Co-Authoring: OneDrive and Excel, changes not merging

Copper Contributor

Hi, 

 

In my company, we have a macro-enabled Excel file that has to be opened in three computers at the same time, where two of them will be updating data. 

 

Suddenly, every five minutes of so, we get the message that says "Your file wasn't saved because we couldn't merge your changes with changes from someone else"

 

When I click on learn more, it says the changes made by X person in VBA were not saved. However, X person is the one logged in the computer that is just projecting; thus, not making changes. 

 

Any clues? 

4 Replies

Hi @debbiebv ,

 

Co-authoring doesn't play well with macros I am afraid. It is just a limitation of the product.  In these instances the only way to stop the issues is to use checkin-checkout of the files. 

 

I have advised customers to switch to storing their data in a SharePoint list and then reporting on that data with a connected excel file. That way data can be updated by many people at once without the issues.  Not always a solution for everyone. 

@Andrew Hodges thanks for your answer, 

 

Yes, I was almost sure that is the issue. 

 

The problem is that what we have is a seat assigner. People "punch in" and "punch out" for lunch time and the macro assigns them an empty seat and then clears it when they leave so it can be assigned to someone else. 

Seat assigner.png
We have two computers so they can punch in in one and out in the other one. And then we have a third one that just displays the seats occupied on the cafeteria screens. 

 

Thus, we must use the excel file. We had it in SharePoint originally and then moved it to OneDrive. 

 

 

@debbiebv 

 

I think that has to be one of the most unusual uses of excel I have seen!

 

Appreciate the phrase "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but in this case it probably is broken in Excel online with what you want to do.

 

Power Apps would be the way to go for this I would have thought. 

@Andrew Hodges 

Hahahaha I know, it is more like a dashboard and it is a great solution for our issue. Due to covid, we need to track who seats next to whom, and make good use of the seats available. So, this covers it. It's a shame we cannot have two use it at the same time.