When a Document Has More Than One Author

Engineering and analyst work is rarely a solo activity, even when it looks like one. A reviewer reads through a calculation while you're still tweaking the inputs. A teammate updates a load table while you're writing the narrative that surrounds it. A second engineer is checking your formulas in another tab. Knowing who else is in the file — and where they are in it — used to require a Slack message: "are you still in the manning sheet? I'm about to edit the staffing block."

GridDoc handles that question directly. When you open a document, you see who else is viewing it, where their cursor is on the canvas, and which block they have selected. The information is there in the editor, without anyone having to ask.

What You See

Presence indicators in the toolbar. A row of avatars across the top of the editor shows everyone currently in the document. Hover an avatar to see a name; the user's color matches the cursor and selection outlines you'll see on the canvas. When the document is empty of other editors, the panel reads "No one else is viewing this document" — useful confirmation when you're about to make a destructive change.

Live cursor positions. Each viewer's cursor appears in their assigned color, labeled with their name. As they move around the canvas, you can see them navigating the structure of the document — which Calc Block they're inspecting, which row of a Table they're scrolling through, which Sticky Note they just expanded.

Block selection outlines. When another user selects a block — to read it or to edit it — the block's outline takes on their color. You can see at a glance whether the assumptions panel you were about to revise is currently being read by your reviewer, or whether the load table you're depending on has been opened for editing by the structural lead.

Sharing a Document

Collaboration starts with a share. Invite another user to a document and they receive an in-app notification with a direct link to it. The notification bell in the editor's toolbar header collects share invites alongside other notifications — comments mentioning you, replies on threads you started — so an active document never demands that you leave it to keep up.

A small but useful guardrail: GridDoc won't let you share a document with yourself, and surfaces a clear error if a share fails for any other reason. That matters when you're working through a list of reviewers and want to know immediately if one of them didn't go through.

Why It Matters in a Calculation Document

Real-time presence isn't a nice-to-have for calculation work — it's a safety feature. Two engineers editing the same Calc Block at the same time can produce inconsistent intermediate values that propagate through every cross-block reference downstream. Seeing that a teammate is already in a block prevents the accidental overlap before it happens.

Reviewers, similarly, benefit from knowing what's stable and what's in motion. A senior engineer reviewing a calculation doesn't want to flag a number that's about to change — and presence indicators make "the inputs are still being adjusted" obvious without a separate conversation.

The combination of live cursors, selection outlines, and notification routing turns a single-author tool into a coordinated workspace, without a context switch. You stay on the canvas; the canvas tells you who else is on it.

Try It

Share a document with a coworker from your account, ask them to open it, and watch the avatars appear. The first time you see another cursor moving across a canvas you built — and a block highlight in someone else's color — the workflow shift is immediate.

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Open a document at griddocx.com and use the share action in the editor to invite a teammate.