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Co-authoring: here to stay

Simultaneous co-authoring of documents has become an integral part of many users’ working days, but it still brings challenges.

Microsoft Teams creates an environment that encourages users to work together – instant chat, calls, and meetings as well as easier access to shared files in SharePoint. 

All these capabilities encourage users to spend more time working on documents in a shared environment. 

 

It’s been available in Google Docs for many years and simultaneous editing works very well. However, Google has not yet provided a word processing facility that allows the same level of customisation available in Microsoft Word that law firms and major corporate businesses expect.

Teams allows users to work together on Word documents at the same time. The file will be opened from SharePoint in the Teams window, but it will default to working with the web version of Word. 

However there are limitations to co-authoring with SharePoint. We continue to see document formatting becoming corrupted, particularly with multi-level numbering schemes. Importantly we haven’t seen content being lost.

We put it down to two main issues. First, the continuous development of Microsoft 365 can make Teams and Word a little unstable. Second, synchronising all the changes means that in the background Word is handling multiple copies of the same document. The problem is exaggerated when working on very large documents.

Our view of the best way to reduce problems include:

  • Only working in the Desktop version of Word:

  • Where you can, minimise the number of people working in the document
  • Don’t leave the document open when you are not working on the document
  • When you repair the formatting make sure there is no one else in the document.

Often issues can be resolved by ‘resetting the styles’, but that is a more involved routine that most users would not know how to implement.

The takeaway from all of this is that it feels like a moving target with Microsoft. However, we expect co-authoring will become ever more embedded in firms’ work practices.

If you find you are struggling with co-authoring you can get in touch and we can look at options to simplify the processes for your company.

Call Rob Simcock on +44 (0)7885 243 986 or
email rob.simcock@kutana.co.uk.