One of my favorite features of Google Drive is to show is the simultaneous collaboration
feature. So, you can actually have 50 other people in a document presentation or spreadsheet
editing it at the same time. Instead of passing back and forth all of those revisions, everyone
is just in the document editing it at the same time. You can always go back and look
at the revision history if you need to make a change. So let's take an example here; I'm
going to open this Volunteer Orientation Letter, and I'm going to share this with my colleague
Toby. I click Share; under Add people, I select Toby. I'm going to make her an editor. Then
I'll add a message. I'll click Share & save, so she'll get that message, and she'll be
added as an editor, and I'm going to click Done, and I can start editing this document
here. I'll know if somebody else has opened the document, because a message will appear
at the top right up here. So up here it says one other viewer. When I click on this, I
see there is Toby, and Toby is shown in pink, so wherever she's typing, I'll see a pink
cursor. So I'm going to start typing here, I'm going to make some changes, and I see
Toby is typing down below. She is typing at the exact same time as me. She's typing on
the third paragraph. So I can make some changes as she's typing; I'm going to go ahead and
make this a link, and I know kind of not to type over what she's typing, because I can
see where she is in the document. So now I can see she just made a change right there;
12 to 2 o'clock. Now she's over here, and I'm up here, and she will see my cursor moving
around throughout the document. I can chat with the Toby while we're in this document.
I click 1 other viewer, and I can send her chat message, and when she responds to my
chat message, I'll see that appear here, and you can have 50 people in here at the same
time editing this document, so you can have a chat with everybody. Everybody shows up
in a different color. So it looks like she's making an edit right now to the document based
on what I've just put in chat. I can collapse the chat window by clicking the 1 other viewer,
and that collapses the chat window. When Toby responds to my chat, it will start flashing,
so I'll know that she has responded to the chat. Oh, she's responding now; she just wrote,
thanks for confirming. So this is an example of simultaneous collaboration, and these colors
really help, so you can see who's editing what part of the document. Next, let's take
a look at simultaneous collaboration in a spreadsheet. So I'm going to open my Products
spreadsheet here, and again, in a spreadsheet, a presentation, or a document, you can have
up to 50 other people simultaneously editing the document. So I'll share this with Toby.
I like sending a message when I share a doc, just so that the person understands why they're
getting this doc. So I'll click Share & save, and I'll click Done; I can start editing.
Notice that the cell I'm working in is outlined in blue. Every editor will have a different
color assigned to them, so you'll know who's on what cell. Okay, and Toby has just entered
my spreadsheet. It says one other viewer, and there's Toby. Now, I'll know what cell
Toby is on, because it's highlighted in pink, like this one here, and as she moves to different
cells, the outline of the cell will change. So she just moved down here, and I can tell
she's editing it, because it's dark gray. When she is editing it, it's dark gray, and
I can't make a change, and there is the change she just made. So we can both edit this at
same time here, and we know not to edit the same cell, because if you see a cell outlined
in a color, it means somebody else is in that cell. And we've got our chat window here,
so I can send a message to Toby, and again, I could collapse that to save space. Looks
like she is editing this cell now, because it was in gray. It actually had her name that
came up, so I know that's Toby. You'll see the first name of the person who's editing.
And so for everybody who edits the document, or who is in here at the same time, we'll
see a different color, and their name, and so you'll know which name is assigned to which
color. And there's Toby's response to the chat. It's helpful to chat in the chat window
instead of having to have a Gmail window open, or be leaving comments within the spreadsheet;
this is a lot more efficient to chat with other people in the spreadsheet. So that's
how the simultaneous collaboration works in documents, and spreadsheets, and again, you
can have up to 50 other people simultaneously collaborating. And if you want more information
on how to change the revision history, or access that, or if you're curious, well, what
happens if someone makes a mistake, or makes changes I don't like, you should watch the