Multiple users accessing the same Word document

[Robert Crandal]

All of our company data gets saved in a single Word
document file. Therefore, multiple users are often able
to open that same document simultaneously. If everyone
has the document open at the same time, who is allowed to
write changes to the commonly opened file??

Also, if someone does write a change to the document, will
everyone automatically see the changes?? Or does some
refresh need to take place??

thank you

 

[Graham Mayor]

Word is not a multi-use application and so such a practice is fraught with
problems. Only the first person to open the document can make changes to it.
Others would only be able to open it 'read-only'. There would be no updating
taking place until the document was next opened. Depending on what the data
is and how this document is used, you might need to re-think how you store
and refer to your company data, before someone screws it up.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Jay Freedman]

Not to mention that the idea of keeping "all of the company data" in a
single file of any kind is sheer madness. All it takes is one or two
misplaced bits that prevent the file from being opened (refer to
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm) and your company
will shortly be filing for bankruptcy.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Happy Trails]

Also, if someone does write a change to the document, will
everyone automatically see the changes??

Think about what this might mean to your work flow. Are you really
going to have 2 or more people editing a WORD document simultaneously?
Can I suggest this might be just plain silly from a work management
point of view?

 

[Robert Crandal]

Thanks to everyone who responded. Your answers make
a lot of sense to me. I already figured that our current data setup
was a bit flawed, so I just needed validation.

Can anyone suggest a better solution that involves using Word??
My first idea was to allow each person to save the data in their own
Word files and then perhaps create a separate Word script or something
that pulls the data from everyone's Word files and accumulates the
data in a separate Word file??? I'm curious if anybody else has any
other ideas.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Without knowing anything about your 'document' or how it is used, it is
impossible to make a suggestion. If the document is a protected form that
users are filling with data that is to be collated, then see
http://www.gmayor.com/ExtractDataFromForms.htm. Collating information from
free format documents might prove altogether more complicated.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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Thanks to everyone who responded. Your answers make
a lot of sense to me. I already figured that our current data setup
was a bit flawed, so I just needed validation.

Can anyone suggest a better solution that involves using Word??
My first idea was to allow each person to save the data in their own
Word files and then perhaps create a separate Word script or something
that pulls the data from everyone's Word files and accumulates the
data in a separate Word file??? I'm curious if anybody else has any
other ideas.

 

[Robert Crandal]

Hi Graham....I will go ahead and read that web site now. Thank you
soo much for the information.

As far as my 'document', it is not really complicated (in my opinion).
I also do not believe that it is a "protected form". Everybody can
read or write to the file when necessary. BTW, we create a new Word
file each day and name it according to the current date. So, each day
we start off with an empty Word file and everybody adds data to the
file whenever necessary.

The contents of each daily file simply consist of a table with rows
and columns. Whenever someone has data to add to the daily file,
they will go to the bottom-most available row and fill in the entire row.

I was thinking, how about if everyone stores their data in an Excel
spreadsheet (which naturally consists of rows and columns). Then I
could add a macro to everyone's spreadsheet that automatically transfers
their tabular data to the commonly shared Word file. In your opinion,
does that sound like a daunting or overly complicated task??? (if
not impossible?)


Robert Crandal

 

[Graham Mayor]

While this seems to be more of a job for a multi-user database, the
protected form approach would be a better solution than what you have now.
If you create a template with form fields that represent the cells in the
last row of the table, and presumably an extra one for the date, users could
create a new document for each 'entry' and save them to a common location.
It shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a file naming solution to
ensure that you didn't have any duplicate document names. Then you could
later import the data content of the documents into the 'master' table or
into a database. The page on my web site will help with that. See also Greg
Maxey's approach, should you want to import into a database
http://www.gmayor.com/ExtractDataFromForms.htm

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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Hi Graham....I will go ahead and read that web site now. Thank you
soo much for the information.

As far as my 'document', it is not really complicated (in my opinion).
I also do not believe that it is a "protected form". Everybody can
read or write to the file when necessary. BTW, we create a new Word
file each day and name it according to the current date. So, each day
we start off with an empty Word file and everybody adds data to the
file whenever necessary.

The contents of each daily file simply consist of a table with rows
and columns. Whenever someone has data to add to the daily file,
they will go to the bottom-most available row and fill in the entire row.

I was thinking, how about if everyone stores their data in an Excel
spreadsheet (which naturally consists of rows and columns). Then I
could add a macro to everyone's spreadsheet that automatically transfers
their tabular data to the commonly shared Word file. In your opinion,
does that sound like a daunting or overly complicated task??? (if
not impossible?)


Robert Crandal