Can multiple people open, update and save one spreadsheet?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Christine
  • Start date Start date
C

Christine

Hi,

Is it possible with Excel 2003 to have multiple people open a spreadsheet
and update it and save it? Not looking for read access after the 1st person
opens it. I almost want a cached session and then as people save it updates
the spreadsheet.

Thanks, C
 
Hi Christine,

Bob's right, of course, that sharing a workbook is the only way that Excel
offers for multiple users to add/delete/update values and later save the
file with its original name.

But ever since some bad experiences with shared workbooks, I've steered
clear of them and used a true database (Access, SQL Server, Oracle, for
example) to support data entry and edits. I like to have queries in the
Excel workbook that fill pivot tables or data ranges, depending on the need,
so multiple users can view charts and other summaries or analyses of the
data in the database.

Excel was originally designed as a single-user application, and the sharing
capability was tacked on in Excel 97, I think. Allowing for multiple users
was not part of the design flow from Day 1, the way it was in true
databases. In Excel's shared workbooks, you get problems like not being able
to view VBA projects. And once a shared workbook gets quite large (say, 5000
rows by 20 columns) I've found that it develops a tendency to hang.

FWIW --

C^2
Conrad Carlberg
 
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