Microsoft Documents File Versions

[Andy_H]

Hi Everyone,

I have recently hit an issue where I use Google FileStream for backing up all my computers documents to Google Drive and had an issue where one of my devices didn't sync the recent copy of a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet and I had to restart FileStream to resolve.

After restarting FileStream because a member of staff already updated the document the data that was originally inputted the day before had disappeared due to the member of staff's document being newer than the existing document. 

I visited the Google Drive Web UI to try restore to previous version but found out this is not possible. The File Versioning of documents is only maintained when documents are worked on using Google Sheets, Google Docs services not MS Office Suite on a computer. 

I hope Google could implement this function as I suspect many business and domestic users are use to the MS Office Suite over trying to use Google Sheets & Google Docs via a web browser.

If we suggest this enough to Google they may implement it in future updates. So you can maintain File Versioning of your documents via Google Drive and be able to restore to previous versions.

[Jessica_CM · Accepted solution]

Hello @Andy_H,
Thanks for joining our Community. I have moved your post from Community Feedback to Workspace Q&A, since your post is related to a product, not the Community itself. Do I understand correctly, that this is not an actual request for support but rather a feature request? If so, please request access to Feature Ideas and post your suggestion there.
I have also edited your labels to help with visibility.

[stimms]

That's strange, we use Google Drive for desktop with Microsoft Office 2016/2019 and 365 for desktop and all versions have saved their version history to Google Drive. Effectively whenever any application saves and file with the same name it wont make a new copy but put a new version over the top of the same named file so it doesn't matter what application you use it will always retain a version history of files.

Just to check are you right clicking the file and clicking on 'Manage Versions'?

[Andy_H]

Hi Stimms,

I have 5 users who use Google drive file stream to backup documents,
desktop, etc, etc and recently a member of staff used their laptop using MS
Office 2019 and the laptop uploaded the modified spreadsheet they worked on
the night before then when returning to the office they continued to work
on the same spreadsheet before confirming the data inputted the night
before had downloaded on their desktop computer and it over written the
work from the night before as they didn't await for it to download to their
desktop computer before continuing with their work.

I accessed Google drive web UI to restore to a previous version and it
doesn't exist. There was no file version to restore to.

[stimms]

I have not experienced the situation you're describing however we generally don't use excel with multiple collaborators as Google Sheets is much better at it. Something about what you're describing might not be true however, for example are we actually certain this 'modified spreadsheet' that was overwritten from the cloud was actually saved over the top of the previous version or was it simply saved somewhere else?

The Google Drive Audit logs will help you a lot with your investigations. Filter the events to the User name in question, you can also filter it down to the suspect file name in question too and take some time to paint the narrative of exactly what was happening with that file. 

Please see below where I have picked an excel document that's been edited multiple times. You can see that the act of 'saving' an excel document in Google Drive for Desktop counts as an 'Edit' event in the audit logs. All of the events that are captured as Edit's are also then available as versions inside the 'Manage Versions' menu. All of the time stamps of the edits have successfully created a 'version' you can have up to 100 of these over a 30 day period. 

Can you replicate the issue? Create a document, share it with two accounts you control and then make multiple edits over the top of each other and see what happens? Do all the edits appear in 'Manage versions'? Do any of the edits from other users overwrite the version you're using on another account? Are there any warnings when doing do?