Dropbox creates conflicted copy even when excel spreadsheet editing is password protected

[MMS_Admin]

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 conflicted copy appeared, and it seems that two people were able to enter the password and edit the spreadsheet at the same time.

I'm trying to investigate how this happened, and some searching brings up threads about offline working...

I don't quite understand the offline working, as I thought the files were live-synced?

Is offline working something that can be turned off?

How can we ensure that a spreadsheet can only be edited by one person at a time - any advice / suggestions please?

Thank you for your help 🙂

[Rich · Accepted solution]

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@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').

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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.

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Is offline working something that can be turned off?

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That's not the issue.

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How can we ensure that a spreadsheet can only be edited by one person at a time - any advice / suggestions please?

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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.

• https://help.dropbox.com/organize/file-locking

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]

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:

1. Open the Dropbox folder on your computer.
2. Right-click the file you’d like to lock or unlock.
3. Click Lock Editing or Unlock Editing.

[Megan]

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_Admin]

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.