Multiple users working on the same document at the same time?

[thamilanga]

Is it possible to have multiple users working on the same document offline/online at the same time? If so, what happens when they upload/save, does alfresco consolidate the inputs or does it apply versioning?

[afaust · Accepted solution]

There is an optional integration with GoogleDocs that allows simultaneous editing by multiple users. Other than that, Alfresco does not really have a concurrent editing capability. You can technically use the Alfresco Office Services (AOS) solution to open files by multiple users concurrently and the SharePoint protocols / Office applications will warn about overriding other users version when you save and allow you to merge in changes before you save. But this feature is restricted to Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) files.

Some community members have also implemented Etherpad-integrations for concurrent editing of simple text documents.

[thamilanga]

thank you very much..

[davidcognite]

Also, to address the question on what happens if simultaneous edits are made: Alfresco does not attempt to consolidate or merge the two changed versions, the latest to save 'wins' and previous saves will be versioned as usual.

We're reconsidering that behaviour in some specific cases: when editing security controls on a document using RM 2.5, we send a partial update of the content to allow for better handling of concurrent editing, e.g. if user A and user B both edit a document to add marks at the same time and user A adds mark1, while user B adds mark2, when they save, both marks will be added.