Dropbox alternative No conflicted copies

Yes, office365 will do what you want.  You do have to have both the software (word, excel, outlook) along with the online versions of the same. The online versions do not have all the capability that the desktop versions do.  But you can have multiple people editing the same document and see their changes live.  It is pretty cool.

You will need to use sharepoint along with ms word.

There is going to be some learning curve.   You are essentially getting server functions but in the cloud.  I think you can do the same thing with google apps for business.  It is like driving an automatic car vs stick shift.  One is easy and one takes some thought and you have more control.

thanks Scott. but is there a way to lock a file?
ie - if user A is working on a doc, user B cant access the same file
he or she gets a message to say the file is in use or something similar?

I don't remember. I'm sure you can. I had a client that used office365 for a month and decided on using google apps so I can't get back in to verify.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/document-collaboration-and-co-authoring-HA102772333.aspx

can someone clarify this? i spent a while reading the blurb from the link above but couldnt find a straight answer.
i tried google drive but that seemed too messy.

" but is there a way to lock a file?
ie - if user A is working on a doc, user B cant access the same file
he or she gets a message to say the file is in use or something similar?"

thanks Jeffrey. I'm trying to get to grips with it! it will take me a few days but i will report back.

Jeffrey. one thing. the customer is currently using Google apps for their email.
Will this cause an issue/conflict with office 365?

Jeffrey. The more I think about it, the more
I think we are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut! All he wants is the file sharing feature. Not all the other stuff which he doesn't need. And it's pricey! So any other ideas? I'll keep googling!

scott, i have been testing google drive but having similar issues to dropbox.
user a & b, both have the same file open.
neither is warned that the other is working on the same file.
so only 1 users changes are being saved.
i might be doing it wrong?

http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/resolve-google-drive-conflict-errors-text-files-windows-pc/

Jeff, do you need the "office365" portion to be able to edit simultaneously?

jeff, i will try it. looks very complicated though! are you sure it will lock out user B if user A is working on the same file? this is the only functionality i need. Scott, I dont want to be able to edit the same document simultaneously, like google docs can. No collaboration required!!

i have been testing box.com & egnyte but not there yet! has anyone tried these?

I have a client that uses box.com but you cannot automate their file locking like you can in SharePoint.  I've only looked at Egnyte and it does seem to be a good product, I just don't know how strong they are as far as sticking around for the long-term.

There are plenty of other competitors such as Huddle or ShareFile (by Citrix).

The question is -- do you want to experiment with something that may not work for your organization?  Or go with something that is proven -- SharePoint has been around for over 10 years and has been improved upon year after year.

jeff, i'll have another look at sharepoint but it seems overkill as they are only interested in that one function. I was think of just setting up an old fashioned offline file share using one of the pc's as a file server

thanks lads. didnt quite find what i was looking for so have gone back to old fashioned server file sharing! amazed there doesnt seem to be a simple solution.

Hello,

We need the same simple solution to prevent conflicted copies. We are a three person, nonprofit office. We use dropbox to share all of our files. When person 1 is working on a document and a person 2 tries to open the same file, we want a warning is issued that the file is in use and a read only version is available to person 2. For several years we used something called "conflicted copy pro" which was perfect - but stopped working about six months ago, possibly due to updates in dropbox.

I noticed that these posts were from two years ago. Is there by chance a better, simple solution like this currently available?

Thank you for any assistance you can provide! We are a small, nonprofit office and are looking for something free or inexpensive.

Shirley

Shirley,

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