Collaborative authoring connects Vault to Microsoft 365 to allow multiple users to edit a document at the same time using the Microsoft 365 desktop software or browser apps. Collaborative Authoring can be used with Microsoft Word (*.docx), Excel (*.xlsx and *.xlsm), and PowerPoint (*.pptx) documents.
See FAQ: Collaborative Authoring for a list of frequently asked questions related to using collaborative authoring.
Important: The Vault UI refers to Microsoft 365 as Microsoft Office, Office Online, and Office 365.
Demo: Using Collaborative Authoring
The following video demonstrates how to edit a document using collaborative authoring and save the changes to Vault:
Starting Collaboration Sessions
If a document is compatible with collaborative authoring and you have the appropriate permissions, you will see an Edit button above the document. Click Edit to start a collaboration session. You can also select Edit in Microsoft Office from the document’s Actions menu.
Your browser may prompt you to confirm that you want to open the document. The document opens in Microsoft 365 on your desktop. Keep your Vault browser window open while you edit.
Other users with correct permissions can also join your collaboration session to edit the document at the same time. When another user opens the document, you will see an icon appear in the Microsoft Word menu bar. Click the icon to see where in the document the user is currently editing or to contact that user. If you don’t see other users’ edits, make sure you’re viewing the document in Print view.
Joining Collaboration Sessions
When another user starts a collaboration session on a document, you can join the session and edit the document in Microsoft 365. When you open the document in Vault, a banner at the top of the page stating that another user started Collaborative Authoring and a message on the document that it is being edited. Click the Edit button in the Collaborative Authoring banner to join the session and see the latest updates.
Editing Files in your Browser
If you don’t have Microsoft 365 installed on your computer, you can edit a document with Microsoft 365 in your web browser. Click the question mark icon in the Collaborative Authoring banner and click open in browser. In the dialog, click Continue. This will set your preference for Microsoft 365 in the browser so that each time you start or join a collaboration session, the document will open in your browser automatically.
Saving Changes
When you start a collaboration session to edit a Vault document, the file is stored in an Microsoft 365 shared drive. Changes made by any user who joins the collaboration session are saved to the Microsoft 365 file and are only shown in Vault when you perform either Save to Vault or Check In. Both actions create a new minor version of the document in Vault. Save to Vault allows the collaboration session to continue, whereas Check In ends the collaboration session and allows the document to progress through its lifecycle.
The following users can perform either Save to Vault or Check In when multiple users are editing a document:
- The user who started the collaboration session, the Document Owner, Vault Owners, and users with the All Document Actions permission can use Check In.
- Users with the Edit Document role-based permission can use the Save to Vault action.
To Save to Vault or Check In a document:
- Save your changes in Microsoft 365.
- Return to your Vault browser window and click Save to Vault or Check In from the drop-down in the Collaborative Authoring banner. If you do not see these options, you may not have the appropriate permissions.
- Optional: In the pop-up dialog, enter a Version Description.
- Click either Save to Vault or Check In to create a new minor version in Vault.
When you Check In the document, the collaboration session ends for everyone, so first check whether other users have finished editing the document. Any additional changes made in Microsoft 365 after the Check In are not synced with the Microsoft 365 file. If you made further changes to the document after you checked it in, we recommend saving a copy of the file to your desktop.
Note: When you check out a document from Vault (for example, version 1.1), merge fields for the document version display 1.1 because they reflect the merge field values at the time of checkout. During a collaborative authoring session, merge fields retain the values from the initial document checkout.
When you use Save to Vault to save the document to Vault, Vault creates version 1.2 and syncs all document content to the collaboration session except for merge fields. Vault displays the current version number as 1.2, but merge field values are not synced to the collaborative authoring session automatically, so the merge fields continue to display 1.1. To see the updated version number 1.2 in the merge fields in the collaborative authoring session, use Check In to check in the document and end the collaboration session, and then check out the document and begin a new collaboration session.
Canceling Collaboration Sessions
Once a collaboration session has started, users with the appropriate permissions can cancel the session. Canceling the collaboration session ends it for all users, and any changes that haven’t been saved to Vault are discarded.
To cancel a collaboration session:
- Close Microsoft 365 and return to your Vault browser window.
- From the drop-down next to the Edit in Microsoft Office () button, select Cancel Editing ().
- Click Continue in the Cancel Editing dialog to confirm that you want to cancel the collaboration session without checking in the latest edit version.
Collaborative Authoring Workflows
Incorporating collaborative authoring into configured workflows in Vault provides additional automation and control. Your Admin may configure a collaborative authoring session to automatically start (check out) or end (check in or cancel) via workflow actions and lifecycle states. If so, you don’t need to manually check out or check in a document because the collaborative authoring session begins or ends as soon as the document moves to the configured state or action step.
When using automatic checkout with a workflow, you can tag workflow participants in the Office 365 file using the @mention functionality, without authors needing to open the document in collaborative authoring first.
Note: If these actions are configured, they execute asynchronously. You may need to refresh your browser to see when a document is checked in or checked out. When a check-in occurs via a workflow or lifecycle action, the user who triggered the check-in action must navigate to the checked-in version.
Troubleshooting Collaborative Authoring Errors
Users with the Admin: Logs: Collab Auth Error Logs permission can navigate to Admin > Logs > Collaborative Authoring Error Log to view the Microsoft Graph API errors generated while using collaborative authoring. This permission is enabled automatically for System Administrators, Business Administrators, and Vault Owners.
Limitations
- Microsoft indicates that co-authoring is designed to work for small teams of about five to ten users. Veeva’s testing has shown that co-authoring performance varies with the number of users and the size of the document.
- Microsoft Word (*.docx) documents checked out for collaborative authoring do not display annotations made in Vault.
- Collaborative authoring does not support macro-enabled Microsoft Word files (*.docm)
- Collaborative authoring supports automatic mentioning through workflows only. If a workflow is not used, you can only @mention users in the file after they have opened the document in collaborative authoring.
- Microsoft 365 does not support @mentioning external users (users who are not part of your organization’s directory).
- When starting a collaborative authoring session using a workflow action and adding workflow participants, Vault can only grant Write permission for the document to up to 15 participants. When adding more than 15 participants, none of the participants are granted Write permission.
Related Permissions
To participate in collaborative authoring, an Admin must grant you the appropriate permissions.