Shared Document not allowing Track Changes with multiple editors at the same time.

[nguy123123]

I'm having and issue with Teams where two people are editing the same Word Document that is shared through Microsoft Teams, and "Track Changes" is on. After a period of time the program malfunctions. Usually this is in the form of one or both of the editors not able to save back their tracked changes. This means that in order to add the tracked changes you need either redo them with only one person editing the document at a time or combine files using Word's "merge documents" feature. The problem is that you don't know when the program malfunctions. It doesn't let you know there is a problem until you hit save or go to close the document. This means you could lose/have to redo hours of work without knowing until the end. Since usually documents like this are set to auto-save, you wouldn't necessarily know there is a problem from frequent saves because you would naturally assume the document is being continually saved automatically. This might be a Sharepoint issue, but as I understand it Onedrive, Sharepoint, Teams, etc. are all basically just different UI's of the same thing.

[#2]

Hi,

Are both users working with tracked changes via the desktop office application as it is my understand that it does not work well if at all in the online version of office?

So personally I would just make use of co authoring going forwards. So you will see who is making what changes live and will also be able to reflect on part changes by way of version history if needs be.

Teams makes use of OneDrive for Business for Personal/Chat files and SharePoint Online for Team/Channel files.

But essentially yes it is SharePoint Online but Teams allows you to interface with it.

Thanks

Henry

[#3]

@HenryPhillipsNimbitech Thanks for the response. Yes both of us are using the desktop version. The co-authoring advice has been done. Unfortunately, if working with a large report (dozens or even hundreds of pages long) you won't see any of the changes necessarily being made as one user could be editing page 8 for instance with the other editing page 58.

Version history would be a way of partially tracking changes as well, however, our company policy dictates that we keep detailed records of reviews for quality assurance and legal purposes.

Thanks for the suggestions, but hopefully Microsoft fixes this issue internally. As you said since even using the online version doesn't work well as of yet, I would assume much of Microsoft Teams functionality is still a work in progress. I was just pointing out a key feature I would like to see addressed sooner than others as this is a key feature that is one of the main reasons that attracts me to using Teams. 

[#4]

Hi @nguy123123 ,

Don't quote me on this but I have a feeling that it is more tracked changes are being phased out than it being improved upon.

So I would go on the Teams User Voice and request it as a security and compliance feature like you have just done. You may even find that others have been in a similar situation in which case you can upvote.

However you will always have an audit trail as to who made what changes via Version history I am sure but I could be wrong.

Thanks

Henry

[#5]

@HenryPhillipsNimbitech Do you know how often version history is tracked in Teams? Is it in like 15 minutes increments or something?

[#6]

Hi @nguy123123,

It should just be based on each time the document changes. So whenever a save occurs, automatically or otherwise.

Thanks

Henry 

[#7 · Accepted solution]

@nguy123123 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/community/versioning-basics-best-practices

[#8]

@HenryPhillipsNimbitech BTW thanks for the Teams User Voice suggestion. That's what I thought this thread was for, I'll switch over to that forum. Thanks for the help.

[#9]

@nguy123123 Do you have the link to the uservoice? I am also experiencing the same issue with multiple editors editing at the same time.

[#10]

@Terriyaki0212 Here is the link to the post I made for this https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/908686-bug-reports/suggestions/41113708-shared-document-...