I created a summery of the steps that need to be taken to make a rather important update. There will be four of us doing this. We ALL need to be looking at the same steps.
I asked others to please comment with ideas/concerns on my word docx.
No problem, right?
One file is on the server that is being updated (it’s a one time deal, I see it as a ‘README’ file, it will not be useful again), another is in our Teams channel on Teams>Files, Another is on our internal Wiki (a rabbit hole). Another is in the cloud somewhere.
It got saved pretty much anywhere. Except where I created it.
I asked simply to make suggestions to the docx in a different color and initial it and save it from where I stored it. Then I will be able to update/make changes/ask questions.
The file is now in four different places on different servers with different notation.
These are smart people, really they are. But, come on.
You know there’s this thing in Word called “Track Changes”, right? Any change anyone makes to the document gets highlighted and attributed to that user. People can also make comments if necessary. And then you can go through and review all changes and decide which ones you want to keep.
We have transitioned everything to shared folders on Google Workspace. I have templates made up for nearly everything. Everyone has been shown how to create a doc or spreadsheet from a template in the appropriate job folder. The PMs consistently just revise the same document from their own drive and upload a pdf. Then when I need to fix something I go in and have to create a new document from scratch.
The file system on everyones desktop has google drive integrated so they can just save to the appropriate shared folder. Half of them have a pile of desktop folders that they drag and drop from. They don’t understand that for them both techniques are functionally identical but I cant access the golders on their desktop.
Lots of people just do not understand how file systems work, even though they have used them for years.
It doesn’t help that both Microsoft and Apple have been obfuscating their file systems for years. Apple’s makes a bit more sense if you understand the Unix filesystem but it’s not friendly and the Microsoft system has long been held to its history as a GUI for DOS and made worse by the OneDrive crap. Then add in bad implementations of things like SharePoint and network storage and it’s easy to give up.
I’ve got it sorted out. The ‘How to’ doc is going into confluence (our wiki, the rabbit hole It needs cleaned up big time). Period. NO DUPLICATES spread out and about.
I admit, I’m old school. I’ve been doing this before we had email. I shared a computer. No network except a floppy disk and your shoes. In my first GIS job, I changed out the backup tape reals on our huge DEC server in the cold room. Was neat though. Big Intergraph workstations. The monitors where on an electric lift for each of us. Go up, go down Felt like I was in NASA or something.
‘Boss’ (I trained her) called to apologize. But all is cool. We consider each other friends. She took the job of ‘boss’. I. Did. Not. Want. It.
We are all teammates. She just has to go to all the damn meetings . Even at that, I had two meetings yesterday, and looks like two today.
As much as I hate using Word for shared collaborative documents, Track Changes and Comments work very well for collaborative editing of a document, and even if you end up with different versions (because some joker pulled down the doc, edited it on their own computer, and then emailed their changes to you) you can use the Merge functionality to integrate it back into the main document. For less formal collaboration, Confluence works quite well but does have a modest learning curve. But fundamentally, if you give people five different ways to comment on and edit a document, you’ll end up with eight different sets of changes and comments that you somehow have to integrate back together because people do not follow instructions.
Stranger
Although I agree with your general opinions about OneDrive and SharePoint, this really doesn’t have anything to do with the o.p.’s issue of people storing their changes in different places.
A word document is a really strange choice to make a collaborative list.
The choice comes with many (negative) security concerns. The fact that it is almost asking to be saved in “my documents” or onedrive is another fun consequence of that choice.
Apple does ‘notes”
MS does “onenote”
I’m sure every other ecosystem has something comparable.
Word was designed to be used by one person. It strengths are flexibility in how the text comes out.
It was “what you see is what you get” with a GUI.
Its predecessors came with little maps you could put above you function keys to help you keep track of all functions. It was actually quite good for its time.
What Word is not is an effective tool to create a shared list. It will open stuff in “protected” mode ; practically forcing you to make a local copy.
It does this because office “macros” have way too much acces to all parts of Windows. Sharing any office document should be completely discouraged by any IT department.
You write your stuff in Word, print it in .pdf — then send it to me. (This is still not completely safe— because computers are outstandingly stupid— but it is much much better than opening .docx documents from any outside source)
The simplest way to achieve what you want without re-educating your colleagues is to just send the list as email.
OneNote sucks for collaboration with more than just one person. While you can share a notebook with multiple users, there is no way to automatically track changes and identify them to a specific user. I have not tried to use Apple Notes for that purpose but I think the same is true.
I’d mildly disagree. If you hit Save As in recent versions of Office, you do not–as a multi-decade user of Windows might expect–get a filesystem dialog. Instead you get a screen with OneDrive and Sharepoint links prominently in the upper left, and a list of recent locations on the right. In the lower-left there is an option for “This PC”, but it still doesn’t give you a dialog, and the list on the right doesn’t show a full directory path, so it’s impossible to know exactly where it points to. Only if you hit “Browse” do you get the normal dialog.
People were bad at this kind of thing before, and the obfuscation only made it worse.
Google docs is quite good for collaboration - you can see edits and comments in real time, and there is a edit mode that lets you approve changes.
the demon spawn use it regularly for collabrative projects
And let’s not talk about the abomination of word opening a one drive file in a browser instead of the app…and then it saving to the web rather than the local onedrive folder.
AND I’ve had the web version overwrite my more recently updated local version.
Onedrive is the pits
Thanks, but the last thing we need is more applications or pointers to applications. I’m going to retire in ~ 18 months. We already have two file sharing places. Plus our own network drives and places to keep stuff there.
I care. I want to tighten things up before I retire, not have a free for all where we/they don’t know what is where.
I applaud your desire to make sure that there are processes in place for continuity and that people know where to find things, but…well, I have a film recommendation for you:
I work in software engineering. It is (almost) universal to have a system to monitor change to code (Git, for example).
I know that this is not a common thing with word docs etc, and I have failed to find a equivalent decent system for large binary files (Photoshop etc) - and it has a learning curve (I prefer command line line checkin, which would bewilder most Word users) and further, Word itself has a primitive version control, but this problem:
has been solved.
Your rant is in every way correct. This stupid problem is unfortunately with stupid people.
I feel your pain.
I dunno, that “Clippy” character who used to intrude on your emails, that guy was kind-of cool, way back in the 2000s? Right?
And so are hijacks. Can i just say how much i hate OneDrive and how Microsoft has obscured its file system. “Watch out, you are running out of space on your new computer”. Huh? Wtf? I bought a giant hard drive and don’t have much on that computer. Oh, but in fact, i have nothing in that computer. Microsoft put everything in the fucking cloud, where i didn’t pay to buy more space. And where it’s not reliably available if I’m traveling or otherwise offline.
Just put this stuff on my hard drive, m’kay? If i need to back out up, I’ll put a copy in dropbox, or I’ll create it on Google drive, it I’ll put it in my Mac which i back up regularly, both on line and locally. I do not need yet another cloud system, one which is totally opaque as to what is stored where, and which costs me more to actually use.
. Even at that, I had two meetings yesterday, and looks like two today.