SharePoint 2013 Word Track Changes Duplicate Content

June Boon 1 Reputation point
2020-07-24T16:20:38.467+00:00

Hi,

I have this client which co-authoring a Word document using Desktop Word application (Office 365 ProPlus) with track changes turned on. The document is stored in a Document Library in SharePoint 2013. There are around 10 to 30 people from different department editing the document concurrently. They encounter the following issues:

  1. The content deleted will reappear the next day and the content is duplicated to multiple pages.
  2. Some users is getting Conflict Changes for content that they did not insert.

Question:

  1. Are these issues due to the SharePoint 2013 co-authoring limitation?
  2. Will these issue be prevented if the AutoSave at the Desktop Word application is turned on?
  3. What is the recommended approach when co-authoring a Word document in SharePoint 2013?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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4 answers

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  1. Trevor Seward 11,676 Reputation points
    2020-07-25T00:49:45.277+00:00

    More or less, yes it is going to be a potential issue with the near real-time co-authoring provided by Office Web Apps/Office Online Server. Essentially, users have to save the document in order to see other's updates. In addition, if the document fails to upload from the Upload Center, it is possible that is why you're seeing deleted data reappear. For the conflicts, saving the document may cause those if someone has edited the same section.

    Recommendation is switching to SharePoint Online which has real-time co-authoring and, in general, doesn't run into these issues.

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  2. Jerry Xu 256 Reputation points
    2020-07-27T06:41:22.407+00:00

    Mostly is just like Trevor said, you need to first save the document then other users will notice the new version of document. Turning Auto-Save will save end user's work to save the document repeatedly. However as you mention there are quite a lot of people editing the file simultaneously, I assume this will not bring dramatic change on user experience.

    Migration to SharePoint Online is always the best approach where we can provide much better experience. And of course if this not an option for you (at least for a period of time), have a try considering adding more stages to hold different groups of people. I.E , split all 10 people into 3 groups and make each group edit the file in a certain order.

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  3. Thiago Silva 1 Reputation point
    2021-02-25T13:19:30.417+00:00

    Hi there,

    We are using SharePoint Online and have the same issue here. Any thoughts?

    Thanks!

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  4. jtech 1 Reputation point
    2022-02-19T17:34:50.863+00:00

    This problem still exists. We work on a document with eight people via SharePoint and use the auto-save option to edit the document with the Word client. Sometimes whole paragraphs are taken twice. Can it be so difficult to program a reasonable versioning Microsoft? This is a real problem!

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