Collaborate (co-author) on a project in Microsoft Office

Owned by KARYN O'DELL
Last updated: Aug 23, 2021
4 min read

This document will help users who are looking for a way for multiple people to work on a document simultaneously.  With collaboration (known by Microsoft as co-authoring) multiple people can have the document open and being edited at the same time, and everyone can see what the other co-authors are adding with auto-saving.  To achieve real-time collaboration and updating, it must be done from the web apps, which does not have the full functionality of the desktop applications. 

Note: With Office and documents saved on a network drive like the R: Drive, only one user can edit the document at a time; other users who want to edit it will get a notice that the document is locked for editing by the person who first opened it. While you can co-author using desktop applications, they must be checked out/checked in, and this is not real-time updating. 

To co-author:

  1. Save your document to OneDrive.

  2. Go to https://portal.office.com and log in with your OTC credentials.

  3. Open up the application for the document you want to work on collaboratively.

  4. Open the document you want to collaborate on. If you don't see the document listed, scroll to the bottom and click More in OneDrive. You should be able to find your document there.

  5. In the upper right corner of the document, click the Share button.

  6. Here, you can get a link to share with people, and/or email them the link to the document. The default permissions are set to Anyone with the link can edit. To change this, click the permission text and choose from the options presented, then click Apply.

       

  7. Enter email addresses for people you want to send the sharing link to and click Send:


    or

  8. Click Copy Link and you'll get a link you can send.

  9. Now others can click the link and (after logging in if prompted to do so) edit the document.

Notes and FAQs:

AutoSave

Office 365 has AutoSave automatically turned on in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. When others eventually open a file you share with them, you'll be co-authoring together. If you are in the same area as them, you'll see their cell selections in a different color than yours. You'll also see their changes appear as they are working. In addition, if you click Share in the upper-right, you'll see pictures of people and their name or email address. (You may also see their initials, or a "G" which stands for guest.)

In general, the last change that is saved is the one that “wins.” There are some exceptions to this, but that’s generally how it works. If you don’t want to have conflicts with other people, assign areas or sheets to each person. You can explain these assignments when you send the link out, or you can make the assignments obvious in the workbook itself by putting people’s names in heading cells, or naming sheets with people’s names.

Keep in mind that if you are using OneDrive to sync files, changes you make while your computer is offline won't get merged until your computer is online again. And once online, all your changes get merged at once.

Why am I getting the "File is locked" error? 

The most common one is because someone has opened the file with a version of Excel (i.e., the desktop app) that doesn't support co-authoring. If just one person does this, then everyone else will get the "locked" error — even if everyone else is using a version of Excel that does support co-authoring. Make sure no one has it open in their desktop application. If this doesn't resolve the problem, there's more troubleshooting within Microsoft Support.

Why can't I see other people's changes?

To co-author and see changes made by others, everyone needs to use a version of the Excel app that supports co-authoring. Excel for Android, Excel for iOS, and Excel Mobile support co-authoring. In addition, Excel 2016 for Windows and Mac support co-authoring when you have an Office 365 subscription. If somebody doesn't have a supported version, they can always use Excel Online in their web browser by clicking Edit Workbook > Edit in Browser. If that doesn't solve the problem, try one or more of the following:

  • Wait a minute or two. Sometimes it takes some time for Excel and the cloud to communicate with each other.

  • Tell everyone to click the Enable Editing button if it appears.

  • If you are using OneDrive to sync files, make sure it is not paused, and make sure that Use Office 2016 to sync files... is turned on. Find more details on this setting.

  • Make sure the file is not read-only.

  • On a Windows PC, open the file and go to File > Info. Resolve any errors that may be shown there.