Document Library Edit permissions issue - changes templates and forms

[andreaburgess1976]

Hi

I have a document library using sharepoint online which holds lots of forms and templates which we use on a daily basis.

Everyone will be set up to have read only access so they can "save as" and complete the forms for use which is great.

Each of these forms has a owner and an approver and is set up for version control. These people will have edit access as they need to review documents annually and make changes to the templates if required. 

My issue is that if these users click on any of the templates to use them (not review them), whether they are the owner or not, auto save writes over and if they forget to "save as" then the templates will be changed on sharepoint and the documents go back to draft versions ready to be published again and it will trigger the approval workflow.

I have tried uploading read only documents but SP seems to ignore this if they have edit access.

My question is, can I turn auto save off for my doc library as a whole (not getting users to do it individually) and is there a better way of managing these permissions to save owners being able to edit all of the documents in the library when using them daily?

thanks

andrea 

[#2]

Hi @andreaburgess1976 - this is a round about way of answering your question. Have you thought about adding the templates to the +New menu  in your library? Nobody will accidently edit a template and the owners can replace the templates in that menu once a year. We've found it to be a very useful feature in SPO.

[#3]

Hiya, thanks for replying. Yes we use templates and content types for the owners create the forms but we have hundreds of forms so I'm not sure this would work for us

[#4]

To my knowledge you can't turn auto save off for a doc library as a whole.
The only thing I can think of is to activate the always open the document in read-only mode for each document (go into File/information/protect document.). This apply to Office documents.

I hope Microsoft will provide the option to set the opening mode at a library level because this is pretty bad for libraries having approval process as people can edit document by mistake....

https://sharepoint.uservoice.com/forums/329214-sites-and-collaboration/suggestions/34393561-requests...