Concurrent open sessions of a file

Copper Contributor

I am an admin at a small lumber yard, and one of my users is having an issue. We recently signed up for 365, specifically business standard for office employees, and business basic for our yard guys. Our delivery manager uses an excel doc to manage the delivery schedule which is located in teams and set to read only for most of the company. It is constantly viewed by most users, multiple times a day, and there are a few spots it just stays open in read only mode. We actually display it for customers at the sales counter.

 

The issue is this. Sometimes the "autosave" feature will just turn off. often around midday, like 1 or 2 pm. Due to him not being incredibly technical he doesn't often notice it, and suddenly will realize sometimes hours later that his changes haven't been syncing to the cloud. This happens maybe once or twice a week.

 

The delivery manager has the file open all the time. He has the SharePoint folder synced to his desktop, so he usually accesses it through the excel desktop app, but he also often has it open in teams, I believe just so he can see how everyone else sees it? He also will use it a lot on the teams app on his phone when not at his desk. At this time it is usually still open at his desk because he only closes it at the end of the day.

 

Log files show nothing weird. I increased the ram on his computer recently and cleaned up files because I noticed he was getting close on both counts, but that didn't fix it either. He is fully updated, I ran SFC and DISM just because "why not, can't hurt..." and I can't find any other obvious causes. No other users are experiencing this error, but no other users leave a file open all day, or open it in multiple locations simultaneously.

 

My next thoughts, which I haven't been able to find google answers for, are this. Is there a limit to the number of simultaneous open sessions of a file in read only mode? Is there a limit to how many locations one user can have the same file open simultaneously? Is there a time out for sessions that he might hit which can disable "autosave"? Any other thoughts?

 

Sorry about the wordiness, I am hoping I answered all potential questions up front. Thanks in advance!!!

2 Replies

Hi @Jack_Patterson 

 

I am an independent advisor responding to inquiries.

 

You can post the content - not the file - as a Loop component on MS Teams.  Then the users can review, and the manager can update the info in real-time at any time. This way the manager can log on anytime from any device without timing out issues.   

 

If you find this information helpful, please like it.

@Teresa_Cyrus It seems as though a loop component will allow me to make a table or some other simple file. Unfortunately the file I am using is more complex than the limitations of that loop component. Granted, I have never used one, so perhaps I am underestimating its potential, but given that we are using a full fledged excel file utilizing multiple sheets, it doesn't seem appropriate. That being said, my user has stopped opening the file in any programs other than excel, and he shuts down every evening. The error continues to happen, about once a week, usually between 12 and 2pm, and he usually notices at the end of the day. This means that about once a week he is timing out after 5 hours and losing about 4 hours of work, give or take. That also means that usually the file is open for 9 or so hours without issue on most days.