Programming Excel with VBA and .NET

Program with Shared Workspaces

Shared workbooks provide no infrastructure for managing users and very little ability to administer changes to a workbook. Shared workspaces address those shortcomings by allowing users to check out files before making edits, automatically notify others when changes occur, assign tasks, and add or remove team members.

Workbooks included in a shared workspace don’t lock out changes to macros or prevent macro recording since the change-tracking mechanism is provided externally through SharePoint Services rather than by Excel.

Tip

Don’t confuse shared workspaces with Excel workspace files (.xlw). Excel workspace files save the state of Excel’s windows and open files so you can easily return to some point in your work.

Use the Workbook object’s SharedWorkspace property to share the workbook, update the workbook, and navigate among other elements in the shared workspace. For example, use the SharedWorkspace object’s CreateNew method to create a new shared workspace and add a workbook to it:

Sub CreateWorkspace(  )
    ThisWorkbook.Save
    ThisWorkbook.SharedWorkspace.CreateNew "http://wombat2/", _
        "Team Wombat"
End Sub

You must save the workbook before adding it to a shared workspace; otherwise, the CreateNew method fails. The preceding code adds the current workbook to the SharePoint site on the Wombat2 server. If you click on Open Site in Browser in the Excel Shared Workspace pane, Excel displays the new workspace site created at http://wombat2/Team%20Wombat ...