Allow multiple users to get access to excel application

In short whilst I wouldn't want to say this is impossible it's probably not advisable.

You will have the problem of Excel deciding which changes are the ones that it should accept if more than one person is updating the spreadsheet at the same time. Shared workbooks do allow more than one person to access and update a workbook at any one time but have very little built in controls and really should be avoided.

Most people would agree that if you want a multi-user application that won't corrupt your data and will function properly that you should use Access rather than Excel.

Dom

Hi,

You can't have several users updating Excel at the same time. Excel is essentially a single user system and you should have considered this aspect before you designed it.

Having said that, Excel allows what they call 'Workbook sharing' where several users can change their copy of the workbook at the same time. However conflicts have to be resolved since two users could be changing the same cell with different values. The conflicts are resolved by the workbook owner.

If you can be sure that the same cells can't possibly be changed by different users, then a more common approach is to use VBA macros to consolidate several workbooks at say the end of the day. Such a system needs careful design through macro control to ensure users don't make changes which compromise the subsequent consolidation.

Regards