Microsoft Excel Finally Gets Real-Time Collaboration
If you are using an online application such as Google Docs, then you have long been accustomed to the fact that several people are working on the same document or spreadsheet at the same time. Microsoft Excel is finally taking a step into this brave new world of simultaneous editing and adding co-authoring capabilities to spreadsheets.
Microsoft today enabled co-authoring in Excel on the PC for Office Insiders . (This means the feature is still being tested among users who have joined the beta program, which you can join here .) As you would expect, you will see a small avatar when someone else opens the document, as well as an icon for the current cursor position as they dig through the document and edit cells in the spreadsheet.
It is not yet known when it will be available outside of beta, but it is already available if you are using Excel Online and on Android. It’s also available in the iOS app, but for now only for Office Insiders. I personally can’t wait to work on spreadsheets with all of my Excel friends.