Add documentlibrary setting for opening in view or edit mode
Previously the default behavour was to open in Read mode, and then actively change to Edit mode - with the latest updates the default is to open in Edit-mode.
This causes Word Online to save the second the user opens the document, and thereby rendering the "Edited by" and "Last edited"-fields completly useless, as it in effect just shows who opened the document last.
It also causes users to make a lot of accidental changes to documents as well.
Since users are complaning about both the default behaviours, why not add a setting that let's the admins control how files open by default, per library?
That way everyone will be happy, and it adds a certain safety for libraries where users both read and contribute to documents often.
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20 comments
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lisa
commented
Internal Audit departments all over MUST hate this! A view of a file with NO changes should not be saving it and updating the modified & modified by values!
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Eric S
commented
Should be considered combinable with the idea submission below - this topic has enough votes/priority and is overdue for a MSFT response
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GTEM
commented
Additionally this causes issues with retention policies for GDPR where documents never reach the set period after last modified because the clock starts ticking every time somebody merely looks at the document.
At least only save the document when changes are made.
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Anonymous
commented
opening a file just to "view" it should not prompt a change to "last modified." this is causing confusion and is quashing any warm feeling my team might have had about co-authoring in the cloud. productivity loss in wondering what was changed and why, when in reality, a team member simply viewed content.
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Anonymous
commented
Exactly this is why On-Prem installations, where you are in control, are superior!
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Joris Tielkes
commented
Our main problem with default edit mode is that some information and formatting is not displayed in Word (Online). The suggested workaround of requiring checkout is not an option as it creates an extra step for our users when they do need to edit a document. The ability to control this behaviour at the library level would help us out.
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mori
commented
Office365の添付ファイルが編集可能で開かれてしまい、
ファイル更新日が変更されてしまう。 -
Geoff Taylor
commented
I agree with this. These defaults should be able to be set by the individual organization - not Microsoft. I'm a SharePoint Admin and really feel that we're being backed into a corner in O365. Give some control back to the admins please MS. We are the ones who know our users best.
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Anonymous
commented
This is very important to our company. Word docs and spreadsheets used to open as read-only, but now they open in edit mode and our employees accidentally create minor revisions which makes a mess of our documentation system. Please let us have what we used to have!
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ian.turner
commented
We need the default click to be open in read/view mode NOT edit!
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Miguel
commented
Any news about this update? Because it changed suddenly a few months ago and we are waitting for an option to rollback this behaviour or that we have the option to choice our behaviour. Thanks!
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Andy
commented
Agreed
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Richard Bourke
commented
I concur with the feedback here. This was a terrible change for our organization.
Previously when our users clicked into a document, it opened in View mode. If the user needed to make changes they could click edit. This worked well for us because the full document is rendered in view mode (header + footer). We also have strict version control on publishing libraries and opening in view mode meant users would not inadvertently make changes.Since the announced change, documents now open in edit mode by default. This means that users no longer see the header/footer by default and for more complicated documents, Word Online cannot render all of the content properly. It also has the knock on affect of inadvertent edits creating new versions/ modifications where none were intended.
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Andy Wright
commented
The change to default to Edit mode in Word Online is a bad backward step. Unintended edits are happening with distressing frequency. Documents do not appear as they should. Users don't understand what has happened and why I can't stop it happening. Please reverse the change, or allow us to switch it off per tenant, per site or per library.
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Jeff MacPhail
commented
It's important that this solution works in Chrome. The Site setting to open in client or browser only works in Edge, so that isn't even a partial solution for us.
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Jeff MacPhail
commented
This change to opening documents in Edit mode has been terribly frustrating for my organization.
Lost is the metadata for seeing when a document was actually EDITED! Since just looking at a document "Modifies" it.
We also have workflows that run on edit, and now run everytime a document is viewed.
Please Microsoft give us a way to administratively control this behavior!
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M'bark Afroukh
commented
Hello,
As an administrator, this is a major problem because anyone with access can edit without knowing it, moreover it passes these documents in draft therefore inaccessible for the other users using this database. Not to mention that it interferes with our approval workflows for integration \ updating new documentation. We have no choice but to activate check-in check out at a versionning level, which has the effect of limiting the number of editions as it is only a pop-up (not to mention the effort of communication for all people with access not to do so ....), and it interferes with the approval workflow that is in place. To shorten, our organization faces a major concern both in terms of data loss (IT Security) and the daily monitoring effort to guarantee our delivery by constantly reintegrating data that are extracted from this automatic editing problem. -
Fatima Fernandes
commented
This new feature is causing a serious problem. The auto save caught everyone by surprise and managed to give us admins a lot of work.
This doesn't offer any safety for the information .Everyone can edit and change what is established. This is not an useful or appealing feature for any company!
Why not make a rolback and leave everyone happy? -
Anonymous
commented
This is a major problem for our users. One case - a document link was emailed to the company asking people to review the contents and in a few minutes 50 or so people opened it. The document opened in edit mode automatically, causing the risk of accidental changes and version updates.
As our policy is to give users edit rights (to enable collaboration - which is one of the main reasons we changed to SharePoint!) there is now no way of sending a document link that will default to preview mode. -
Anonymous
commented
I agree that a setting for default opening behavior is a must. Our permission policy is very liberal. The change to open in Edit Mode by default has caught all our users off guard. The auto save feature has wrecked many of our documents, and lots of time reverting to previous versions has been spent. We are now forced to limit the Edit permission, or train and require everyone to switch to read only mode after the document is opened. The business has zero appetite for either option, and further ingrains their hatred for the tool. Please let me toggle this option.
