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Can multiple users access, enter and save data into a spreadsheet?

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Bigbear

New Member
I stumbled on this site by accident and love it! It has been very helpful as most of my questions have been asked before. But I didn't see this one out there...


I have a workbook that is going to be the repository of project progress for my team. There is a spreadsheet under a tab for each project. These spreadsheets automatically roll up into a master so our boss can look at one sheet to get an overview of where we are.


I want my team to be able to go in and update the the individual sheets but am somewhat concerned about them being in there at the same time (ie 10 min before our accountability update) and overriding each others updates. I thought "sharing" the workbook would work but kept getting overrides saying that we needed to change the name. Then have tried "sharing", having them save to different name and then "merging" the workbooks into one...that works but I would like for the process to happen automatically if possible.


I was surprised that a person didn't get a message about read-only when the file was already open but they didn't... even that would allow people to update on their own but not override or lose their updates if someone else was on as well.


I hope what I would like makes sense. Any suggestions?
 
Hi, BigBear!


First of all welcome to Chandoo's website Excel forums. Thank you for your joining us and glad to have you here.


As a starting point I'd recommend you to read the green sticky topics at this forums main page. There you'll find general guidelines about how this site and community operates (introducing yourself, posting files, netiquette rules, and so on).


Among them you're prompted to perform searches within this site before posting, because maybe your question had been answered yet.


Feel free to play with different keywords so as to be led thru a wide variety of articles and posts, and if you don't find anything that solves your problem or guides you towards a solution, you'll always be welcome back here. Tell us what you've done, consider uploading a sample file as recommended, and somebody surely will read your post and help you.


And about your question...


If you haven't performed yet the search herein, try going to the topmost right zone of this page (Custom Search), type the keywords used in Tags field when creating the topic or other proper words and press Search button. You'd retrieve many links from this website, like the following one(s) -if any posted below-, maybe you find useful information and even the solution. If not please advise so as people who read it could get back to you as soon as possible.

http://chandoo.org/forums/topic/userform-data-to-store-in-access-new-database-connection-error


Check this comment:

http://chandoo.org/forums/topic/userform-data-to-store-in-access-new-database-connection-error#post-98456


Regards!
 
I'm sorry... I wasn't clear. I did search prior to posting and didn't find an answer. My team is not a very technically savvy group so I am keeping to Excel and want to make this as easy for us all as possible. But at the same time we need to be able to update the same workbook (different tabs for each of us) but I can't figure out how to allow this without risking one person accidentally overriding anothers data if they are in at the same time.


As I mentioned I can do the merging but was wanted to see if there was another option out there that the forum could provide me with.


Thanks for all your help in advance!
 
Hi Bigbear,


Now sure what version of Excel you are using, but you might find this link useful?


http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/excel-help/use-a-shared-workbook-to-collaborate-HP010096833.aspx
 
Hi, BigBear!


If you read the link from MS which both oldchippy and me provided, you'd find that it's possible to share a workbook but with certain constraints.


If you read my comments about entering data simultaneously, you'd find out that a solution is to have the data entered on a userform in Excel and stored in an Access database or use one Excel worksheet as a database. You might find useful these links:

http://chandoo.org/forums/topic/programmers-guide-for-adodb-objects#post-98529

http://chandoo.org/wp/2012/04/02/using-excel-as-your-database/


I'm afraid that there're no out-of-the-box ready to use solution, what I posted are suggestions about what path I'd take if I were you and guidelines about how to build a solution by yourself. Keep in mind that not everyone here has access to a proper environment in which test created solutions.


Regards!
 
Hi BigBear,


I did something like this before. Can you please give brief idea about the sheets contents (individual update sheet and boss sheet).


Regards

Sreekhosh.
 
Thanks for the links provided... I did review them. It may be that I can't (within my level of expertise) do what I want.


Where I am confused is this.... I follow the directions to "share" the workbook. When others enter data and try to save, it doesn't give the conflict resolutions screen described in the instructions. Instead it basically just says to save as another name.


I am usings 2007 version.


Sreekhosh - The spreadsheets are conditional formatted and protected... I did that before I shared given the restrictions of sharing. The individual update sheets only list task, date updated and is it finished with yes or no in a dropdown. I have it set to automatically link to the "boss" sheet. So the question is really all around my team members updating without erasing others data.


Thanks
 
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