Multiple document reviewers?

[Ed]

The Word groups regularly see questions about how to circulate a document
for multiple reviewers to see and make changes. Most of the time, the
answer seems to involve sending out multiple copies of the same doc or
sending the same doc to each reviewer in succession with Track Changes, and
then reconciling all the changes.

We just got updated to Office 2003, and I see the option in OL for a Shared
Attachment and a Document Workspace. Could the be "the answer" to the
multiple reviewer question? It would probably mean retraining a lot of the
"old guard", but if it works it would be well worth it.

Ed

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Publishing it to a SharePoint website is indeed a good way to deal with
information and documents a whole team works on.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Yes, if you have a SharePoint site to upload the documents to.

 

[Chip]

Ed, I've explored this feaure myself in depth. There are several "paths" in
the swamp that is Sharepoint and Office, so let me spell them out. In short,
you can't see in real time someone else's cursor clicking about the document
and moving things around, typing, etc. If anything, you can see their version
of the file with revision marks, which is kinda lame. But here's the summary:

1) You can save a .doc (or xls, ppt) to a library. It's great -- available
in a central location in a web browser. Fine, right? If you choose to EDIT it
from the library, then someone else will be locked out. They can work on a
local copy and merge their changes if they want. In this case, Word will show
the differences of the versions using revision marks. Or they wait until you
are done. Most people wait. The rev mark thing is confusing. Which are mine?
Which are yours? Do I accept yours or reject mine? This is hard to read!
Whine whine whine.

2) You can also create a document workspace. This is almost the same thing.
In this case you are working with a file on your local drive and then you can
choose to push the changes up to the workspace when Word prompts you to.
Someone else can do this too -- work on a local file, and then push changes
up to the workspace. When you push the changes up, you'll go through another
round of revision marks. His changes will show up as rev marks...you have to
reconile them. And more than 3 people can do this at a time even, or probably
even more.

BOTTOM LINE: You have to be really keen on how to use rev marks (known as
"Track changes" in the Word UI.) If your users aren't up on that feature,
then it's really much easier if you don't use workspaces, and you just save
the file to a library. Then if the file is locked, wait until they are done
with the file and then edit it yourself. So not so much unlike the
"succession" review process, but at least there's one copy of the file, in a
central place, without millions of other copies floating around in email.