In SingleCase, you now have the option not to work on the document just by yourself, now you can invite other colleagues directly into its editing. Here is a brief guide. If you were to take one thing away from it, it's this: never force a collaboration to end if you see other people working on the document. Read more below.
Please always make sure that the document you want to collaborate on does not have restricted access; all users who want to collaborate on a document must have that document freely accessible directly on one drive/in Word, being assigned to a case is not sufficient in this scenario.
How do you do that?
When you right-click on a document, you can use the "Real-time collaboration" command.
You can also start collaboration from the document detail, there is an additional button next to open.
What document formats can I work on with multiple people?
Currently it works on docx, xlsx, pptx . And we are investigating the possibility to add documents with macros.
How do I determine which people I want to let into my document?
When you click on invoke real-time collaboration, it will show the option to select specific people and also add a note. The selected people will then receive an email with a link to the document.
If you don't select anyone in particular, just click on the Send button, an email will come with an invitation to collaborate to all colleagues on the file.
Or, alternatively, you can invite people via Word:
How do I join a document to which a colleague has invited me?
You have 3 options.
Click on the link in the email you received.
When you see the symbol on the document that it is open in collaborative mode, just double click on it and the system will offer you the option to join.
You can also log in to collaboration using the same buttons you use to initiate the collaboration - i.e. by clicking on the two "doll" icon, by right-clicking or from the document detail.
How does editing a document work when there are more of us?
In Word/Excel/Powerpoint, every change you make is automatically saved. And you can track other users' changes live as well.
You can also find a more detailed version history over the course of a single open collaboration and compare versions (from initiating Collaboration in real time in SingleCase to ending it in SingleCase).
You can see which users have the document open with you. In the background, every 15 minutes all edits to SC are synchronized to one latest version.
How do I end the collaboration?
Warning! Closing the document does not end the collaboration mode, it only ends your participation.
If you want to close the document completely (so for others also), you have to do it from SingleCase - either by right-clicking the “End collaboration mode” command or by clicking the button in the upper right corner of the document detail.
I want to end the collaboration, but there's still someone working on the document. What can I do?
If someone still has the document open, you will be notified when you try to end the collaboration.
In this case, open the document and see who is editing it and contact them. If you skip this step and force the collaboration to end, you risk losing the edits and changes of the users' still in the document.
What if someone ends the collaboration even though I'm still working on the documentary?
Watch out for this. If a colleague ends the collaboration in a hurry or by mistake, even though you're still working on the document, and he/she doesn't let you know, you'll know: the document will ask you if you want to save the changes. This means that the document has lost connection with the original version, because you have been basically kicked out of it. You then have to save the document on your computer and upload it yourself to SingleCase as a new version.
We made the documentary with several people, who will be listed as the author?
The author is the user who made the last change to the document before the real-time collaboration was terminated. A “Collaboration” label is automatically added to the version of the document created in this way, so that you know in retrospect that more than one of you probably worked on this version.
We forgot to close collaboration mode, what about it?
Not a big deal. If you forget to close the collaboration mode, the open real-time collaboration will close itself after seven days of no change in the document.