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Collaborate with confidence with show changes in Excel web

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Hi, Office Insiders! My name is Sanjay Bhat and I am a Program Manager on the Excel team. When you spend hours (if not, days) crafting the perfect Excel workbook, you may be reluctant to share with others without setting editing permissions. Yet, you cannot collaborate without sharing. My team and I are working on a new feature, called Show Changes, that will revolutionize the collaboration experience in Excel. It works by giving an overview of all changes made to the entire workbook, down to a single cell.

What is Show Changes?

The Show Changes feature enables you to collaborate confidently with others by letting you see exactly what edits were made to your workbooks in the past 60 days. You can see details about who changed what, where, and when, along with the previous value of the cell for quick reversion, if needed. You can narrow down the list of changes by selecting any sheet, range, or individual cell, to check all the changes that were made, including bulk edits. Show Changes tracks changes made across any M365 endpoint – Windows, Mac, iPads and iPhones, and Android phones and tablets.

Show changes in Excel. 

How it works 

Here is how you can view changes for the entire workbook:

Show changes in Excel.

On the Review tab, select Show Changes.

Review tab in Excel for web.

Notice that:

  • Edits are shown in the Changes pane, starting with the most recent changes.
  • You can see who made the changes, where, and when, as well as what the edits were.
  • In cards, like the one below, which are tracking a similar change to multiple cells, you can see all the changes made at once by selecting See changes.

See Changes button.

Note: You can see past changes for up to 60 days. 

  • You can filter and see changes at a more granular level by selecting the sheet, range or cell you want, right-clicking it, and then selecting Show Changes.

See past changes.

Show Changes in Excel.

  • If you or others edit the workbook while the Changes pane is open, you can update the workbook with the latest changes by selecting the See new changes button. You can stay in control and avoid distractions by refreshing data when the time is right for you! 

See new changes

Known issues

There are few known limitations while using Show Changes. You can see changes for up to 60 days, if you have a high volume of edits you may see changes less than that. To understand the other limitations, get help on Show changes via this article.

We would love your feedback if any of the limitations become an issue for you. Let us know by going to Help > Feedback and providing your valuable inputs.

Requirements 

The workbook must be stored in OneDrive or SharePoint to be able to track changes. You will also need editing permissions to the Excel file 

Availability 

We will be rolling this feature out in Excel for the web for users running Targeted release builds. Learn how IT admins can make Targeted release builds available to specific users.

Features are released over some time to ensure things are working smoothly. We highlight features that you may not have because they’re slowly releasing to larger numbers of Insiders. Sometimes we remove elements to further improve them based on your feedback. Though this is rare, we also reserve the option to pull a feature entirely out of the product, even if you, as Insiders, have had the opportunity to try them. 

Feedback 

Let us know whether we’re getting it right by answering the feedback prompts in the experience. To send specific feedback, you can submit them by clicking Help > Feedback. 

Learn what other information you should include in your feedback to ensure  it’s actionable and reaches the right people. We’re excited to hear from you! 

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