Authoring Documents

Vault Basics offers two different document authoring processes: collaborative authoring and standard authoring. Collaborative authoring must be enabled for your organization by Veeva support.

With collaborative authoring, multiple users can edit documents at the same time. With standard authoring, a single user can check out a document, edit it, and check it back into Vault.

Using Collaborative Authoring

Collaborative authoring connects Vault Basics to Microsoft 365 to allow multiple users to edit a document at the same time. Microsoft 365 can be employed as desktop software, a mobile app, or in your browser. Collaborative authoring can be used with Microsoft Word (*.docx), Excel (*.xlsx), and PowerPoint (*.pptx) documents.

Starting a Collaborative Authoring Session

If a document is compatible with collaborative authoring, the Edit in Microsoft Office button is displayed above the document.

Complete the following steps to start a collaborative authoring session:

  1. In the Library tab, open the document you want to edit.
  2. From the All Actions menu, select Edit in Microsoft Office.
  3. If your browser prompts you, confirm that you want to open the document. Vault opens the document in Microsoft 365 on your desktop.
  4. Edit the document as needed, keeping your Vault browser window open while you edit.

If another user joins your collaboration session, an icon with their initials or profile picture is displayed in the Microsoft 365 menu bar. Click the icon to view the user’s edits or to contact the user. If you don’t see other users’ edits, verify that you are viewing the document in Microsoft Word’s Print Layout view.

Joining a Collaboration Session

When another user starts a collaboration session on a document, you can join the session and edit the document in Microsoft 365. When you open the document in Vault, a banner is displayed at the top of the page indicating that another user started Collaborative Authoring, and a message is displayed on the document to indicate that it is being edited.

To join the collaboration session, select Edit in Microsoft Office from the All Actions menu.

Using Collaborative Authoring in Microsoft 365 in a Web Browser

If you don’t have Microsoft 365 installed on your computer, you can edit a document with Microsoft 365 in your web browser.

Complete the following steps to open a document in your browser:

  1. Click the question mark (?) icon in the Collaborative Authoring banner and click open in browser in the pop-up.
  2. In the Opening in Browser dialog, click Continue. Vault opens the document in Microsoft 365 in your browser and sets the browser as your default document editing method.

Saving and Checking In a Collaborative Authoring Document

When you start a collaborative authoring session to edit a Vault document, the file is stored in a Microsoft 365 shared drive. Changes you make, or changes made by any other user who joins the session, are saved to the Microsoft 365 file and are only shown in Vault when you perform the Save to Vault or Check In actions. Both options create a new minor version of the document in Vault. Save to Vault uploads your changes to Vault and allows the collaborative authoring session to continue, whereas Check In ends the session and allows the document to progress in its lifecycle.

When multiple users are editing a document, only the user who started the collaborative authoring session or the document owner can use Check In, but any user can use the Save to Vault action.

When you Check In the document, the collaboration session ends for everyone, so ensure that you check whether other users have finished editing the document. Any additional changes made in Microsoft 365 after the Check In are not synced with the Microsoft 365 file. If you made further changes to the document after you checked it in, we recommend saving a copy of the file to your local drive.

Complete the following steps to Save to Vault or Check In a collaboration document:

  1. Save your changes in Microsoft 365 and return to your Vault browser window.
  2. From the All Actions menu, select Save to Vault or Check In.
  3. Optional: Enter a Version Description in the confirmation dialog
  4. Click either Save to Vault or Check In to create a new minor version in Vault. Vault generates a new viewable rendition of the document that includes the edits.

Canceling a Collaboration Session

Once you have started a collaboration session, you may cancel it to end the session for all users without saving any changes to the document in Vault. Only the document owner or the user who started the collaboration session can cancel it. None of the changes that you made to the document during the session will be saved in Vault.

  1. Close Microsoft 365 and return to your Vault browser window.
  2. From the All Actions menu, select Cancel Editing.
  3. In the Cancel Editing dialog, click Continue. Vault ends the collaboration session and does not save changes you made to the document.

Using Standard Authoring

If collaborative authoring is not enabled in your Vault, you can still update documents by checking them out, editing them, and checking them back in. To prevent editing conflicts, Vault locks the document so other users cannot check out the document while it is checked out to you.

Complete the following steps to check out a document, edit it, and check it back in:

  1. From the Library tab, open the document you want to edit.
  2. From the All Actions menu, select Check Out. Vault checks out the document and downloads the document file to your browser’s default download location.
  3. Open the document, edit it as needed, and save your changes.
  4. From the All Actions menu, select Check In.
  5. In the Check In dialog, click Choose a file, select the edited document file, and click Open.
  6. Click Check In. Vault checks the document in, generates a new viewable rendition, and updates the document version to the next minor version.