access. On the tab File choose Sharing -> Invite other people. We register the email addresses of all recipients, indicate the access level (read, change), add a couple of lines to our directive and click General access.

Recipients will receive a message similar to the following, with an attached link to the file. Please note that to open the file, the user does not need to have a copy of Excel installed on their computer, as clicking on the link will open your file using the Excel web client.

The Excel web client has reduced functionality than the desktop client, but it copes well with most everyday tasks.

Second - Publish on social networks, which makes it possible to post a link on the wall social network. We did not use this option in our example, since we needed to send the file to specific people, and in this case the link will be placed on the Facebook wall, so all friends will be able to edit the file.

You can do all the same operations without having Excel installed on your computer, using a browser. Just go to the SkyDrive website, where the above options are also available.

The world around us is changing. If earlier remote work seemed like something completely exotic, now it is already considered par for the course: according to recent studies, it turned out that by 2020 one fifth of all Russians will work remotely. And, for example, in the United States, more than a third of all Americans are already working remotely. My remote work was usually associated with MS Word documents. (And occasionally - with presentation files.) Since the old versions of Word (at least twenty years ago), the Word text editor has had the most convenient means of reviewing and collaborative editing of documents, and in the document you can save the entire history of changes and you can always see who from the users what changes were made. By the way, in my experience, the vast majority of users (and even professional editors) have no idea that such tools exist in Word, and when they have to work together on documents, they do it the old fashioned way: they make corrections to the text on the fly and write Detailed comments in notes. In the old days, when there were no cloud services, documents were sent by email (or transferred on floppy disks) and this was not very convenient: some versions of files were lost in the process, new versions were replaced by old ones - and some of the corrections were lost. But over time, Microsoft developed two very significant ones that greatly facilitate collaboration on documents. And these innovations are as follows: an online version of the office suite MS Office, which allows you to work in the usual Word, Excel and Power Point from any computer with Internet access, and the OneDrive cloud service, with which you can easily organize the storage of documents on which you are working together , directly on the Internet: in this case, users are no longer tied to specific computers at all and can have access to the necessary documents from anywhere. Due to my work as editor-in-chief on several projects, I often have to explain in detail the scheme of joint remote work on documents to new authors, so I decided to present it all in a separate article: it will be useful for new authors, and, quite possibly, some of them. you, dear readers, will find this useful. How is this all done? First you need to register in the OneDrive cloud service, which is useful for collaboration, for archiving important data, and for remote access to your documents and media files. If you already have a Microsoft account, then you can sign in to OneDrive with this account , and if not, just create this account: for this you will need to indicate some working e-mail to which you have access.
The principle of operation of the OneDrive cloud service is approximately the same as, for example, Dropbox: you have access to your personal storage on the Internet (on the OneDrive website) and this storage can be synchronized with the corresponding storage on your work computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone. To synchronize with the cloud, install the corresponding OneDrive application on your computer (laptop, tablet, smartphone), in which synchronization settings are made.
You specify the folder where the OneDrive folders will be located, indicate which of them should be synchronized - and that’s it, then OneDrive will do everything on its own. OneDrive can also automatically send photos and videos that you take with your smartphone or tablet to the cloud. Free by default you are allocated 15 GB of space in the cloud, which is enough for photos and documents. However, if you use the Office 365 plan (and I have been using it literally from the first day of its appearance - it is very convenient), where for 286 rubles per month or 2874 rubles per year you are provided with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access, and you can install them for five users on five computers, five tablets and five smartphones, then with this plan, as much as 1 TB is allocated for each user in OneDrive, and you can stuff an elephant there.

My OneDrive

Now what needs to be done? Give access to this document to your editor (boss, colleague). This is done very simply. In Word, click File - Sharing. A window like this appears.

There, enter the address of the person(s) who should read and edit your article, then click the “Share” button.

He will receive a corresponding notification by e-mail that looks something like this.

And all the subscribers you invited will appear in your document data.

It is more convenient, of course, to work with a document in Word, however, if you are on someone else’s computer, the online version may be a way out.

Article in the online editor

Whether or not to display these corrections on the screen is enabled in the corresponding menu.

Screenshot is clickable

You can reply to comments, and you can always see who made what notes.

Screenshot is clickable

Moreover, it is enough to select the display mode “Without corrections” - the article will be shown as it should look in its finished form.
Similarly, a document (spreadsheet, presentation, database, schedule) may have dozens of different people working on it. MS Office will carefully record all additions and changes, and there you can always roll back to some previous versions. Moreover, the system works quite normally in multi-user mode, that is, when several people are working on a document at the same time. And you can always see who is currently working on this document with you.

Otherwise, I know of cases when users very much regretted that they had not erased the entire history of changes in a document, and especially comments. This is somehow how remote work of several people on one document is organized. As you can see, everything is very simple, easy and convenient. Microsoft account, using OneDrive, using online or offline versions of MS Office, tracking changes, different types of viewing changes. And your joint work on documents will be extremely convenient, and you will always be able to track any steps to change the document. It seems that all these are well-known things, but, oddly enough, I very often come across the fact that when, for example, they are supposed to send me my article with some edits, people send the document without tracking the changes and I have to compare their text with mine to understand where and what they corrected. Yes, this is just some kind of wildness: why should they have turned on change tracking - and then I would have seen everything instantly?!! So don’t neglect such opportunities, they allow you to save a lot of time and very efficiently collaborate remotely on some files .

