In two previous posts:

Answering some OneDrive for Business questions

OneDrive for Business document sharing

I’ve been doing a deep dive into how OneDrive for Business allows co-authoring on documents. I’ve covered working both directly from a browser but also using the OneDrive for Business desktop sync app.

That’s all well and good if you are always connected to the cloud but what happens in those rare cases when you aren’t? So let’s see.

If you followed along with the previous post you will know that we have two users working on a document from OneDrive for Business.

Robert Crane has a Word document in his OneDrive for Business in Office 365 called ‘cloud qualification worksheet’ that he has shared with Richard Dawson who is a member of the same Office 365 tenant.

Now let’s say that Robert has this document sync’ed to his desktop using the OneDrive for Business desktop app. Everything is up to date and no one is currently editing the document. he takes his laptop on a flight and decides to work on that document while he is disconnected from the cloud, which he can do as he has a local copy.

For Robert, his updates are saved to his local machine in the local OneDrive for Business location.

For Richard, who remains online during this process, he continues to make changes to the document while Robert is travelling.

So now we have the worst case scenario. Both Robert and Richard have changed the same file. Richard’s updates are now in OneDrive for Business in the cloud and Robert’s are on his local machine waiting till he reconnects to the Internet to sync.

So now, Robert arrives at his destination and connects to the Internet, what happens?

You’ll see that Robert get an error when his  OneDrive for Business next tries to synchronize to Office 365. This is a clear indication that there are sync issues.

So if Robert right muse clicks on the file that has the error and selects OneDrive for Business then View sync problems from the menu he sees the following dialog.

The result is that it seems to think there is a problem downloading the file as well a conflict. For the resolution of the conflict it says to open the file using its application to resolve.

So I did that and as you can see in the above screen shot I get no apparent options to resolve the conflict.

Ok, now the question is how do you resolve this so you can at least keep the two files and allow the one on OneDrive for Business to remain shared.

If I however simply tried to rename the file on my desktop then I still got the sync error (as it is still the same file just with another name).

After taking a copy of my local desktop file and allowing it to sync and then deleting the conflicting file from my desktop it also removed that file from OneDrive for Business in Office 365. This meant that all the changes Richard Dawson made where lost and Richard could no longer access the file since the one shared had been deleted. Basically, even though the file on my desktop was reporting a conflict deleting it also deleted versions in the cloud. Watch that.

At the moment this is where OneDrive for Business does have limitations. However, the best solution is to avoid these type of offline issues by firstly checking the file out if you believe you will need it offline for an extended period. Checking a file out means that no one else can change the file until you check it back in. That means here Robert should have checked out the file before leaving and checking in back in upon arrival. During that period Richard could not edit the file but he could at least view it.

There will always be a struggle working offline in an online world and hopefully the OneDrive for Business desktop sync app will improve soon to add more intelligence on how this is dealt with. Simply being able to rename one copy while retaining the other copy seems like the smartest thing to me. However, at the moment if you delete the conflict it deletes the sync’ed version on OneDrive for Business even though it is different, so beware of such conflicts. The best suggestion is to make a copy of the file in OneDrive for Business using a browser before attempting anything on the desktop.

Roll on an updated sync client for OneDrive for Business on the desktop I say.

In a previous post I covered how basic document collaboration and co-authoring worked with OneDrive for Business. That was in response to this question:

Does OneDrive provide any file locking at all? I.e., if two people open the same file at the same time, does it manage locking to prevent both updating the same file with conflicting updates, or does is simply provide collision notification later?

A follow question on from that was:

How is offline/synchronized file access reconciled with shared access (if at all)?

So let me address that one in this post.

If you followed along with the previous post you will know that we have two users working on a document from OneDrive for Business.

Robert Crane has a Word document in his OneDrive for Business in Office 365 called ‘cloud qualification worksheet’ that he has shared with Richard Dawson who is a member of the same Office 365 tenant.

The previous post covered how they where able to work together on the document using both Office Online and Office on the desktop as well as mixing and matching between all of the options.

Now what happens if Robert elects to sync that Word document to his desktop and work on it there. Let’s see.

As you can see above the document in question is synced to the desktop using the OneDrive for Business desktop app. You’ll notice that it is all up to date since it has a green check mark over the type icon.

If Robert right clicks on the file he received the context sensitive menu shown. He select’s Edit.

This opens the document in Word as normal for Robert. He can now start editing it.

As before, Richard now see multiple people working on the document (top right) and see that the paragraph being edited by Robert using Word is ‘locked’ (i.e. Richard can’t edit this area until Robert saves his changes) when he starts working on the document also.

Richard is free to change any other part of the document.

Let’s now return to Robert’s desktop .

When Richard starts making changes using Word Online Robert receives notification of this in his desktop document as well a corresponding ‘lock’ on the paragraph Richard is working with using Office Online in a browser as shown above. This means Robert can’t change that area that Richard is working on until Richard is complete and Robert saves and ‘refreshes’ his document.

