Shared workbooks are a great feature of Microsoft Excel. You should set up ‘shared workbooks’ if the participation of many people is required to complete a project. This feature allows you to collaborate with other members of your team quickly and easily. In short, a shared workbook is configured to allow multiple users on a network to edit it simultaneously. In fact, the team can see the data at the same time. For example, the boss may need to know the status of a project. Often times, if the same group is working on multiple projects, they may also need to know the status of each other’s progress.
How is the shared workbook configured? One of the people on the team can create a standard template or workbook where data from different people can be entered based on their experience. In a tour operator scenario, one of the people will enter the airfares, another will take care of the accommodation, and yet another will finalize the local sightseeing in a taxi or bus. Once the workbook has been prepared in the proper format, the workbook is saved to a shared folder on the network which is then made available to everyone working on the project.
Since some Excel features can be used or viewed, but not changed once the workbook is shared, the workbook author should ensure that features such as data validation, charts, conditional formatting, merged cells, hyperlinks , scenarios, pivot table reports, worksheet protection, and macros are carefully built in and configured before sharing is implemented.
Now for the cool part: If two users edit the same cell in a shared workbook worksheet, a conflict resolution window pops up and you can decide which changes you want to accept. Also, every time a team member saves the shared workbook, she receives an update notice. She can also automatically highlight or track changes.
As you can see, you work in a shared workbook as you would any workbook with the main advantage that the shared workbook improves team productivity by utilizing your expertise on a project and you can see who is working on it. workbook at any time. of time.