Hello,
How do I prevent Excel files modifications by different users? The modification/files are being saved on separate excel files and are not reconciliated.
Hi @stephane.emond,
odrive doesn’t have a way to determine if users on other machines have an Excel file open or to facilitate “co-authoring”, where multiple users can edit a file at the same time.
The behavior you are seeing sounds like odrive’s conflict detection/resolution.
A conflict is detected when:
- A file has been downloaded on more than one system
- System 1 makes a change, saves the file, and the file is uploaded.
- System 2 makes a change and saves the file. This change is now “divergent”. When odrive tries to upload System2’s file, it sees that the file has been changed on the remote (by System 1) between the time the file was downloaded and now, when it is trying to upload the edit. A conflict scenario is detected and Systems 2’s file will be renamed with an appended (conflict) at the end and then uploaded.
We also added a pop-up alert in our recent versions that will inform the user that a conflict scenario has occurred:
The odrive sync activity log will also show detailed information about any conflict scenario that is detected:
Even though odrive will do its best to deal with conflicts so that all data is retained, it can’t beat user coordinated process/workflow. The best way to mitigate conflict situations is to create a good process around collaborative editing. That’s why we always recommend that users practice some amount of coordination when working on the same files to try to minimize conflict scenarios.
I believe your company is using Procore, in which case you can make also use of a couple of Procore features:
-
Procore’s check-out feature will prevent uploads of files that are checked-out.
Check Out/In a File in Procore Drive - Procore -
Procore’s tracking features help to create cues and notifications for specific files/folders that may be more likely to fall under a collaborative editing scenario:
Track File and Folder Changes in the Project Level Documents Tool - Procore -
odrive also has an advanced feature to disable file branching on conflict detection, so that file changes will always upload as an update to the same file. For Procore storage this would mean that the last file uploaded would be the “latest” version, and the previous edits would exist as previous versions:
Advanced client options. I don’t think this is the behavior you would want, but I wanted to point it out, just in case.