You will also notice a little globe next to Richard name here in Robert’s version indicating Richard is editing ‘online’ (i.e. using Office Online). If you also mouse over Richard’s name you might see the message that updates are available and you should refresh the document. This means Richard has made changes and to get the latest version Robert should save and ‘refresh’.

Since Richard is using Office Online any changes he makes are automatically saved and the document in OneDrive for Business is also updated. You can tell when Office Online saves are complete by looking at the bottom of the window as shown above where it says saved.

Once these online updates are saved they are automatically available to others. If those people are also using Office Online they will see the changes immediately. If they are working ‘offline’ using Office for the desktop they will need to save and refresh their document to see the changes.

When they do so they will see the above message in their desktop application. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear in my testing that you see if overlay if one of the editors is using Office Online.

If Richard now opens the document in Word both users will get a similar experience to what was outlined in the previous post with desktop to desktop editing, so I won’t revisit that here.

Thus in summary, using the OneDrive for Business desktop app to sync files locally and opening and editing from this location while online is pretty much an identical experience to what happens if you open and edit a document directly from the browser. It allows you and others to work on the document together at the same time while keeping up to date.

You will notice if you right mouse click on the file in your OneDrive for Business location on your desktop there is a OneDrive for Business menu option as shown above. Basically the options available there simply take you directly to you OneDrive for Business in a browser to allow you to perform the selection.

Thus, if I select Share from this menu all it does it take me directly to the Share option for that file in my OneDrive for Business in a browser (I’ll also need to login to Office 365 if I haven’t already).

So, the OneDrive for Business desktop client app allows you to synchronize you files from your OneDrive for Business location in Office 365 to your desktop. When you work with these desktop sync’ed files you get very much the same co-authoring experience you would if you had opened the documents directly from a browser. Any command menu shortcuts redirect you back to browser to complete.

So now the question is what happens with this synchronization process when one of the authors is offline and makes changes? That’ll be the subject of an upcoming post so stay tuned.

I saw these questions about OneDrive for Business in a forum recently with the complaint that the said information could not be located. So I thought I’d answer them here for everyone.

1. Does OneDrive provide any file locking at all? I.e., if two people open the same file at the same time, does it manage locking to prevent both updating the same file with conflicting updates, or does is simply provide collision notification later?

OneDrive for Business supports document co-authoring. This means that a document can be opened and worked on by two people simultaneously. Here is a scenario:

Both using Office Online

So what I am going to do is directly share a file from the admin user’s OneDrive for Business with another Office 365 user, Richard Dawson in the same tenant.

In the top right of the site I get a message letting me know the document is shared.

The other user (Richard Dawson) receives an email telling him about the shared file and providing a link.

Selecting that link takes him straight to the document where he can now elect to edit it in Office Online or Office on the desktop.

In this case he chooses to edit it with Word Online.

With Richard now editing the file that I (Robert Crane) shared. I go into that same file and start editing it also in Office Online.

What Richard now sees when he is editing the file is that there is another author and the location of those authors edits are shown by a cursor as you see above, which when highlighted shows that authors name.

So now, Richard knows Robert is editing the document and can see that in the top right of the page as shown above.

Thus, when the shared OneDrive for Business document is opened in Office Online it is opened in co-authoring mode to allow multiple people to make changes while showing them what other editors are doing.

One using Office Online, one using Office on desktop

Let’s now say that Robert opens the document in Word to do more advanced editing.

Robert now gets the message and information about additional authors in the lower left of Word as shown above.

What Richard now see in his Office Online is that Robert is editing the document but doing so ‘offline’ (i.e. not in a browser).

This means that neither party can now see real time edits since they are no longer in a browser, however they can continue to edit the document together.

If Robert now starts editing the document using Word from the desktop Richard sees a ‘paragraph lock’ symbol, as shown above, indicating that someone is working on this paragraph offline. Richard is unable to edit this paragraph while that is taking place.

Now when Robert is ready he saves the document. You’ll notice that the save in the top left is actually a ‘refresh’ button. What this does is update the document in OneDrive for Business with any changes Robert made while updating the local document with changes other authors may have made elsewhere. Doing, so means that both the local copy and the current one in OneDrive for Business are up to date with everyone’s changes.

In a matter of moments the version of the document Richard is editing using Office Online is updated on the fly with the changes Robert made on desktop and the paragraph he is working on is ‘unlocked’.

Now what happens if Richard also edits the document using Word?

Richard now has the same ‘offline’ experience editing the document that Robert did. He can see other authors as shown above. he can continue to update the document at the same time as others. When he works on a part of the document that paragraph is locked for other editors until he completes his work and saves and ‘refreshes’ the document in OneDrive for Business as before.

So there you have it. In a nutshell multiple people can edit Office documents in OneDrive for Business whether via Office Online or via Office on the desktop.

Office Online allows real time viewing of edits. Office on the desktop locks paragraphs during editing until updated.

What I’ll look at in the next post is how all this works with the OneDrive for Business desktop sync client.