Co-Authoring is an enterprise-level feature that will require licensing to be accessible. The feature allows the user to invite others by email to make edits or changes on a file together. This feature will require accessibility to the User’s Office 365 OneDrive.
In our current netDocShare version, Co-Authoring is only available on SharePoint Online. Support for On-Prem and external apps are planned for future releases.
- docx
- xlsx
- pptx
This is because we use Microsoft online application service to have a co-editing environment. Therefore, only files that can be used with Microsoft online are Co-Authorable. Only modern formats including .docx, .pptx, and .xlsx file formats are supported. You can’t Co-Author with Office 2007 or earlier format, rtf, or other formats.
- netDocShare Enterprise license is activated
- User has access to Office 365 OneDrive and can use Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
- Selected file in iManage must be checked in
If the file is checked out to another user, the feature will not work. However, the feature does work and is available if the file is checked out by the user.
To add the Co-Authoring feature to a new or existing web part, we must edit the web part configuration. Users can apply the Co-Authoring feature in the following 2 methods to a Config Setting:
- Manual JSON: If you are used to inputting JSON config objects into SharePoint’s property pane “Enter your Web part Config here:” (Ensure “Co-Authoring” is included in the list for “contextMenu”, the term “coauthoring” is highly sensitive to spelling and letter case. Please apply identically to the following example.): “contextMenu”: [“coauthoring”]
- Config Builder: Simply select Co-Authoring (Ensure “Co-Authoring” is selected as part of the Context Menu options):
Successful display of Start Co-Authoring will show the Co-Author Icon between the file name and version number, and sets file status to checked out:
- The authorized users (initiator and Co-Author recipients) with access to the document
- Click the Co-Authoring icon and it’ll open a new window for the document via SharePoint OneDrive.
- Hovering on the icon will show the hyperlink.
The document will open to show the preview of the document on a new browser tab and the user can choose how to Edit the document in the “Open” at the top left:
- “Open in Word Online” will open a new document in a new browser to edit
- “Open in Word” will open the Microsoft Word application from the user’s local
Note: If the user chooses the option “Open in Word”, please ensure the local Microsoft Word Application is connected online and with the proper user account.
- The file will get uploaded to OneDrive in the background and will be shared with a list of co-authors.
- The application will automatically create a folder called “netDocShare” in the user’s OneDrive which will be used for sharing purposes. Recipients will receive the email with the content sample below:
Co-Authoring invitees that open the document from their email (example above) will open a new browser to edit the document in the browser.
- Recipients can click “Open” to access the file being shared on SharePoint’s OneDrive.
- Multiple Co-Authors can make edits and changes as desired, even simultaneously, but it is crucial that every person who has access to the file closes the file after making edits and changes, or else an error will prompt when the user who initiated the Co-Author tries to End the Co-Authoring.
Users can know the file is in Co-Authoring on the iManage website. In the selected file’s profile attributes, the “Comments” will have “Co-Authoring;”.
Please ensure all users who participated in Co-Authoring have closed the file from SharePoint’s OneDrive when the Co-Author initiator is attempting to Stop Co-Authoring.
- In the drop-down menu of the selected file, click “Stop Co-Authoring”
- Clicking on “Stop Co-Authoring” will show a Stop Co-Authoring pop-up. Users can choose various options available in the pop-up.