Network technologies,

Data storage

“Evil Corporation” (joke) has been mastering the niche of collaboration with documents for the second decade. It all started with early versions of SharePoint, at the mention of which more experienced cats immediately begin to cry - MS SP was too specific in terms of both settings and capabilities in those distant years. Okay, let's not traumatize each other anymore with memories of that clumsy monster...

But Microsoft is persistent - work to improve the situation has been going on all this time, and on several fronts at once. As a result, we can now talk about the established infrastructure for document collaboration that Microsoft offers. It distinguishes two classes of software:

Tools for collective access to documents, including cataloging, version control, distribution of rights and similar server features. These tools, in turn, are divided into cloud-based (OneDrive, SharePoint Online) and on-premise, that is, deployed in the customer’s own infrastructure - the SharePoint 2016 server.
Document editing tools. These include: the Microsoft Office desktop family (also heavily redesigned recently), freshly created mobile versions Office, initially focused on collaboration with documents, and, the cherry on the cake, is its own implementation of the online document editing server Office Online apps (somewhat previously known as Office Web Apps).

All this magnificence probably does not make Microsoft the “Google Docs killer” (the killers of our brain in this case are, rather, the journalists who come up with such news headlines), but it does provide a good alternative to the consumer. This is especially true corporate clients, who, firstly, already have an infrastructure from MS (AD, Exchange, Skype for Business), and secondly, there is a need to keep all or part of the information under control, that is, on own servers. For these customers, Microsoft's new document collaboration capabilities look particularly attractive.

As a result, we came up with the idea to tell both about these possibilities and how to install and configure all this equipment. Let's try to get to the comparison with alternative services. Since it is clear that such a longread will take a long time to write, and not everyone will be able to read it, we decided to divide it into several articles. This one is the first. And in it further we will go through the features and peculiarities that each of the Microsoft products has that provides joint editing of documents: Office Online, MS Office on desktops and the same on mobile devices. I warn you right away - there will be a lot of attention to detail and chewing on small features; the impatient reader can immediately read the “conclusions” at the end of the note, for the rest - let's go.

Office Online

Office Online Server is quite interesting application, which not everyone is well aware of yet. Firstly, it is an opportunity to reduce the number of licenses and installations of MS Office. Secondly, expanding the ability to access and edit a document, roughly speaking - you only need a browser. Third, this is Microsoft's best collaboration experience to date. Let's see what I mean.

Word Online

Editing a document in Office Online can be done by several users at the same time, and the changes and the name of the user making the edits are immediately displayed to other co-authors. Users can edit the same section of text at the same time; there is no paragraph blocking.

Excel Online

In Excel Online, changes to a cell will only be visible to other collaborators when the first collaborator moves to the next cell. In this case, the cells are not blocked and several users can make changes at once.

PowerPoint Online

PowerPoint Online allows you to work on one slide at a time, but it's better to work on different elements, otherwise users won't see each other's changes in real time.

Desktop version of Office

The experience of collaborating on documents through Office Online is rewarding when it comes to making text edits without the need for major formatting changes. If you want to insert diagrams, smart art, table of contents, macros, format tables, use formulas, etc. here you will have to use the desktop version of the programs. You can write a separate article about the difference in functionality between the desktop version and the online one. Here we will look at the differences associated with collaboration.

MS Word

When editing in the desktop version of the program, a paragraph that another user is working on is blocked.

Changes made will become visible to other co-authors only after they are saved by the author and the document is updated by other users.

Saving-updating is combined in the Save button (Ctrl+S). The presence of updates is indicated by an icon next to the author's name.

MS Excel

In the case of Excel, there is no possibility of simultaneously working on a document. We are offered to either all go to online version –

Or stand in line -

MS PowerPoint

In contrast, in PowerPoint there is no lock or indication of an element that another user is working on. So, the only way you can tell that someone else is working on the same presentation is through the Share panel.

The presence of updates is signaled by the inconspicuous Updates Available status. The status appears only after the author saves the changes; the changes themselves appear after updating the document using Save (Ctrl+S).

Mobile devices

Microsoft Word App and Microsoft PowerPoint App

When working on Android, the paragraph or element the user is working on is not blocked and simultaneous work on it is possible, but nothing is highlighted for other collaborators. Edits are displayed without additional actions with a slight delay. The fact that someone else is working on the same element can be seen in the “Share” menu.

In the case of the IPhone, when changes are made, an update message is displayed with a prompt to Apply/Cancel.

It would be interesting to test further Windows Phone with Windows 10. But there were no such people in the company.

Microsoft Excel App

Real time collaboration is not supported in Excel App.

Conclusions

In general, the functionality of collaborative document editing from Microsoft can be considered successful, although different components implement it in different ways. The process of co-editing itself is best implemented in Office Online - this is real co-working. To the list of things that you can look at forever, I’ll add flags moving across the screen with the names of colleagues and a document that gradually fills in on itself. But, unfortunately, for full-fledged editing functionality as such, you will still have to turn to desktop versions of programs, which still require a save button, and the collaboration process is not so conveniently implemented (Excel suffers the most so far, where everything is the same remained at the check-in-checkout level).

In the next post we will tell you how to implement the process of deploying on-premise components sharing in corporate infrastructure. SharePoint Farm 2016, Office Online Server, publishing - that's all. Don't switch off.

Sincerely, the Servilon.ru team Servilon.com

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