Collaborative excel

[imtrobin]

Hi

I 'm looking for ways to have multiple users working on excel collaboratively. I would like to host it myself, and not on other servers. I do not need full Excel functionality, so I could use another software, it just more entering data and sorting.

[Renegade]

That's pretty broad. Excel isn't a collaborative format, unless you start getting into SharePoint. But you might be served better/cheaper/easier/faster with something else. If you could say what you want to do, then it might help. Somebody might know a solution.

e.g. Zoho. Google docs. etc.

[40hz]

My clients ask about that all the time.

Some of it depends on which version of Excel you're using. And how you're defining "working collaboratively." You shouldn't have any problems with 2007 or above.

Microsoft has a good introductory article that gives you what options are available for various levels of "collaborative" use of an Excel workbook. Link here. This is where I point my clients initially when the question comes up. Most are interested in the section that's headed: Allowing multiple users to edit a workbook simultaneously. Scroll down about midway to find it.

Hope you find it helpful.

[Renegade]

Wow. It's come a long way. That's a pretty good article.

[40hz]

Wow. It's come a long way. That's a pretty good article.

-Renegade (August 02, 2011, 02:08 PM)

+1

Give Microsoft enough time, they'll usually get something working well enough that it's genuinely useful.

Credit where credit is due.

[imtrobin]

I'm looking for something more like Google Docs idea, but I like to host it myself, rather than on google servers.

Unfortunately, I don't use sharepoint, and have no plans to set that up.  I can only find hosted solutions, not offline ones.

[Stoic Joker]

Microsoft has a good introductory article that gives you what options are available for various levels of "collaborative" use of an Excel workbook. Link here. This is where I point my clients initially when the question comes up. Most are interested in the section that's headed: Allowing multiple users to edit a workbook simultaneously. Scroll down about midway to find it.

-40hz (August 02, 2011, 02:05 PM)

Cool ... Just sent that link to a client, Thanks!

[40hz]

@imtrobin - take a look at Alfresco for a Sharepoint alternative you can host yourself.

I don't know how well it may meet your specific needs. And I don't have much experience with Alfresco beyond setting up a small test environment and playing with it for a few weeks a while ago. But I do recall being very impressed with how well it stacked up against Sharepoint in a feature by feature comparison. It's pretty much the acknowledged "worthy competitor" to Microsoft's collaboration offerings.

Alfresco is a FOSS product so there's a free unsupported community edition you can download if you want to give it a try. Just commandeer a spare PC, or set up a virtual machine, load up your software and have at it. Only some hands-on experience will allow you to accurately determine if Alfresco might work for you.

Fortunately, it will only cost you your time to check it out. 

Luck!

[imtrobin]

Looks interesting, thanks!

[40hz]

Microsoft has a good introductory article that gives you what options are available for various levels of "collaborative" use of an Excel workbook. Link here. This is where I point my clients initially when the question comes up. Most are interested in the section that's headed: Allowing multiple users to edit a workbook simultaneously. Scroll down about midway to find it.

-40hz (August 02, 2011, 02:05 PM)

Cool ... Just sent that link to a client, Thanks!

-Stoic Joker (August 03, 2011, 06:50 AM)

Groovy! Don't you just LOVE IT when you can do something that easy without acting irresponsibly towards your client?

It's so rare you can in our line of business.