Collaboration between administrators

The Real-time collaboration option lets several administrators work simultaneously on the same Omniscol account: each one sees the others' presence live, and the server merges concurrent actions.

Real-time presence

At the top of the screen, an indicator shaped like a disc with initials appears for each other administrator signed in to the account at the same time as you (yours is light blue, and the discs overlap when many of you are connected). Hover over them: a tooltip shows each person's name and the screen they currently have open.

An indicator turns red when another administrator opens the same editing screen as you — timetable construction (sites, classes, groups, hours distribution), reorganization, staffing, users, subjects or settings. It signals a risk of simultaneous modification.

Nothing blocks you, though: the server merges concurrent actions as far as possible, so that everyone keeps their changes without any silent overwrite. However, editing exactly the same field of a user or a lesson, or importing bulk data, inevitably leads to a conflict: the last change wins. The red indicator is an invitation to coordinate so you do not work concurrently in the same place, on the same data, at the same time.

When to use it

• Large school with several managers — each one handles a department, a cohort or a site, but all of them work in Omniscol at the same time.
• Busy periods — building the start of the school year, switching to an exam session, handling a wave of absences.
• Coordination during a meeting — the team gathers around a decision and several participants make changes from their own computers: the presence discs make it easy to divide up the areas.

Synchronization limit

The presence discs are relayed in real time. On the other hand, the working view another user has open is not necessarily refreshed automatically after you save. If a colleague has just changed a piece of data you are viewing, reload the view or reopen the object before making a decision based on it.

Best practices

• Define scopes: who handles what. The scope can be informal (by e-mail), or formalized through custom roles.
• Communicate outside the app — keep a separate coordination channel for business decisions; the presence indicators are no substitute for work instructions.
• Avoid editing the same structure at the same time: if two of you touch the student list of a class at the same moment, the risk of conflict increases. Split the subtasks by scope.