IFS Cloud - Document Management - Flexibility to edit documents by multiple users at same time

Hi @EqeMithuV Could you please further explain what is the output you expect from such a functionality? If it was given the possibility for multiple users to edit a document at the same time,  how should the system identify what is the correct file that should be saved as the final doc when they check in? because multiple users may have multiple contents in their edited document. 

> I have requirement from customer where they would like to have such option in IFS which allows multiple users to edit the same document at same time.

Does that mean what you can do if you use Google Documents and many people collaborate on the same document, or when they do the same in Microsoft Office (I think it requires Office 365)?

That is something that is not integrated with IFS Cloud today but we are thinking on how we can support such a scenario in the future.

> As far as I am aware in IFS it is not possible to access the document by other users until it is been checked back in by the user who checkout to edit the document.

It depends what you mean with "access". If a document is checked out for editing, then it cannot be checked out for editing by someone else. But other persons can view the existing document in the document repository. That's not what you want though.

> So, do we have any such functionality in IFS Cloud??

No.

> or Any work around solution to achieve this requirement.

Perhaps. How about this: one person checks out the document for edit. They then share the checked out copy to his friends and they can all collaborate on that copy. Then, when the work is done. The person who checked the document out for editing will check it in to IFS again.

Give it a go and report back here.
 

Hi @Mathias Dahl and @Dilini Arandara 

Firstly thanks for your response!!

Currently they are using the Microsoft team to handle such scenarios where they share document in the teams SharePoint which allow to edit the document collaboratively.

So, as we don't see any other option and as you suggested will ask customer to continue the document building process in team SharePoint and once the document is fully built then it can be brought into IFS.

Also, I have one more question, do we have any possibility in IFS to amend the document details based on the values in object to which the it is connected.

for example, we have template document revision for SLA and when I create a new document revision and connect to service contract then the template document will be copied and we can edit that document accordingly. But I want system to automatically remove certain sections of that document based on the work type of service lines connected to contract.

Can we achieve this using Macros???
 

Regards,

Mithun K V

Just for info

The work around we plan to implement is that each one of users have a company Onedrive account that is synced to their PC. We then set the “Document Management/Basic Data/User Settings” for each IFS user to be “C:\Users\Name\OneDrive - Company Name\IFS CheckOut”. So once the IFS document has been checked out the user is free to share it with who they need so multiple people can work on it, and then be check in when the document has been completed. 

It works fine in test, but interested in your thoughts.

Regards

Mark

hi, 

to follow up in the same threat - I’ve got a customer asking about something similar, being able to have multiple people editing or collaborating in the same document, similar to Office 365

@Mathias Dahl you mentioned a year ago that was scenario that was being looked into - is there any update? is it somewhere in the roadmap for DocMan?

thank you

Ana 

It was on the road map, but maps change, due to changing priorities. This is something we want to look into at some point and the prime candidate is to see if we can integrate with Teams in some way, thus leveraging the collaboration there.

For now, you need to check out/edit the document in Docman, add that to Teams and collaborate there. Then, when ready, you need to manually check the revised document back in to IFS. I know, ancient, right?, but not that hard either... 😛