One of the great features of Office Online is the capability to co-author documents with others in your team at the same time, providing you with real time collaboration in the cloud. 

The following addresses some of the common questions about co-authoring documents using Office Online. If you need more details on co-authoring in Office Online, please visit the Microsoft Office Online help centre.

How do I co-author documents?

To co-author a document is easy. Simply open the supporting document using the Open in Office Online option and begin editing!

Other team members can open the same document in Office Online and you will see each others changes in real-time with all changes being saved back to the MyWorkpapers Working Paper Index. 

Can I co-author checked out or downloaded to my local desktop?

No, co-authoring does not work on Office documents accessed from your desktop.

To co-author a document, you must open the document in MyWorkpapers using the Open in Office Online option.

Co-authoring will not work:

• In supporting documents marked as Complete;
• In workpaper files which have been Archived; or
• If you do not have adequate Permissions to edit supporting documents in the workpaper file

In the above situations, you can continue to take advantage of the Office Online Preview from the workpaper summary page, but you will not be able to make changes in Office Online. 

Who can use the co-authoring feature?

Any staff members in your firm who have an active Office 365 Subscription.

If you do not have an active Office 365 subscription, you can purchase one from Microsoft here.

What file types will co-authoring work with?

• .xlsx
• .docx