Team Conflict Management

If multiple team members are working on a project at the same time, it can sometimes happen that two individuals edit the same reference at the same time (e.g. the same quotation or task). This can lead to conflicts. Citavi solves such conflicts by automatically adhering to the principle that "the most recent wins."

Conflicts can only occur at the field level. For example, if a user changes the edition number of a particular reference from 2 to 3 and another user is also making changes to the Edition field of the same reference, the changes from the user who leaves the field last are saved. However, if the other team member were to change the author or title, for example, that information would be in a different field, so both users' changes would be saved.

Special situations in cloud projects 

Cloud projects that have previously been opened with the desktop version of Citavi can subsequently be edited offline. Changes made during this time will be updated when the connection to the cloud project is reestablished. These changes would therefore "win" against changes made online by other team members in the meantime.

An exception exists when it comes to whole entities, such as an entire reference. These changes cannot be reversed. So if Team Member A deletes a reference online while Team Member B is editing the same reference offline, the reference will remain deleted when Team Member B goes online again. The changes made offline will thus not cause the reference entry to reappear.

Please note:

In versions prior to Citavi 6.3.11, the entire category system in a project is treated as one single field. If multiple people are making changes to its structure at the same time, only the changes made by the last person will be saved. Changes to the category system's structure include adding a new category, deleting an existing category, and moving categories. However, it is not a problem to change the name of a category or add a reference or quotations to a category.