Microsoft is rolling out a new and long-requested feature for the users of its business-themed SharePoint service. For people who may not be aware, Microsoft SharePoint allows companies to create their own intranet sites and news pages to help communicate with their employees.
In a blog post today, Microsoft says that businesses with SharePoint pages and news will now be able to create those pages with multiple authors working on the same page or news post at the same time without needing each author to wait their turn. The blog post stated:
Authors can see real-time changes made by others as they happen in pages, sections, and web parts. After an author starts editing a page, they can see if other authors are also editing by viewing their avatar in the command bar. Changes made by authors are saved automatically every few seconds. If authors want to leave edit mode, they can select Save and close.
In addition to co-authoring SharePoint pages and news posts, Microsoft is making it easier to roll back any unwanted changes to those pages. They will be able to restore an earlier version of a SharePoint page or post by checking out the Page details option and then clicking on that earlier posted page in the Version history list.
Microsoft is currently rolling out the new co-authoring feature for SharePoint-targeted release tenants. The rollout is expected to be completed by the end of July. The feature will enter general availability for all SharePoint users sometime in August.
In May, Microsoft announced that SharePoint users will be able to access video templates for Pages and News, along with the Microsoft Stream app. However, in June, Microsoft revealed it would begin shutting down its SharePoint News Connector service for Teams business and enterprise users on July 22, followed by the full shutdown on August 26.