FAQ: Collaborative Authoring

This article contains frequently asked questions related to collaborative authoring. The questions and answers are organized into the following categories:

General

Is collaborative authoring available in all Vault applications?

Collaborative authoring is a feature of the Vault platform and is available in any Vault application that has document management capabilities.

Does collaborative authoring work with Excel?

Users can use collaborative authoring with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files.

Will the process work with ISI toolbox and Writer?

Collaborative authoring does not support PDF files. ISI toolbox is primarily used for PDF files.

Is there a limit on the size of the documents for this feature?

See Operating parameter limitations and specifications in Word for Microsoft’s technical limits of Word.

In our experience, co-authoring in Word performs better with smaller files (fewer than 100 pages) and small teams (five to ten authors). If you are authoring very large files, consider disabling the auto-save feature. If you are experiencing issues authoring large files in Word, contact Microsoft for support.

How is collaborative authoring different from third party solutions like PleaseReview?

PleaseReview is a specialized tool for complex document review, redaction, and structured co-authoring which helps the document owner maintain total control over all aspects of the document and the review process itself. PleaseReview is recommended for collaborating with large groups of reviewers who are looking to maintain a very high level of control over the document and the review process.

I am not clear on the Microsoft product naming. What are Office 365, OneDrive, SharePoint, Office, and so on.?

Office 365 is the umbrella name for the cloud-based Office product. Microsoft recently announced that Office 365 SMB offerings have been renamed to Microsoft 365. It has two distinct offerings:

Microsoft 365 (Home) is a consumer cloud product and offers subscription-based client applications and OneDrive personal storage. There is no company or tenant for the consumer product. Collaborative authoring does not work with this product.

Microsoft 365 Business is the business cloud product and offers subscription-based client applications, Exchange, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, and other services. Microsoft 365 Business includes a tenant (Directory) for the company. Collaborative authoring works with Microsoft 365 Apps, Business Standard, and Business Premium.

OneDrive for Business and SharePoint run on the same Microsoft 365 platform, but they just use two different UIs. OneDrive for Business is intended for personal file storage and SharePoint is intended for team files.

Collaborative authoring integrates with the Microsoft 365 platform. The consumer OneDrive and the business OneDrive for Business are built on different platforms and are totally different products.

For a technical issue (for example, a locked file or if the author is unavailable to check it in) do I contact Veeva or Microsoft?

If a document is locked in Vault, a Vault Admin can unlock the workflow. If you have issues getting set up, checking out, or checking in, Veeva Support can help. If you see issues, such as performance issues, while users are in Word and collaborating, you should work with Microsoft.

Vault Functionality

Does the standard Check Out action still function when the document is checked out for collaborative authoring? What happens if someone checks it out using that action?

The standard Check Out action is not available when a collaborative authoring checkout is initiated. Similarly, if the standard Check Out action is initiated, the Edit button for collaborative authoring is not available until the document is checked back in or the checkout is canceled.

What happens to other users editing the document if a document is checked in?

Users working together should communicate about their progress and use workflows to coordinate. When a document is checked in, Vault removes all user permissions to the Office edit version and checks in the current edit version with all users’ changes. If users try to save additional changes to the edit version after check-in, they are notified within the Office application that they have a permission error, or they are asked to log in with a different account.

Incorporating collaborative authoring into Vault workflows can mitigate risks of unsaved changes and ensure that the coordination between authors is managed in Vault via workflow task completions.

While a document is being edited, rather than checking in, users can use the Save to Vault action. When this action is used, the latest version of the document is saved to Vault, but the collaborative authoring session is not ended, allowing users to continue with their edits.

What happens to other users editing the document if the checkout is canceled?

When a checkout is canceled, Vault removes all user permissions to the Office edit version and discards any changes made since the last version was saved to Vault. If users have the file open, they are notified within the Office application that they have a permission error with the file.

Who can check in a document from Office 365?

The user who checked out the document or the Document Owner can check it in from Office 365. If an Admin override is needed, the Vault Owner can also check in the document.

When a document is checked back in, is there a way to see previously tracked changes?

