4 ms·

But how do you handle sharing? The main issue with Excel, and its main downfall, is the sharing of data and versioning, with person X has an older version of pe

by keyle 7y ago

But how do you handle sharing? The main issue with Excel, and its main downfall, is the sharing of data and versioning, with person X has an older version of person Y by a few hours and needs an email of person X to keep doing her job.

jhoechtl 7y ago
Sharepoint or Office 365
- keyle 7y ago
  Thanks I actually didn't know that.
discordance 7y ago
If it's O365 Excel, then you can share and work on the same spreadsheet in a similar way to Google Sheets (seeing other peoples real time cursor in your spreadsheet etc).
- ryanjshaw 7y ago
  Be very, very careful with this. There are some update/race condition bugs in Excel Online that result in multiple users causing bulk updates to incorrectly update the filtered/sorted view of other users.
  - unixhero 7y ago
    This race condition happens often. In fact about every time I try to rely on it with my team. Such a shame Google Drive isn't seem as a "trusted platform" in my client environment.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    Douglass Engelbart rolls over in his grave.
tsimionescu 7y ago
Sharing Excel sheets is extremely easy - you just mail them, or host them in some online place, like SharePoint if you've bought into the whole MS ecosystem like many companies do. Not sure what your point is there. Versioning is of course more difficult, though Excel does support diffing in principle. I expect though that what most people end up doing is simply keeping track of versions manually, same as they would have in the days before excel.
- fartcannon 7y ago
  Diffing in principle is not diffing in reality. It's terrible at best. I 'm not sure what your point is.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  > Sharing Excel sheets is extremely easy - you just mail them Unless the other computer is set to a different locale and your data contains formatted numbers and dates. Then everything breaks.
  - kyberias 7y ago
    Are you sure? I'm pretty sure Excel doesn't store numbers or dates in localized format.
    - dmitriid 7y ago
      They may have finally fixed it in the later versions. I remember it being a pain in an office that had multiple locales on various PCs.
- signal11 7y ago
  OneDrive now supports versioning of documents, and the latest Office 365 uses this to offer “autosave” and version history. I’ve not really dug into the feature but it’s very visible on the latest builds.
fzumstein 7y ago
With a few tricks, you can actually use a professional version control system like Git with Excel, see the slides of my recent webinar: https://www.slideshare.net/xlwings/git-for-excel-files-webinar https://www.slideshare.net/xlwings/git-for-excel-files-webin...
wastedhours 7y ago
We tend to keep ours on Sharepoint - which means we could use Excel Online to work collaboratively, but usually we don't need them all at the same time, so open in Excel desktop and "check it out". If someone else needs it, they can just ping on Skype and see if you're done.
halfeatenpie 7y ago
Honestly, people handle sharing via Google Drive/Dropbox/Enterprise solution plus file naming convention. The current enterprise network I'm on? They block Box, Dropbox, and a lot of other solutions. They instead use Citrix's ShareFile and a NAS setup with file naming. Also remember, surprisingly most of these critical infrastructure planning isn't handled by hundreds of people, at most it's a team of 5 people who then present their findings and suggestions to the C-suite decision makers. It's not as big of a problem as many people think.

by keyle 7y ago

jhoechtl 7y ago

Sharepoint or Office 365

keyle 7y ago
Thanks I actually didn't know that.

discordance 7y ago

If it's O365 Excel, then you can share and work on the same spreadsheet in a similar way to Google Sheets (seeing other peoples real time cursor in your spreadsheet etc).

ryanjshaw 7y ago
Be very, very careful with this. There are some update/race condition bugs in Excel Online that result in multiple users causing bulk updates to incorrectly update the filtered/sorted view of other users.
- unixhero 7y ago
  This race condition happens often. In fact about every time I try to rely on it with my team. Such a shame Google Drive isn't seem as a "trusted platform" in my client environment.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  Douglass Engelbart rolls over in his grave.

tsimionescu 7y ago

Sharing Excel sheets is extremely easy - you just mail them, or host them in some online place, like SharePoint if you've bought into the whole MS ecosystem like many companies do. Not sure what your point is there. Versioning is of course more difficult, though Excel does support diffing in principle. I expect though that what most people end up doing is simply keeping track of versions manually, same as they would have in the days before excel.

fartcannon 7y ago
Diffing in principle is not diffing in reality. It's terrible at best. I 'm not sure what your point is.
dmitriid 7y ago
> Sharing Excel sheets is extremely easy - you just mail them Unless the other computer is set to a different locale and your data contains formatted numbers and dates. Then everything breaks.
- kyberias 7y ago
  Are you sure? I'm pretty sure Excel doesn't store numbers or dates in localized format.
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    They may have finally fixed it in the later versions. I remember it being a pain in an office that had multiple locales on various PCs.
signal11 7y ago
OneDrive now supports versioning of documents, and the latest Office 365 uses this to offer “autosave” and version history. I’ve not really dug into the feature but it’s very visible on the latest builds.

fzumstein 7y ago

With a few tricks, you can actually use a professional version control system like Git with Excel, see the slides of my recent webinar: https://www.slideshare.net/xlwings/git-for-excel-files-webinar https://www.slideshare.net/xlwings/git-for-excel-files-webin...

wastedhours 7y ago

We tend to keep ours on Sharepoint - which means we could use Excel Online to work collaboratively, but usually we don't need them all at the same time, so open in Excel desktop and "check it out". If someone else needs it, they can just ping on Skype and see if you're done.

halfeatenpie 7y ago

Honestly, people handle sharing via Google Drive/Dropbox/Enterprise solution plus file naming convention. The current enterprise network I'm on? They block Box, Dropbox, and a lot of other solutions. They instead use Citrix's ShareFile and a NAS setup with file naming. Also remember, surprisingly most of these critical infrastructure planning isn't handled by hundreds of people, at most it's a team of 5 people who then present their findings and suggestions to the C-suite decision makers. It's not as big of a problem as many people think.