Versioned SharePoint document libraries allow revisions of documents and metadata to be stored. This allows you to track changes and easily restore a document to an earlier state. It is especially helpful when several people collaborate on the same documents, or when using document workflows.

Checking in and checking out documents

By checking out a document, you prevent other users from making changes to it. You can check out a document directly from the Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator, by selecting Check Out from the document context menu. Documents that are checked out have a small blue arrow indicator on their icon.

When you are finished editing the document, you check it back in by selecting Check In from the document context menu.

Note: In order to check in a file, you must fill in all the required properties, and all properties values must pass column validation (if such is defined).

From the context menu of a checked out document, you can also select Discard Check Out, which makes the document editable by your colleagues without saving any of your changes to SharePoint.

Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator lets you check in and check out multiple selected documents simultaneously. The comments prompt displayed when checking in multiple documents applies to all of the documents that are being checked in.

Note: If you check in or check out a document using an external application, like Microsoft Word, the sidebar panel needs to be refreshed to display your changes. Use the Refresh button in the toolbar to do it.

View version history

To view the revision history of a SharePoint document, right-click a document and select Version History. The dialog that opens allows you to Open, Delete, or Restore an older version of a document, and to view the comments of each revision. You can also click the Copy Link button to copy the URL of a specific version of the document to the clipboard. By linking to a specific version you do not have to worry that the contents of the linked document will change.