To share, or to merge, that is the question.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

I want to create a document that multiple people can update at the same time,
and allow each user to save their changes (even if it happens to be in the
same cell). But, I don't want the other users to be concerned with their
co-workers changes, just their own. I want my document to collect all their
changes and be able to accept everybody's changes as well as my own as
needed. I want my copy to be the sole copy responsible for collecting and
saving the approved changes. I want the users' copy to update based off of
my copy when they open theirs. I tried sharing a workbook, but I kept
getting "do you want to save other peoples changes or your own?" What's the
point in sharing a workbook if I can't keep both?

Is what I need possible in Ecel 2003?
Joel
 
First, I don't use shared workbooks.

But I thought you only got that prompt when multiple users made changes to the
same cell.

And wouldn't you want to know that you might be discarding a co-workers changes?

====
And if you decide to go with different workbooks for each person, allow yourself
lots and lots of time to find the differences. It's not a task I would attempt.
 
Ps. Maybe it's time to go to an application that is made for simultaneous
updates--like a database (Access???).
 
Joel,

If you want each user to be able to save his own changes, and all in the same document, then
each user's gonna have to have a separate place (different sheet, something) to put their
stuff. Otherwise, we're bordering on magic. You're getting that message because multiple
users are changing the same cells. It's gotta be one user's or the other user's stuff. You
can't stuff two users changes into one cell.

Think through what you want the workbook to look like after two or more users have made
changes. We'll go from there.
--
Earl Kiosterud
www.smokeylake.com

Note: Top-posting has been the norm here.
Some folks prefer bottom-posting.
But if you bottom-post to a reply that's
already top-posted, the thread gets messy.
When in Rome...
 
Earl,
The other day when I was tinkering with my document on a shared drive, my
boss and I entered data simultaneously from two different computers. It
didn't ask me whose information I wanted to keep, instead it just moved one
to the next row. Trouble is I don't know what I did.
 
AMEN!! to that Dave!
I would prefer to have it in Access. I think it would save a lot of time
and head aches. However, the boss is adament about it being in Excel.

Joel
 
Joel,

The only possibility that comes to mind as that one of you put the data one row down
farther than the other. If you were adding rows to a table, and one of you had added a
row, then the other opened it after the first saved his changes, that'd have happened. The
two of you did not, I am certain, put stuff in the same row and then Excel moved one down.
Uh-uh. Nope.
 
Back
Top