A Vault Rendition Profile setting can be enabled to view tracked changes as part of the viewable rendition. Even if the setting is disabled, markup remains in the source document.

Can I add people while the document is open for authoring?

You can add more participants to an ongoing session by adding them to the workflow and granting them Edit permissions in Vault through the document’s Sharing Settings.

How does collaborative authoring impact sponsors that use eSignature software like DocuSign? Has Veeva tested this as part of the release?

Collaborative authoring does not affect eSignature functionality in Vault, as signature pages are added to Vault documents when finalized. We have not yet tested this with third-party integrations.

Can I configure the review workflow or document state to prevent annotations and use collaborative authoring for review only?

Yes, you can set up a workflow and then decide what the users are supposed to do as a part of the task that that workflow contains.

Does collaborative authoring only work in conjunction with workflows, and if so, which workflows?

Collaborative authoring does not require a Vault workflow. Users with the right permissions can edit documents without a workflow, but it is best to use a workflow to manage who can edit and when. Workflows can also provide automation, such as automatically checking a document out when the workflow starts, and automatically checking it in when the workflow is completed. If your Entra ID app registration has the User.ReadBasic.All or User.Read.All permission, the workflow can also add workflow participants directly to the document on checkout to ensure they can be immediately @mentioned in the document.

This increases control and communication during the co-authoring process. To protect your SharePoint from having unnecessary active documents, we recommend that your workflows use entry criteria to validate that documents are not checked out before they can reach a specified lifecycle state.

Can I use collaborative authoring in multi-document workflows?

Yes, collaborative authoring is available within multi-document workflows, as the functionality is based on document lifecycle state permissions.

Is there an audit trail entry if the document is checked out, or will I only see an audit trail entry for new versions (such as from 0.1 to 0.2)?

The document audit trail displays the following information:

  • The initial checkout action
  • All collaboration user document views (when a collaboration user opens the document in Microsoft 365)
  • When all collaborators complete their workflow task
  • The check-in action

When using co-authoring with SharePoint, I can see the document’s version history within the Word application outside of Vault. Does the same functionality exist in Vault with collaborative authoring?

When you end the collaborative authoring session from a Vault perspective and you check in the document after all the contributors have completed their edits, that version is removed from the Microsoft side. That temporary version being saved during collaboration is then removed from that server. The purpose is to remove access to multiple versions and avoid user confusion. You view the version history when you view a document in Word.

You can view the version history of a document from the Word desktop application and restore it to a previous version. These versions are only the changes that occurred since the document was checked out from Vault.

Can I export all changes?

You can extract changes from the version history or run a comparison report between versions to see the changes.

Can I export a binder to a CSV or Excel file to show the status of each document and who it’s currently assigned to?

You can run a report to see the status of various documents and workflows, whether they are an authoring workflow, a review workflow, and more. You can then export the results of that report to a CSV or Excel file.

Office 365 Functionality

How many users can work on a document at the same time?

Microsoft indicates that co-authoring is designed to work for small teams of about five to ten users. Our testing has shown that the co-authoring performance varies with the number of users and the size of the document. Customers should consider these expectations when determining if Office 365 will satisfy their use cases.

In the track changes information, is it obvious who made what changes?

Track changes is Microsoft Word functionality, and you can hover over the tracked changes to see which user made the change.

Can Track Changes be turned on by default in Vault for all collaboration?

Yes. You can create the Word template file with Track Changes on, and then it is enabled for all users.

Do all users need to enable Track Changes for the changes to appear correctly, or does only one user need to turn this on for the authoring session?

Once change tracking is turned on in the document, it is turned on for all users until someone turns it off.

Can all authors see other authors’ work in progress?

Yes, all authors can see other changes, and the changes are updated periodically when auto-save is on.

How does Vault manage saving the document and keeping the changes made by other people?

The document is stored in a central location that all users sync their changes to via their local machines. The document is one copy in a central location set up in your SharePoint environment.

