File syncing in Groove

[JasonConroy]

The main reason I installed Groove was because I thought it would
allow me and other people to work in the same excel file at the same
time and sync our edits. When I tried doing this with one other
person, it saved two versions of the file.
* The best scenario would be for the excel file to function like a
whiteboard where changes from other people appear on my desktop in
realtime and vice-versa.
* Next best case scenerio would be for Groove to auto-sync changes in
to the 'master' saved file that we could could see when we re-open the
file - this is what I thought it would do.
* Third best scenario would be for me to click on something to
manually sync the different versions of the file. I think Groove does
this but I don't know where the 'sync' button is. Can somebody please
tell me the steps to accomplish this.
With multiple files saves with different edits in them, I'm not
getting any improvement over what I was doing without Groove.
Thanks.

 

[Mark Smith]

Hi Jason -

There was a fabulous Groove add-on called GExcel which worked as your best
scenario described. Unfortunately, Microsoft/Groove made a decision to
prevent all add-ons from loading into Groove 2007.

I'm hoping that this gets reversed for the next version of Groove,

 

[Gareth Howell]

Hello Jason
I see your need, but I'm not sure Groove could ever satisfy it. At the time
you make a change to the Excel file, Groove doesn't know if your partners
are also on line. Also, Groove doesn't know anything about the internals
of an Excel file: it's just binary as far as Groove is concerned. Thus it
doesn't know how to merge changes made by more than one person if they are
made simultaneously.

What you are seeing is the result of two people making changes at the same
time. If you take turns (and the changes sync), the problem goes away. What
Groove adds to your previous solution is the ability for either party to
make changes offline and have their changes made visible to the other party
automatically.

Regards

Gareth Howell
www.elastictime.com