Hi Ash-

Shared workbooks function best if they are made up of predefined areas of
content which need to be revised by multiple users. Accepting or rejecting
changes based on time, user, or other criteria generally being handled by the
'owner' of the file. There is also a History worksheet maintained for
reference to prior 'losers' in the whose changes in battle which can be
maintained & referred to as necessary.

It sounds like what is happening is that multiple users are randomly adding
content in previously _unused_ parts of the workbook and inadvertently
overwriting each other. What is in effect happening is that each user is
actually *redesigning* the workbook, not updating the content.

AFAIK the best way to avoid this would be *not* allowing anyone to add
information to areas that are not a part of the existing workbook structure.
If that is an absolute necessity, each user should be provided with a
predetermined range to work in, or perhaps through the use of "personal"
sheets in the workbook. That would, of course, require some degree of
consolidation somewhere along the line.

There might be other approaches to the objective that would better suit your
needs without creating the conflict.

Regards |:)



"ash" wrote:


Hi,
if 4 users are using a shared excel workbook, 2 of them updates the
same field and column at the same time. One will be prompted whether to
accept changes. However, both their data are needed and they do not know
if their colleagues are entering data into the same field at that
particular time. Is there any way to prevent it from overwriting?
Please help.
thanks a million


ash


--
ash