We highly recommend that all users enable auto-save for those types of Word documents, so when multiple users are typing, the changes are saved automatically to the central location. As a best practice, we also recommend that the last user in the document or the document Owner clicks the Save button in Word before closing the document. To ensure that the changes are saved back to Vault, users can use the Save to Vault action.

Can anyone alter other users’ contributions to a document?

Yes, this is Microsoft co-authoring functionality. Co-authoring is restricted on a paragraph basis in scenarios where multiple users are authoring a single document. This means that a user cannot edit the same paragraph or section that another user is editing in real-time until they are done editing that paragraph.

For situations where some users are editing offline, additional coordination is needed to minimize edit conflicts.

Does this feature support all templates, such as custom or out-of-the-box templates?

Generally, yes. Collaborative authoring doesn’t require specific templates, whether customer-created or provided by Microsoft or another supplier. The integration edits the document in a local version of Word, so if the template works in the local version of Word, it works with collaborative authoring.

Can I share documents using the Office 365 Share button?

No. Office 365 is used only for authoring. You should use Vault for workflows and sharing so that permissions are correctly managed and audit events are captured. Turning off sharing in Office 365 is one of the security hardening steps performed during configuration.

What Office 365 attributes can Veeva access?

The integration only has access to the SharePoint site where it has been explicitly granted access with the Sites.Selected permission.

Vault applications do not have access to any other data in your Office 365 and SharePoint system other than the allowed site. This aligns with the principle of least privilege.

Does Veeva have any recommendations on site storage sizing?

The default setting in SharePoint for site collection storage is Automatic, which is the recommended setting as it allows SharePoint to allocate more storage as needed.

If you manually set a hard storage limit, ensure that you specify the limit based on the expected usage, factoring in the recycle bin. Setting an inadequate limit may result in receiving the following error: Server capacity has been exceeded.

What happens to the temporary files on the SharePoint site?

Vault cleans up checked-in or cancelled files by deleting them from the site, which sends them to the recycle bin in SharePoint. These files are permanently deleted automatically by SharePoint after 93 days.

Following this policy allows customers to recover documents that may have been modified and then canceled, or to recover an intermediate ending version for a document that was checked into Vault.

What other limitations does SharePoint impose?

Items in a SharePoint library support up to 50,000 unique permissions. To stay under this limit, users should check in their documents once the editing is complete. To facilitate this behavior, we recommend that Admins use entry criteria to validate that documents are not checked out before reaching the steady state.

Are there more challenges with collaborative authoring for certain file types?

PowerPoint files can sometimes be very large in file size (lots of images and videos) or have a lot of slides, so it’s important to check that your changes have been saved successfully to SharePoint. To do this, verify the Save status at the top of the desktop Office application before using the Check In action in Vault. Additionally, users may see an additional browser prompt asking if they want to open PowerPoint when checking out PowerPoint files. Vault does not control this prompt.

Configuration & Setup

What Office 365 licenses are required to use collaborative authoring?

Your organization must have an Office 365 tenant with SharePoint. End-users, including guest users, must have Microsoft 365 Business or Office 365 enterprise licenses that include Office client applications. We recommend using one of the following licenses:

  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Business Premium
  • Microsoft 365 Apps
  • Office 365 E3 or Office 365 E5

The Vault user email address must match the email used in Entra ID for correct permission assignment.

Do we need Entra ID federation to use collaborative authoring with SharePoint?

You need Entra ID and Office 365 to configure and use collaborative authoring.

If I have multiple Vaults, how many Entra ID app registrations and SharePoint document libraries do I need?

We recommend that you have separate Entra ID app registrations and SharePoint document libraries (sites) for sandbox and production. This ensures that sandbox accounts do not have access to production data. Within an environment level (such as at the Production level) you can reuse a single app registration and document library. Using a single document library and app for each Vault in the same environment makes setup and maintenance easier, and does not require changes from Entra ID IT support.

However, if you have a specific Vault with unique security, operational, or compliance requirements, we recommend using separate document libraries. This allows you to use different validation testing or operational procedures (such as SharePoint security tools) for each Vault.

Do I need to use the PowerShell configuration script?

