Teamwork
Many projects involve multiple researchers working together. There are three ways that NVivo allows you to manage collaborative work
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NVivo Collaboration Server (previously NVivo for Teams): A central server at your institution holds all project files, allowing team members to work on the same projects at the same time, with the ability to see others' work as they save. Collaboration Server is only available for NVivo Windows. Collaboration Server
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NVivo Collaboration Cloud: This is a cloud-based system integrated into NVivo, allowing you to share and track project master and personal versions. It can be used with NVivo Windows or Mac, but not in combination. NVivo Collaboration Cloud
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Manual: You can manage a collaborative project manually, creating a project master file and giving a copy to each team member. They work on their copies independently then return them for you to merge into the master file. NVivo has a number of features (see below and Strategies for teamwork) to facilitate this method.
While projects can be converted between Windows and Mac formats with this method, this is not recommended. Windows & Mac
When you install NVivo you are prompted to set up an NVivo user profile. When you work in a project, this becomes your project user profile. If each team member accesses the project using their own user profile, you can monitor the work done by different team members. User profiles
Team members can each have their own user profile in a project, however, these are not 'authenticated' as they are in Collaboration Server, so care must be taken to use the correct user profile.
If you change your default NVivo user profile, the next time you work in a project a new project user profile is created. All future work is associated with the new profile.
If you accidentally create two profiles in a project, you can merge them by removing one and assigning all associated content to the other user.
If team members log in to a computer using a shared user account, then—if you want to be able to track their work individually in a project—it is important that each person uses their own NVivo user profile.
Each team member can create their own user profile and should ensure they use the correct one whenever they access the project. NVivo allows users to switch user profiles without closing the project.
You can also turn on the prompt for user option, to prompt users to select their user profile whenever NVivo is lauched. When one team member finishes working with a project, they should exit NVivo so that the next user is forced to launch NVivo and is prompted to enter their user profile.
- A 'Read/Write' password—allows full access to the project.
- A 'Read Only' password—allows users to view the project. This password also allows users to copy your project or import data from your project into another project.
Set project passwords in Project Properties—click File > Project Properties.