Co-Authoring in PowerPoint for Mac - Constant issues merging changes

Brass Contributor

I provide IT Support for a marketing firm and we are having less than ideal results co-authoring in the PowerPoint app.  

Scenario:

  • 1-3 users are co-authoring in PowerPoint (16.13.0)
  • Autosave is toggled on
  • File is stored in a Modern SharePoint Team Document Library
  • OneDrive Sync Client version: 18.091.9506.004 with option: "Let me choose to merge changes or keep both copies" checked under Sync Conflicts.

Users are constantly getting a message stating that changes couldn't be merged with another user's changes they are forced to either save a copy or discard their changes.   

 

I probably get 15-30 of these complaints a day and for a company with 65 employees, that's a fair amount.

 

Working in the browser is an option but, the formatting leaves much to be desired. 

 

Are there any improvements coming to PowerPoint for Mac that will make these conflicts occur less frequently? 

2 Replies

Hi Meg

 

We have similar issues on PC as well sometimes. 

 

I tend to find in my business (where co-authoring is a huge thing for us) that using Office 365 online is the better way to go when doing this sort of activity (appliesz to Word, Excel, etc).

 

This way everything is online through the master document and instantly saved (doesn't have to be uploaded like the app version would do through the OneDrive client so it avoids conflicts).

 

If you need the full features of PowerPoint then use the app version as needed but I would suggest the more people who use the online version to made changes, the better. Especially if they are having sync issues. 

 

See if editing in PowerPoint online helps?

 

Good luck!

 

Cheers

Damien

@Damien Rosarioand @Meg Simmons, I'm curious whether your advice is still to stay in browser. Our users are encountering similar problems (upload blocked/can't connect to server) in PPT 365 for Windows. Editing online doesn't work very well for us as our requirements go beyond the online version's capability.