How to Make the Most of Collabio’s Local Collaboration Feature

Local cloudless collaboration is a limited peer-to-peer sharing feature that empowers users to share files locally within a limited period of time. This feature functions similarly to Airdrop and Airplay.
The only thing you need to use collaborative sharing is the hotspot and fellow devices with an active Collabio Spaces app.

Why and When Would You Need to Use It?

When you’re connected to the Internet, you can collaborate through the network without our collaboration technology for peers nearby. This feature comes in handy when you don’t have access to the web. For example, it can be useful during traveling when there is poor connection to the Internet or when you want to work within one office and share your files locally.

Here we show a couple of common use cases:

1. You want to edit a text file or a spreadsheet with the help of your colleague who is sitting in the office room next to yours. You offer them to collaborate on the document and give them access to it. Next, you make relevant edits together, after, you thank your colleague for the help and terminate their access to the file. All the edits are now saved in the document on your device.
2. You’re on a train with your teammates going to a business meeting, the mobile Internet connection between cities is very poor and the Wi-Fi in that train might not be very powerful, besides, with all the passengers connected to the same spot, you don’t have stable enough connection to work. In Collabio Spaces, you turn on local collaboration and invite your colleagues who are travelling with you to collaborate. You can make changes to the necessary documents and have them saved on your iPhone or iPad.

So, as you see, the local collaboration feature is a great way to collaborate in the conditions in which you don’t have access to cloud on the Internet. In other words, it is a kind of light tool for local collaboration among employees that may be useful anytime, anywhere.

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How Does Local Collaboration Work?

You might wonder what is the magic behind the local collaboration feature… Everything is simple! Your device, be it an iPhone or an iPad, acts as a server where changes are being recorded. At the same time, all participants simultaneously make changes to your document, to which they have equal access. The connection range depends on your device’s Wi-Fi hotspot power, so this type of “light collaboration” among employees won’t allow you to make edits from another city or region. All devices envolved must be within range of each wireless transmitter.

The core of our app records the changes in real-time, but they are available only on the host (= server) device. Once the connection is terminated, others lose access to the document, but the file owner can still see all the edits.

Another good news about our unique local collaboration feature is that this type of data exchange doesn’t need any pre-configuration.

How to Collaborate in Collabio?

Let’s get acquainted with how the feature works! Keep in mind that all team members need to turn on the Wi-Fi hotspot to collaborate (the feature can be used with only Wi-Fi and routers, but it all depends on the network setup).

Also, you need to allow the app to discover devices in your local network, as it is used to hold team collaboration. Once you click ‘OK’, you can co-edit documents with your colleagues.

1. Local collaboration is depicted as a honeycomb. Find this icon in the top-right corner on the Home screen and in every file you open, as well as inside the file menu.

The honeycomb is empty when you are not collaborating and filled with the white colour when you participate in an active team collaboration.

2. If you click on the honeycomb icon from the Home screen, you will see active collaboration sessions started by your colleagues. Click on the file you want to edit, enter the password provided to you by the file owner, and start making edits!

To start your own team collaboration, open a document and tap on the honeycomb icon to activate the Instant collaboration screen. You’ll see the phrase “Instant collaboration. Give this password to team members” and the generated password. Then tap either the “Start collaboration” button or the “Cancel” button if you have changed your mind on team collaboration. Share the password with your team members and start your work!

Keep in mind that sharing works as long as the file is opened on the owner’s device. If you close the file, collaboration will end.

4. To stop collaboration, just close the file. Also, you can open your shared file and tap on the honeycomb icon filled with the white colour. A newly appeared window will show three options: Members, Password (here you can see again your re-generated passcode), and the “Stop collaboration” button. All participants have now equal permissions, but we are actually working on adding choices such as Owner, Editor, and Viewer.

If you are not a file owner, you will only see the list of the members who also have the access to the document and the password that you can copy but not change it.

For the iPad, the steps are the same as for the iPhone.

So, what do you think of our local collaboration feature for teammates nearby? Try it now, if you haven’t done it yet. It is extremely helpful in all situations when common cloud sharing features are not available.

Should you have some ideas on how we can further develop the technology to make it even more useful for our users, please, kindly share them in the comments section below. We are always happy to receive any feedback that can make Collabio Spaces more powerful and efficient to help with all your needs on the go!