What happens if two people try to edit the same document at the same time?

[Nicki Eastlake-Bent]

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Editing an Office Document from Confluence

Hi, I have set up a page with a report on, that needs multiple input from colleagues across the globe. I was just wondering what would happen if two people went in to edit the document at the same time. Would both their changes be saved? Thanks

[Sonny de Wit]

I just tested this in Confluence 5.4. Having multiple users edit the same document can cause huge problems:

• User 1 opens a document
• User 2 opens the same document, edits it, and saves it
• User 1 edits the document and saves it
• All changes made by user 2 have now disappeared

Some comfort is that the document of user 2 can be retrieved from the document history in Confluence. If someone notices content is missing. If it is clear when the change was made. Someone could then use tools to compare and eventually merge the different versions of the document.

If only the system would warn or block user 2 from editing the document simultaneously (or if it were multi-user compatible!), this would be a very useful functionality. In its default form, the Office connector looks to be extremely dangerous. However, it looks like this is being worked on: CONF-8333