Can More Than One Person Work on a Document in Dropbox?
The term "collaboration" is a welcome word in the world of business, where heavy competition can take its toll -- even among colleagues within the same company. Dropbox and other cloud storage services have presented new ways for coworkers to collaborate on projects, sometimes by working simultaneously on the same files stored in the Dropbox cloud.
Disambiguation
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There are two main ways to share files with others on Dropbox. One is via a Web link that you send to whomever you want to have file access, and the other is through a shared folder. The shared file folder is the feature you want for simultaneous access. The folder can be accessed online or on a computer's desktop if you download the Dropbox desktop app.
Setting Up
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You can set up the shared folder by downloading the Dropbox desktop application, right-clicking on it and then selecting "Share This Folder" under the "Dropbox" menu. Enter the email addresses of all the persons who should have access to the files for viewing and editing, then click "Share Folder." Once the invitees accept the email invitation, the shared folder will appear in their online Dropbox accounts -- presuming that they already have accounts set up.
Potential Conflicts
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At that point, all who've accepted can start collaborating on the same documents, whether online or from the desktop. Any changes made and saved by any of the collaborators will be reflected both in the desktop folder and online. This creates the possibility that two or more people will be working on and saving changes to a document at exactly the same time, which could get messy. To handle this, Dropbox saves changes made by different collaborators in separate files, so that no one inadvertently overrides another's work.
Expanding Storage
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When working in a shared folder, users can also all add new files in addition to editing existing ones. In terms of storage space, that could present a challenge. Dropbox allows for 2GB of free storage, and then asks for a monthly payment for more storage. You can jump to 100GB for about $10 monthly, as of August 2013. The 2GB of free storage compares with the 7GB and 15GB of free collaborative storage offered by competing services Microsoft SkyDrive and Google Drive.
References
Writer Bio
Aaron Charles began writing about "pragmatic art" in 2006 for an online arts journal based in Minneapolis, Minn. After working for telecom giant Comcast and traveling to Oregon, he's written business and technology articles for both online and print publications, including Salon.com and "The Portland Upside."