The PowerShell script we provide can perform all setup steps to streamline the process. While you can perform most of the configuration steps manually if needed, granting the ability for your Entra ID app to manage your SharePoint site can only be done using PowerShell or Microsoft’s Graph APIs. Specifically, the permission being granted allows the Entra ID app to apply the Sites.Selected permission with Write permission to your SharePoint site.

Why does the PowerShell script create a temporary Entra ID admin app?

The temporary app is required to connect to SharePoint Online to make changes, such as granting the ability for your Entra ID app to manage your SharePoint site. The script automatically deletes the temporary admin app when the process is complete.

If I’m migrating from the legacy configuration to the current configuration, do I need to set up a new Entra ID app and SharePoint site?

No. When migrating, we recommend that you update your existing Entra ID app and SharePoint site. The script allows you to provide details on your existing Entra ID app and SharePoint site.

If I’m migrating from the legacy configuration to the current configuration, do I have to update all Vaults at once?

No. The Entra ID app and SharePoint site can support both the legacy configuration and the current configuration, as long as you keep the Delegated permissions on your Entra ID app and the Collaboration User remains an Owner on the SharePoint site. This allows you to use the script to update an existing app and SharePoint site, verify and validate them in a specific Vault, and then update the remaining Vaults when ready.

Will migrating from the legacy configuration to the current configuration have any user impact?

No, collaborative authoring users will experience no change in behavior. Documents do not need to be checked in prior to updating the configuration as long as the SharePoint site does not change.

Can we use collaborative authoring across users in different Vaults, or do all authors need accounts within the Vault that the document is authored?

All authors need access to each Vault that contains the source documents.

To use collaborative authoring with an external organization (such as a CRO), do we need to provide Microsoft 365 licenses to them?

You must register external users as guests in Entra ID, and they must have an active Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license, and must have a Vault license. You can manually add and manage them as guests in Entra ID, or Vault can automatically register them as guests. Alternatively, you can grant external users access to your tenant by providing them contractor accounts with a corresponding Microsoft 365 license.

Is SharePoint required or can I use OneDrive for Business?

OneDrive is not supported. Collaborative authoring integrates with the Office 365 platform, and it requires a SharePoint shared document library for file storage. SharePoint shared document libraries are intended for shared document collaboration. Vault Help provides instructions on configuring the security settings in SharePoint for the shared document library to prevent access to checked out files. Therefore, OneDrive for Business is not compatible with collaborative authoring.

Are there any special considerations for prerelease environments?

For Vaults using the legacy collaborative authoring configuration, the collaborative authoring integration is deauthorized when a Vault is refreshed. To reauthorize collaborative authoring, reenter the credentials established during the initial setup process. You do not need to reestablish the app registration, team site, or Collaboration User.

If you are using the legacy configuration, we recommend migrating to the enhanced configuration. With the enhanced configuration, the integration remains authorized when an environment is refreshed.

Security & Compliance

Is collaborative authoring validated?

The integration between Vault and Office 365 is validated as part of the Vault platform validation. You can find the requirements and test protocols in the Files and Renditions section of the Vault Validation Documents, requirements FILE-12, in the Veeva Compliance Docs Vault. Veeva does not validate Microsoft Office 365 itself. Veeva’s position is that Microsoft Office 365 is part of the source editing toolset and does not require additional validation because review and approval still occur within Vault. You should consider your specific collaborative authoring usage to determine if additional validation is required.

If we have configured an SSO integration with Entra ID to access Vault and Office 365 uses the same identity, should we anticipate any access issues?

There are no anticipated issues if you’re using single sign-on for both Vault and Office 365.

When I’m editing a document, is there the possibility of introducing malware? Does Microsoft or Veeva scan incoming files?

Many Office 365 security add-ons can detect malware. For Vault, we require that you perform malware detection in documents prior to upload.

How do I map the Vault user to the Entra ID user?

The Vault user’s email is used to identify the Office 365 user.

Additional Resources

Reach out in the Vault Platform community on Veeva Connect and see the following Vault Help articles: