title: Sharing an Excel File
body: <p>I wanted to get this community's feedback on best practices for sharing an Excel file.
     I have an Excel file on a Sharepoint site where multiple people are responsible for updating the contents of the file. 3 options come to mind on how to handle this.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>There could be a master file which has links to other Excel files, where each user could have their own unique slave version of the file. The user could then edit their slave version of the file and when the master is opened, the links in the master would get updated.</p></li>
  <li><p>I can add multiple data connections to the master file, such that there is a connection for each slave file.</p></li>
  <li><p>I've also read about making an Excel file shared, where multiple people can edit the same file at the same time. There seems to be a couple of drawback with this option.
  a. The Excel file cannot reside on a Sharepoint site.
  b. You are limited to the kinds of edits you can make to the shared Excel file. For instance, you cannot insert or delete blocks of cells. You cannot delete worksheets.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Perhaps there is a better option that I have not thought of. So, I'm throwing this out to the community to see what ideas come back. Thanks.</p>