Co-Authoring and Collaboration

Files.com supports co-authoring for files within your site. Users can collaborate with other users and with share link recipients, including commenting, reviewing, and accepting changes. Real-time collaboration works for dozens of users at once.

Co-Authoring Via An Online Editor Integration

When co-authoring a document, every person editing the document must use an online editor integration within Files.com, either the Files.com editor or Microsoft Office for Web.

The online editor cannot be used with other remote editors. For example, if a document is stored in a remote mount of a SharePoint server, your users cannot simultaneously edit that document through the Files.com editor and through SharePoint online. Their edits will not be shared. The people working in SharePoint will be using one copy of the document, and the people working in the online editor integration will be using a different copy. Whoever saves the document last will overwrite all of the changes made using the other system without any warning.

Files.com does not support co-authoring with desktop programs. When a user opens a document using the Desktop Application directly on their device at the same time that users are editing the document in the online editor, they are editing different copies of the file. If the desktop user saves the document before the online session ends, the online editor's changes will overwrite the desktop user's changes.

File Locking

Files.com uses locks to protect files that are opened for writing. Other systems that attempt to open the file for writing will be informed that the file is in use.

For example, if you use Microsoft Word for Desktop to open a file using a mapped drive letter with Desktop App, the system will check whether the file is locked. When someone else is already editing the same document in Microsoft Word for Desktop in the same way, you will be informed that they are editing and prompted for whether you'd like to view the file as read-only.

These locks will prevent users from starting a co-authoring session using an online editor while the desktop editor is editing the document, and vice versa.

This feature uses file locks that are specific to Files.com. These locks are supported by Desktop App and the online editors. Other popular clients, such as WinSCP, Mountain Duck or Filezilla, do not support this locking feature.

Saving Changes

When you use an online editor to make changes (including co-editing with others), the working file is temporarily copied to the editor sub-system.

As you make changes to the document within the Files.com editor, changes are automatically uploaded from the editor system to your site every 2 to 5 minutes. When the Files.com editor is closed, any remaining changes are uploaded from the editor system to your site. This results in a small delay before changes are reflected in your site.

After the changes have finished uploading, the last modified time of the file in your site will reflect that recent activity, and you can preview or download the most recent version from your site.

Logging Changes from a Co-Authoring Session

Using an online editor integration to work on a standard business document file creates new entries in your file activity history. The interface for these entries will be "Office".

Creating a new work document appears in the logs as creating the file, just as if you uploaded it.

While you are editing a file using an online editor, the editor will automatically save your changes every 2 to 5 minutes. Leaving the editor open for several minutes with no changes will not trigger uploads back to your storage from the editor. These actions will appear as changes in the file history.

During a co-authoring session with multiple people, all of the entries in the activity history will appear with the user ID of the first person to start the session.

When you close the online editor, any changes that have not been saved yet will be automatically saved, and this will appear as a change in your file history.

Logging Versus Track Changes

Because Files.com history logs attribute every change in a co-authoring session to the user who started the session, the logs cannot tell you which collaborator made which specific edit. Once the session is over, that attribution is not recoverable from the logs.

To attribute specific edits to specific collaborators, enable Track Changes in the Files.com editor. Changes are then treated as suggestions, and each edit is labeled with the editor's name and a timestamp. Teams can review changes and accept them into the final version.