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I have a SharePoint 2010 site with a document library for storing Excel files. If someone is editing an Excel file (using stand-alone Excel, not Excel services), everyone else will be forced to open the file read-only until the first person is done editing. Is there a way around this? What I want is to allow two or more people to be able to edit the file at the same time. Also, I don't want people to overwrite each other. Instead, I'd like SharePoint to merge their changes. Is this possible in SharePoint 2010?

John Saunders
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Tobias Funke
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5 Answers5

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No, sadly:

The Excel 2010 client application does not support co-authoring workbooks in SharePoint Server 2010. However, the Excel client application does support non-real-time co-authoring workbooks stored locally or on network (UNC) paths by using the Shared Workbook feature. Co-authoring workbooks in SharePoint is supported by using the Microsoft Excel Web App, included with Office Web Apps

From Co-authoring overview (SharePoint Server 2010)

...and not for SharePoint 2013 either. Though it works for pretty much all other Office documents. Go figure.

piers7
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The new version of SharePoint and Office (SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010) respectively are supposed to allow for this. This also includes the web based versions. I have seen Word and Excel in action do this, not sure about other client applications.

I am not sure about the specific implementation features you are asking about in terms of security though. Sorry.,=

Here is a discussion

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010.aspx

Glorfindel
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John Ptacek
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Unfortunately, the file must be locked for updates unless you're using Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 together. This means that only one user per time can edit a file. The locking and version tracking capabilities of SharePoint are excellent, and this makes it a great tool for the type of collaboration you're talking about, but you would have to split documents into multiple files in order to extend the amount that could be edited at a time. For instance, we sometimes unmerge documents into technical, requirements, and financials sections so that the 3 experts required for the review can work concurrently. We then merge when everyone is finished.

Kaiser Advisor
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Yes you can. I've used it with Word and PowerPoint. You will need Office 2010 client apps and SharePoint 2010 foundation at least. You must also allow editing without checking out on the document library.

It's quite cool, you can mark regions as 'locked' so no-one can change them and you can see what other people have changed every time you save your changes to the server. You also get to see who's working on the document from the Office app. The merging happens on SharePoint 2010.

ArjanP
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    -1 as this is not true for Excel 2010. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff718249(v=office.14).aspx#bkmk_understd – piers7 Mar 12 '13 at 06:19
  • YEah @ArjanP needs to edit the answer to reflect that Excel web app can, but Excel 2010 cannot. – Anonymous Type Aug 19 '13 at 06:45
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yes if it is SharePoint 2010 and above by using the Office feature co-authoring

Clad Alfaro
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