Conflict copies

Conflict principle is simple : 2 different users working on the same file producing different versions of the file, then, a conflict version is generated to ensure that you lose nothing.

Conflicts with NetSync

When a user open an Office file, it is locked by Netsync.
When another user tries to open the same file, it can be exclusively done as read-only.

If a user locally modifies the file from NetSync and another makes a modification on platform, then when user will save the file from NetSync, it will produce a conflict version.

When you get conflict files, the renamed versio is the locally generated version. The other one is the one from platform.
This minimizes transfers if documents are large files.

A conflict version prevents loss of data. Therefore, it is better to handle them quickly, in order to keep a single file and avoid users to work on conflict files.

About excel files, the behaviour of Microsoft Office can be that a simple opening of file can lead to a modification, even if user does not modifies content. This is particularly obvious for .pst files, which should not be synchronized with Netsync.

This is the reason why you should be cautious when locking files or using them offline.

Offline mode (no internet access)

If users working on NetSync are offline most of the time, as soon as Netsync will get access to internet, this can be a source of conflict files.

Indeed, if Netsync has a file with different content of the one on platform, which is locked by another user, then it can generate conflict.

➔ Good practice for offline working : 

When users work offline, recommended behaviour to avoid conflicts is to lock files manually.

➔ Lock actions have to be done with internet access.

• To unlock a file, right-click and lock or unlock.

Before going on a work trip, workmates can lock some of the files to ensure that they won't generate conflicts.

Pre-synchronisation

During pre-synchronisation step, the best practice is to wait for the full synchronization (up to date) before working on filesand by the way avoid conflicts.

NetSync on a server

If NetSync is still processing pre-synchronisation step, this rises the riske of conflicts.

As for previous chapter, good practice is to wait for Netsync to be up to date.

Generally speaking, you can install Netsync on a server for backup only.. 

If users have to work from server, then you should be aware of the pre-synchronization step.

In that case, you can set an access from network drivers for all users to work on server, as WebDav does not generates conflicts. 

This is an easy to run network drive that can easikly be mounted with our software NetExplorerDrive.  You will find on that link instructions for installation.

Conflicts management

When you see conflict files, Open them, compare and delete the wrong versions if needed.

Notes

• Opening and closing documents with elder extensions (.doc or .xls) generate more conflicts than recent extensions (.xlsx or .docx).

On these old extensions, Excel and Word change the internal date of documents when opening/closing, even if user does not modifies them.

We strongly advise you to ban these extensions and convert all of these old files to the recent extension.

Tools can help you to do so, we developped one that you can find here.

• Finally, frequent rights modifications generate heavier tasks for NetSync, which can slow down or even block Netsync. This highly rises the risk of conflict files.

Rights modifications over large folders are to avoid as much as possible. If it has to be done more often, we advise you to re-think your file tree to avoid expendable calculation tasks.