In July 2022, a new Excel Live feature was unveiled by Microsoft to simplify real-time collaboration easier within Microsoft Teams. The company has now rolled out Excel live in public preview that will help users edit excel workbooks simultaneously with other meeting participants.
In Microsoft Teams, Excel Live is built on top of the Live Share feature. In the past, presenters were expected to open excel documents on their desktops and then proceed to share their screens during meetings. But, this technique resulted in conflicts causing a negative impact on the productivity of users. Thankfully, users can co-edit excel files directly within the meeting window. In other words, the requirement to make a switch between windows will now get eliminated and users can save invaluable time on content consolidation after meetings.
“Excel Live supports Sheet Views, which allows everyone co-editing the workbook to create customized views to sort or filter information however needed (without disrupting anyone else’s view). The workbook loads for each participant at the optimized zoom level with flexibility to adjust zoom based on their preferences,” Microsoft explained.
To get started, users will need to join a Teams meeting and click on the share button. They will then have to navigate to the Excel live section. Thereafter, they need to select the excel workbook so they can collaborate with their colleagues during meetings. Full sharing permission rights of the file to be shared should be enabled by the presenter. If the rights are enabled, users can click on the Share button on the Share permission dialog to share the workbook with other meeting participants.
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