Excel Shared workbook - Up to 16 users - Advice needed please

**Raymond85** · 12-28-2012, 06:37 AM

Hi,

As a short term plan I need to implement the following using Microsoft Excel (no other applications are available for my use):

I will have 16 users taking inbound calls throughout the day booking customers into 5 different spa centres across the country. Customers may choose any location and can book 2 months in advance.

There will be 1 workbook per spa centre and each workbook having 1 tab per date. Each spa centre will take up to 40 customers per day and will each have a time slot. Once filled, that time slot is then booked. Once all time slots filled for that day then that spa centre is fully booked for that day.

Each time slot available throughout the 2 month period will have a ref number.

During the call, the user will just take the surname and then give the customer the ref number next to it.

My concerns are that although slim, all 16 users could take calls from customers wanting the same spa centre and date, therefore all 16 users will be in the same workbook and sheet. Which could lead to conflicts.

I was thinking about getting users to access the sheet, find the slot they want, add a fullstop and click save; if no conflict returned then go ahead and fill surname.

Also as the users will only be filling in surnames, would this reduce the risk of the known 'corruption' issue?

I hope I havent made it sound confusing; can anyone provide with me tips or advice on how I can make this work?

Thank you