Co-Authoring Documents with Microsoft Office

When your system administrator has set up co-authoring in your vault, many users can edit a document at the same time. You must have an Office 365 account and editing permissions to the document to edit it in the co-authoring mode. Co-authoring is available for single-file DOCX, XLSX, XLSM, and PPTX documents.

Checking Out a Document for Co-Authoring

To check out a document for co-authoring:

  1. Right-click the document in the listing area.
  2. Click Check out for co-authoring.
    Result:

    The document is opened for co-authoring in a new browser tab.

    In the M-Files listing area, an orange mark on the document icon () shown to other users tells that the document is available for co-authoring.

  3. Make your changes in the editor.
    Your changes are automatically saved.
  4. When you are done with your edits, close the editor tab.
To stop co-authoring a document:
  1. Right-click the document in the listing area.
  2. Click Check in.
    Result:If nobody has the document open in Microsoft Office for the web, changes are checked in to the vault and can be seen by other users. If one or more editors have the document open in Microsoft Office for the web, M-Files shows a notification about this.
  3. If the notification about active editing sessions is shown, select one of these options:
    • Check in: Select this option to check in the document. This can cause some edits to be lost.
      or
    • Cancel: Select this option to cancel the check-in. This lets you make sure that all editors are done with their changes. When you are sure that it is safe to check in the document, do steps 5 and 6 again.
When the document is checked in, the edits made during the co-authoring session can be seen by other users.

Participating in Co-Authoring

To participate in co-authoring:

  1. Find a document that is available for co-authoring.
    Documents that are available for co-authoring have an orange mark on the document icon ().
  2. Right-click the document in the listing area.
  3. Select Open or Open in browser.
  4. Select Edit (co-authoring).
  5. Make your changes in the editor.
    Your changes are automatically saved.
  6. When you are done with your edits, close the editor tab.
When the user who started the co-authoring session checks in the document, your edits can be seen by other users.