Do you know what’s the difference between Excel Co-Authoring and Shared Workbook? Learn how you can enable the Shared Workbook Feature in Excel and of course how to use the Excel co-authoring.
So let’s get started…!
What Is The Difference Between Excel Co-Authoring Vs Shared Workbook?
Shared workbook:
- With the shared workbook feature you can work together on the same workbook with several users at a time.
- It has some limitations.
- To obtain more optimal features and functionalities, just store your shared workbook over the shared network drive.
- Using the Excel Online feature user one can easily perform the editing operation on their shared workbook.
- Users can’t use the Excel workbook having the VBA coding and tables.
- Meanwhile sharing you can’t use items such as: inserting/deleting blocks of cells, creating/changing charts, deleting sheets, adding/changing conditional formats, changing/deleting array formulas, etc.
- Modification you do in your worksheet cells is also tracked whereas the formatting cells are not been tracked.
- Tracked changes history is kept within the Excel workbook. These changes in history detail increase the Excel file size very rapidly.
- So to keep your excel file size under control it’s better to choose the Excel default settings to 30 days of history.
You may also like: How To Share Excel Workbook With Multiple User?
Excel Co-Authoring:
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- Excel co-authoring supports well in the Excel desktop client for Microsoft 365 Apps and also on the Excel web for Microsoft 365 subscribers.
- Co-authoring allows permissions to work smoothly in real-time. So one can easily track who is editing the Excel workbook and working on which section at a particular point in time.
- For excel workbook co-authoring, you have to login into the Office with Office 365 subscription. After that upload and create an Excel workbook on OneDrive, SharePoint Online library.
- To use this excel feature you need to work online.
- It supports following formats : .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb
- Needs to be saved in the cloud storage i.e. on OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online. SharePoint On-Premise is not supported.
- Requires the subscription of Office 365 subscription.
- Requires Excel latest version for the Office 365 application.
- Changes tracking are not possible in this.
- Co-authoring with AutoSave needs to make modifications in the workflow because you cannot shut down your excel workbook without saving it.
Steps To Enable Shared Workbook Feature In Excel?
Here is the complete step to enable shared workbook feature in Excel.
- Create a new Excel workbook or you can open your previously saved Excel workbook.
Now keep it on the network location. Like this: \\server_name\folder_name
Don’t save your file on OneDrive or SharePoint. If you choose the above locations to choose these locations for saving up your file files then the Excel workbook is the best option.
- Hit the Review> Share Workbook.
Note: in the newer excel version, the share workbook button is kept hidden. Follow the below steps to unhide it.
- Tap the Editing tab and make a selection of the “Allow changes by more than one user …”
- Go to the Advanced tab, and select the options that you need to apply for tracking changes and updating. Hit the OK button.
- If in case you are using any new workbook then assign the name in the File name.
- Or, if’s an existing workbook, then hit the OK button to save your workbook.
- If your workbook contains a link to some other documents then properly check for the broken link. If it’s a broken link then put the correct link and update it.
- Hit the File> Save button.
- At the top of your Excel window, Shared text starts appearing with the filename.
How Do I Use Co-Authoring In Excel?
In order to use the Excel Co-Authoring feature, first of all, you have to upload your Excel workbook to the one drive application.
After then share your workbook with other users, in order to co-author the Excel file in real-time.
Now any changes you perform in your Excel workbook will instantly seem to be updated in any of your devices.
- Select the Share button.
- Upload the Excel file to OneDrive.
- Set the permissions you want to give and then hit the Apply button. By default, the Allow editing option is checked.
- Select the users’ name to which you want to share and also type some messages if you want to give them.
- Select the Send option.
- From the upper right section, select the initials to get detail about which user is currently active and the location where they are exactly been working.
Wrap Up:
From my personal experience, I just want to say that the Shared workbook is having some restrictions. Mainly the inability to make changes in Excel worksheets on the web.
So, I highly recommend Excel co-authoring, which is the best replacement for the older Excel shared workbook feature. To catch more detail regarding Excel Co-Authoring vs.Shared Workbook.
Do share your experiences regarding this post whether the fixes listed in this post worked for you or not.
Good luck with the fixes..!