You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
MMS_Admin
2 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Dropbox creates conflicted copy even when excel spreadsheet editing is password protected
Hi,
We have issues with conflicted copies, so added a password to a shared excel spreadsheet to only allow editing if the password was entered (and the prompt to 'read only').
Today another c...
- 2 years ago
MMS_Admin wrote:
We have issues with conflicted copies, so added a password to a shared excel spreadsheet to only allow editing if the password was entered (and the prompt to 'read only').
That won't do anything. Remember that each person has their own copy of a file and Dropbox can't (normally) tell when more than one person has it open. All the password is doing is protecting that local copy of the file. It's not linked back to any other copy of the file through Dropbox.
Is offline working something that can be turned off?
That's not the issue.
How can we ensure that a spreadsheet can only be edited by one person at a time - any advice / suggestions please?If you're on a Dropbox Professional or Business account, you can lock a file to prevent a file from being edited. This is a manual process, so a person would need to lock a file, open it so they can make their changes, and then unlock it so others can edit it again.
If you're not on a Professional of Business account, there is no way to prevent more than one person from editing a file at the same time, but you can make use of the Dropbox Badge to know when others have opened certain Office file types.
Rich
Super User II
MMS_Admin wrote:
We have issues with conflicted copies, so added a password to a shared excel spreadsheet to only allow editing if the password was entered (and the prompt to 'read only').
That won't do anything. Remember that each person has their own copy of a file and Dropbox can't (normally) tell when more than one person has it open. All the password is doing is protecting that local copy of the file. It's not linked back to any other copy of the file through Dropbox.
Is offline working something that can be turned off?
That's not the issue.
How can we ensure that a spreadsheet can only be edited by one person at a time - any advice / suggestions please?
If you're on a Dropbox Professional or Business account, you can lock a file to prevent a file from being edited. This is a manual process, so a person would need to lock a file, open it so they can make their changes, and then unlock it so others can edit it again.
If you're not on a Professional of Business account, there is no way to prevent more than one person from editing a file at the same time, but you can make use of the Dropbox Badge to know when others have opened certain Office file types.
MMS_Admin
2 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Hi Rich,
Thank you so much for your reply.
I'm told that we do have a Professional account, but when I follow the below process and right-click, I don't see the option to lock the file - so does this mean we don't have a Professional account?
To lock or unlock a file using the Dropbox desktop app:
- Open the Dropbox folder on your computer.
- Right-click the file you’d like to lock or unlock.
- Click Lock Editing or Unlock Editing.
- Megan2 years agoDropbox Staff
Hi MMS_Admin, happy Thursday!
It could be a possibility that your plan wouldn't align, let's check!
Can you visit your account's plan page, and let me know what it reports?
Thanks a bunch!
- MMS_Admin2 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Hi Megan,
I've checked and it seems we are on Basic, so I guess that stifles that workaround lol .
Thank you for your help anyway.
About Delete, edit, and organize
Solve issues with deleting, editing, and organizing files and folders in your Dropbox account with support from the Dropbox Community.
Need more support
If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.
For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.
If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!