Real-Time Collaboration, Comments, and Sharing

A document is rarely written alone. This guide teaches how several people work the same document at once without overwriting each other, how to discuss it in place with comments, and how to share it with exactly the access you intend. After it you will be able to invite a colleague to co-edit live, run a comment thread to resolution, and share a document with exactly the people and the access level you choose, then remove that access when the work is done.

One Live Copy, Edited Together

After this section you will understand why co-editing here does not lose work. Everyone editing a document works on the same live copy. Edits merge automatically using a conflict-free replicated data type, which is a technical way of saying that two people typing in the same paragraph at the same moment both keep their text; neither overwrites the other, and there is no "someone else edited this, discard your changes" dialog. This is the single biggest anxiety people carry over from older tools, and it does not happen here.

You see collaborators live: each person has a colored cursor and selection, and a presence indicator shows who is in the document with you right now. When a colleague types, you see it appear; when you type, they see it appear. There is no manual refresh and no merge step.

Does co-editing lag or conflict when several people type at once? No. Merging is automatic and continuous, so there is no lock on a paragraph and no queue for who edits next. Several authors can work different sections, or the same sentence, at the same time, and every keystroke lands. You see each other's cursors so you can stay out of each other's way when you want to.

Comments: Discuss in Place

After this section you will run a review conversation without leaving the document. Select text and add a comment to attach a note to that exact passage. Comments are threaded: anyone who can comment can reply, so a question and its answer stay together on the text they are about. When a point is settled, resolve the thread to clear it from the margin while keeping it in the record.

Assign a comment to a colleague to pull them in: they receive an in-app notification, and the comment shows them as its assignee until the assignee, the comment's author, or an admin marks it done. This is how a team turns a document around: comments for the discussion, assignments for the hand-offs, resolve to close the loop, all anchored to the words in question rather than scattered across email.

Sharing: Who Can Do What

After this section you will grant exactly the access you intend, and take it back when you need to. Open File, Share to share a document. Only the document's creator, or an owner or admin of your organization, can share it. Choose an access level:

  • Viewer: read and navigate only. Viewer is the default level.
  • Commenter: read and leave comments, without changing the text.
  • Suggester: read, comment, and propose edits as tracked changes that an editor accepts or rejects. This is the right level for a reviewer or a counterparty who should propose wording without editing directly.
  • Editor: full editing, including Suggesting mode for proposing changes.

Then choose who receives it: a person, picked by name from your organization's members; a group, entered by its ID; or everyone in your organization. People with access lists every current share with its level, and Remove ends a share at once. Shares do not expire on their own, so remove one when it is no longer needed. You cannot grant a level above your own access, and your organization's sharing policy can cap the highest level a document may be shared at. Through the REST API a document can also be shared with a role, a department, or a project. This is the same organization-wide sharing model the rest of the workspace uses; it is described in general terms in Real-time Collaboration.

The Share dialog open over a Backbuild Docs document, outlined as callout 1. Under Add people, a Share with selector is set to A person, a search box finds people by name or email, and the chosen person appears below it. An Access level selector is set to Viewer, Can read the document, and a Grant access button confirms the share. A People with access list shows the current person with their level, Editor, and a Remove control. A note reads that read-only Viewer is the default and that only the document owner or an organization admin can change who has access, which the server enforces. The account email address is masked in this image.
File, Share opens the Share dialog: pick who receives the document, choose an access level, and grant it. People with access lists every current share, each with Remove.
Who can share the document's creator, or an organization owner or admin Who you share with a person or a group everyone in your organization more audiences through the API What they can do Viewer: read Commenter: also comment Suggester: also suggest changes Editor: edit directly Remove at any time People with access lists every share, each with Remove
Sharing a document: the creator or an organization owner or admin chooses the audience and one of four access levels, and can remove any share from the People with access list.

Can someone without an account open a document I share? No. Everyone who opens a document signs in with a Backbuild account, which is what lets the document attribute their comments and changes to them. There is no public link that opens a document without signing in.

What is the difference between Viewer, Commenter, Suggester, and Editor? Viewer is read-only; Commenter adds comments without changing the text; Suggester adds proposed edits that arrive as tracked changes; Editor edits directly. Pick the lowest level that lets the person do their job, and raise it later if you need to.

Can I limit a reviewer to suggestions only, not direct edits? Yes. Share at the Suggester level: their edits arrive as tracked changes you accept or reject, and they cannot change the text directly. Redlining is covered in Tracked Changes.

Projects Hold Your Documents

After this section you will know where documents live and how access flows to them. Documents belong to projects, the same containers that hold your files, tasks, and data. A project is the natural unit of access: people who work a project reach the documents in it, and per-document sharing lets you widen or narrow that for a specific document. See Projects for the project model in full.

Working Offline and Across Devices

After this section you will know your work is safe on a flaky connection. A document you have open keeps working when your connection drops: your edits are held locally and sync back when you are online again, without a lost-work prompt. The document is one live object shared across every device you sign in from, and it is available in the Backbuild web app and the native desktop apps. See the downloads page for current client availability.

Governance and the Audit Trail

After this section you will know a shared document is accountable, not a free-for-all. Access to documents is governed by your organization's roles and permissions, and document activity is recorded in the organization's audit log, so who was granted access and what changed is attributable rather than a mystery. These controls are part of every plan, not an enterprise add-on; see Security and Compliance and Roles and Permissions.

Where to Go Next